{a merry little} Christmas Stocking Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

How to make a Small Christmas Stocking

  When Leah, Susannah, Cassia and I were little, we each had an American Girl doll–Samantha, Molly, Felicity and Kirsten were our respective children.  We loved having real birthday parties for them.  We’d make invitations which were sent to each of our houses (rooms) and then make a miniature real cake and decorate it and usually Mommy let us have some ice cream with it, too 🙂  We’d decorate the party table, sing happy birthday, and bring a real present for the birthday girl.  I remember Felicity had pool party in the summer, so after our dolls ‘ate’ the cake and ice cream and opened the presents, we pretended we were our dolls and did the swimming for them 😀

  Then when Christmas came around we’d always have a stocking for our dolls to open on Christmas morning before we opened our presents.  I can still remember hanging that tiny stocking on the end of Kirsten’s iron bed, which was my grandma’s doll bed passed all the way down to me.  We usually had some tiny candy canes we’d stick in there.  I think the candy canes got recycled from year to year 😀

What does any of this have to do with making a stocking?!  Well, when I made this stocking for Etsy I thought, “This would be perfect for a little girl and her doll!”

Of course, you may have outgrown your dolls, but these stockings still make a cute decoration, gift bag, or gift for your younger sister who still takes good care of her dolls.  (I’m sorry, Kirsten!  I almost want to kiss you every time I peek in your box to make up for all the years you’ve been laying there!).

  So now that you know you want to make this adorable little stocking, I’ll refrain myself from running up and dressing Kirsten in her St. Lucia gown and show you how to stitch up this little project!

You’ll need:

1/4 yd. your favorite Christmas material

matching thread

a sewing machine (unless you’re brave enough to sew this all by hand!!!)

Cut out:

4 stocking pieces (download pattern :here:)

1 piece 2 in. by 5 1/2 in. for the hanging loop

1 piece 3 1/2 in. by 20 in. for the ruffle.  If you don’t want your ruffle *quite* as ruffly, cut it only 15 in. long.

Sew two stocking pieces right sides together, leaving the top open.

 

 

Sew the other two stocking pieces, only leave a 4 inch opening in the straight part of the back as shown in the picture above.   Clip up to stitching all around the stocking  (see stocking in the previous picture, on right.

Turn one stocking right side out and press.

 

 

 

Prepare the loop by folding it in half and pressing it to make a crease down the middle.  Open it back up and fold half of the loop to the crease (see 1) and then doing the same on the other side (see 2).  Press.  Fold in half (see 3) and press again.  Stitch about 1/8th of an inch down each side (see 4).

 

 

 

Make the ruffle by edge-finishing long edge.  I serged mine, and then turned it up about 1/4th of an inch and stitched it.

Here’s a view of the other side where I stitched it.  Now you’re going to sew the ends of the ruffle together.  I made a french seam by folding the ruffle in half and placing wrong sides together (like in this picture) and stitching up the two ends together…you can kind of see my stitches there to the right.

Then I turned the ruffle right sides together, and stitched on the same end, enclosing the raw seam.  You don’t have to get this fancy if you don’t want to…you can just stitch up the side with right sides together and serge or zig-zag your seam.

 

 

Now you have a ruffle loop 🙂  Use a long stitch (stitch length 4) and go around the top edge of the ruffle, leaving long tails.

 Now match your ruffle seam to the back seam of the stocking (the one that does not have the 4 inch opening in the back), and pull up the gathering stitches to fit.  Pin then stitch it down.

Attach the loop!  Fold it in half and pin it to the back of your stocking where your ruffle seam is.  Stitch it down.

A close-up view of the stocking…

 I should mention that lining the stocking is optional…you could just finish off the seam with some bias tape if you wanted to.  I just like to line almost everything, and I thought it would give it a nice weight.  Here I put the ruffled part of the stocking inside of the lining (the lining is the one with the opening in the back.) then pinned it and stitched using a 1/2 inch seam allowance all the way around the top.

Now you can turn your stocking right side out through the opening.

 

  Now turn the edges of the opening in…

…and stitch it closed.  You can do this by hand (it doesn’t take long) or if you’d rather, stitch it with a teeny seam allowance on your machine.

Ta da! You did it!  Now you have a cute little stocking to keep or to give away 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s.  if you like, you can share pictures of the stockings you made from this tutorial (or any Christmas project you’re working on!) at our Flickr group :here:.

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