Christmas Stocking

I'm mostly making Christmas gifts for people at the moment, that for obvious reasons can't be put on here. So I'm going to write about the stocking I made for Isabel's Christmas last year instead.

The inspiration for this stocking came from watching Kirstie Allsop's 'Kirstie's Homemade Christmas' which was on Channel 4 last year. You can find a step-by-step guide here on the 4Homes website.


I made Isabel's by drawing and then cutting out a stocking shape from two layers of red felt. On one of the layers of felt, I glued/ sewed a patchwork of patterned felt, cotton fabric and ribbon, in reds and pinks.

The lining was cut from one of the fabrics, using the same template I had drawn for the felt outer. I then combined  machine-stitching with a bit of hand-stitching to sew the two layers of felt and lining together inside out, before turning it the right way round. To tidy up the top of the stocking, I sewed two extra wide pieces of felt around the top, which were then folded over to hide the gap between the lining and the outer.

The finishing touches were to sew a ribbon to hang the stocking from and a few buttons and beads for personalisation as well as embellishment, since Isabel had a bit of a thing for them (and still does).

The photos of Isabel opening her stocking on Christmas morning show that she liked it just as much as the stocking fillers it was made to contain! I can't wait to hunt it out of the decorations box and hang it up on the fireplace again this year as I'm sure she'll get even more pleasure out of it this time around.

My only disappointment was that I felt that it turned out smaller than I had intended, as I hadn't taken into account quite how much wastage there would be when stitching the layers together and then turning them inside out. Other than that, I'm really proud that I took the time to make something that Isabel will hopefully treasure for many years to come. Oh and the dinky size will surely save pennies when it comes to filling it year in, year out!