Patchwork Stocking Tutorial

Okay, I'm hardly an expert sewer, so this tutorial thing is a little strange for me. But here it goes. Last year I had this fat quarter pack of Xmas fabric and I got it in my little head that I would make patchwork stockings for the whole family. I couldn't find a tutorial online that suited my fancy, so I just kind of winged it. By virtue of a Christmas miracle, I finished them on Christmas Eve and they actually turned out pretty awesome. I know that anyone who knows anything about sewing probably could have figured out an easier way to do this, but this is how I figured it out...

1. Make a big piece of patchwork fabric. I realize that this is kind of time consuming and wasteful, but since I was making six stockings, it was the easiest option I could come up with. I figured out how much yardage I needed and I started cutting out squares. I did 2.5" by 2.5" and cut out roughly a million of them. A million.


2. To make my fabric I (kind of) randomly laid out my squares on a sheet of light fusible interfacing. I very carefully ironed them down (thus fusing them), leaving as small a gap between squares as humanly possible.


3. I stitched the squares together, by folding over the interfacing and seaming right over it. I've seen a lot of projects that use this method, usually called fusible quilting or something of the sort. Basically, you're just sewing the squares together in strips, but they're already attached to each other because they're stuck to the interfacing. Does this make even remote sense? It will make sense when you do it. After sewing the first row together, fold over the next row and do that one. Once all of the vertical rows are together, trim your seams and repeat the whole process with the horizontal rows. You know have a very solid piece of fabric that will look like this:



4. Now just use this piece of fabric like you would any piece of fabric. I used a stocking I already had and liked the shape of to make a paper pattern. I traced six stockings out on the patchwork fabric, held my breath and cut.


5. I then cut out stocking shaped pieces in red fabric and from a fleece baby blanket (for batting) and basically made a mini stocking-shaped quilt. I pinned them together and did some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting to make little quilt sandwiches.

6. I cut out some more stocking shapes in red felt and with the right sides together, sewed them together, leaving the top open. I fashioned a little fold over out of fuzzy white fabric and sewed it to the top of the front (quilted) piece. I finished them off by sewing a little loop to the corner to hang by the chimney with care. The end!

If you have any questions, please please please comment or email me. I realize that this explanation might not be totally clear, so your questions and input are much appreciated. xoxo.