Christmas Stocking Archives - Tatertots and Jello

Make a Gorgeous Quilted Christmas Stocking (Holiday Tutorial)!

Jen — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:07:38 +0000

Hi everyone! My name is Ashley.

I blog over at mommy by day {crafter} by night. The name of my blog pretty much sums up my life at the moment (except I am a mommy by night too- of course!) I have 2 little girls that are 3 and under. As you can imagine, with a baby and a toddler, my life is pretty crazy- but I love every minute of it. To keep myself sane, I craft! I love to push myself to my creative limit and I am always dreaming up a million projects at once! When my kiddos go to sleep at night, I get to crafting and blog about it.

I am super excited to be guest posting on Tatertots and Jello! I love this blog- thanks for having me Jen!

Today I am going to share my Quilted Christmas Stocking Tutorial…

Supplies needed:

3-5 different fabrics for outside(if you have scraps leftover from other projects, this is the perfect time to use them since you don’t need much for each piece of the front side)

fabric for back piece and liner

fusible fleece

thread

4-6 inches of ribbon

(yardage for fabric and fusible fleece depend on how big your stocking are)

Step 1: Trace or freehand a stocking onto paper. (if you are tracing, be sure to add a little for seam allowances)

Step 2: Cut your stocking pattern into the design you would like. I cut 4 pieces, but you could do more or less pieces! It’s up to you:)

Step 3: Cut out your fabric (I used a different fabric for each of my 4 pieces) and then piece together your stocking by putting each piece right side together with the piece that it lines up with. After you are done piecing it together, press open the seams.

Step 5: Lay your stocking onto the fusible fleece and cut out a piece exactly the size of your stocking. (Make sure that when you do this step that you are laying the stocking on the correct side of the fleece so that the fusible side will fuse to the back side of the stocking) Iron the fusible fleece to the back side of the stocking.

Step 6: Now for the quilted part. I just sewed straight lines because I have never quilted anything before, but you could get really creative with this step if you are experienced or braver than I am!:) For mine, I just placed the needle as far to the left side as my machine would allow and then just lined up the right side of my presser foot to the line I previously sewed. Super easy and since it is such a small piece it isn’t too hard to get your lines straight!

Step 7: Trace the stocking onto a piece of paper to create a pattern for the back of the stocking and the liner pieces.

Step 8: Use the stocking pattern to cut out a piece of fabric for the back of the stocking as well as a piece of fusible fleece. (make sure when you do this step that you have the pattern flipped the right way so your pieces match up and you don’t create two fronts instead of a back) Iron the fusible fleece to the back piece. Once the fleece is ironed on, you can quilt the back piece if you would like. (I chose not to just because of time.)

Step 9: Use pattern and cut out the liner fabric. One front and one back.

Now- if you have ever made a zipper pouch, the rest of the tutorial pretty much follows how you would make a zipper pouch (minus the zipper of course)

Step 10: Take the front piece of the stocking and the front piece of the liner and put them right sides together and sew along the top of the stocking. When you open it up, it should look like this.

Step 11: Take your piece of ribbon (I used about 4 inches of grosgrain ribbon) and create a loop and sew along the bottom edge of the ribbon to secure it.

Step 12: Take your back piece of the stocking and the back piece of the liner and put them right sides together, but pin your ribbon loop face down on the liner piece in the corner. (make sure to pin it on the side of the stocking that has the heel on it- not the toe side) Sew along the top edge of the stocking

When you open it up it should look like this.

Step 13: Pin your front and back piece of the stockings opened up right side together. (quilted pieces together right sides together and then liner pieces right sides together.) Sew all the way around the stocking but leave an opening big enough to fit your hand in on the side of the liner pieces. (This will be used to turn the stocking right side out.)

Step 14: Once you have sewn all the way around (except your side opening) turn the stocking right side out and then stitch the side opening closed by tucking the raw edges in and stitching as close to the edge as you can. Then tuck your liner down into the stocking.

That’s it! You are done! Ready to hang your homemade quilted stocking over the fireplace- or in a tree if you want a cool picture:)

Feel free to email me if you have any questions at mommybydaycrafterbynight{at}gmail{dot}com and be sure to stop by my blog and say hi!

Thanks so much for having me Jen!

xoxo, Ashley

Ashley — will you come over and make some for our family?? Great tutorial!!

So beautiful!! Ashley is an amazing seamstress — check out these projects:

Tied with a Bow Pouch Tutorial

Polka Dot Dress

Not So Mini Mini Skirt

And Ashley has a really fun contest – So You Think You Can Sew, with tons of fun prizes!!

Be sure to head over to mommy by day {crafter} by night and give Ashley a big TT&J hello!!

xoxo

PS — It’s Friday – my favorite day of the week!! Wow – last week we had 1,298 projects linked up. You guys amaze me!! I hope you can come and link up YOUR projects tonight. I love seeing YOUR ideas!!! The party starts at 6 pm MST.

The post Make a Gorgeous Quilted Christmas Stocking (Holiday Tutorial)! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Make a DIY Holiday Ladder — to display cards or advent calendars {Christmas tutorial}

Jen — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:18:55 +0000

This might be my favorite project of 2011… I don’t know. I really like it a lot.

I have been looking for a good place to hang holiday cards. Then I had to come up for a project for our little web show — Get A Little Creative in June and I thought a ladder might be a festive idea. I looked around for a vintage ladder at some thrift stores, but after coming up empty-handed, I decided to try my hand at making my own ladder.

The nice thing about making your own ladder is you can make it any size you want! Plus, it’s really inexpensive! The whole project cost me under $20. I think I will leave it up all year. I can use it to put up invitations, art work or just leave it as an art piece. I painted it blue to go with my decor, but I think it would be cute in ANY color!

And you can use this ladder for many different uses. It is a fun idea for displaying Christmas Cards. But I also think it’s also a great way to display an advent calendar. I made these canvas pouches for the 12 Days of Christmas. I used my Silhouette and heat Transfer material to make the pouches with Bakers Twine from Twisted Sugar Twine to cinch the ends. I added the little red clothespins from Canvas Corp. And I added hooks to the side for stockings or little Christmas cones filled with goodies. I made a stocking with left over fabric and Ruffled Fabric from RuffleFabric.com. This might be a good idea if you don’t have a fireplace. You can display your Christmas Stockings by hanging them on the hooks.

Here’s how to make YOUR own DIY Christmas Ladder:

1. Measure out two 1×4’s — mine were 8 feet in length.

2. Get some 3/4 inch Dowel Rods for the Rungs.

3. Measure how wide to make the rods.

4. Cut the rods. Then Drill out the rounds for the rods, using your drill. You want the rods to angle in toward the top of the ladder.

**a tip — use masking tape to mask off the depth you want to drill, that way you don’t go all the way through the side of the board. You want to only drill through 1/4 of the depth of the board. that way the dowel will fit snugly into the groove, but you still have some board to screw the dowel to the outside of the board. This will make your ladder rungs sturdy.

5. Drill out the round.

6. Screw the rod into the 1×4.

7. Spray paint and sand the ladder. Add the eye screws and thread Bakers Twine through.

8. Hang up your decorations!!

Technical notes — My ladder is 8 feet tall. I spaced the dowels out 12 inches in height. The lowest dowel is 24 inches wide, then I made each dowel above it abut 1.5 inches shorter. The top two dowels are only about a half inch different in width. Keeping it real – my ladder is not perfect. For the width measurements I laid the side board out and eyeballed how wide I wanted it from the bottom to the top and then marked the space where each rung would go and measured the width across. It is not precise. I am sure there is a mathematically better way to figure it out. But I like that it is wide at the bottom and then narrow at the top. And I did measure out the space between the rungs so they were all the same. And to be fair, I did make this ladder in June and then wrote the tutorial up in November so it’s hard to recall all the details

I screwed the eye hooks into the back of the ladder — I screwed one at every dowel from from side to side.

Now you have a place to display your kids’ artwork, cards or advent calendar. The ideas are endless!!

Merry Christmas!!

xoxo

PS — Here’s our Little Creative Christmas episode on My Craft Channel with the Christmas Ladder project:

PS — I’m linking up to these fun parties!!

Today’s Creative Blog – Get Your Craft On Party!

and

Tidy Mom’s I’m Lovin’ It!!

PS –Come join in the fun discussions at the International Delight #CoffeeTalk Community. It’s a great place to chat!!

The post Make a DIY Holiday Ladder — to display cards or advent calendars {Christmas tutorial} appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.