Christmas Stocking

 My quilt club announced a "challenge" recently, to stitch a Christmas Stocking and bring it along to the November meeting, where they would be judged by Viewers Choice.  I had never had my own Christmas Stocking before so decided now was the time to remedy this state of affairs.  A felt stocking, I decided, knowing I had some light tan felt tucked away.  But not Christmassy or blingy.  What I wanted was a more personal one to show my love of stitching.

Something else I had tucked away was Michelle Ridgeway's delightful Stitcher's Alphabet patterns.  I would stitch J for Jenny, after all this would be my very own stocking.  But how to transfer the design, the lightbox wouldn't work, would it.  Then I remembered I had a roll of Golden Threads quilting paper.  So I traced the design on the paper, pinned it to the felt, and stitched right through.  That worked well.

Stitching the design

Pretty little stitching bird

Remembering there were some quilting related 5in squares "somewhere" I had to go searing for them.  There they were, tucked away with a  bunch of cream squares.  I chose one with reels of cotton for the top bands and another with quilty sayings for the heel and toe.  Then I sat down for a while and button hole stitched the back and front together.  The hanging loop was added, attached with two little burgundy cotton reel buttons.  

My completed Christmas Stocking

Not too bad, if I say so myself.  I'm a beginner at hand buttonhole stitch, but I'm pleased with my efforts. And it turned out as I had envisaged it, so that's good.

All quilt club members taking part in the challenge took their Christmas Stockings along to our meeting last week.  There was quite a selection and Viewers Choice was won by Lois, with her lovely Crazy Patch creation, top right.

All different, eight stockings