Christmas Stocking

Well, I finished Gregory's stocking and I am really happy with how it turned out. I did my own design and pattern- using techniques I had previously learned. I found that my experience making purses was especially helpful. The front is a combination of polka dot cotton prints sewed together and then fused and quilted onto fusible fleece. I loved the ease of not having to measure all the strips and purposely make it crooked. I used a red gelly roll pen to transfer his name from graphed tracing paper onto the white fabric of the cuff (the picture makes his name look crooked, but it's really not.) I then emboridered over the letters, easily the most time consuming aspect of this project (maybe I should have named him "Gus" or "Dan" or an abbreviation- like B.J.) I made the back of his stocking twice because I stupidly did not flip the stocking pattern the first time. Blame it on "baby brain." I wanted the back to be simple because the front is so busy on the front, so I think this worked out pretty well.

He's too young to appreciate Christmas this year, and won't get the concept of Santa or presents next year (but probably will be very adept at yanking off the tree ornaments next year); but perhaps in 2012, we will have a lot of fun with the little guy at this time of year.

Red and Green

Recently I have been plugging away at making a Christmas stocking for my son. I have scoured my stash for red and green fabrics with polka dots. I love fabrics with dots- so luckily I had quite a few. I am doing my own design, using the technique I showed in an earlier post with the Christmas tree quilt square. Hopefully I will have it done soon.
I am not really a "crafty" person- because I consider being crafty to be more of a person who uses glue a lot- you know, buys all the knick knacks at Joann's or Michael's that you can paint or put glitter on. I actually think there are a lot of cute crafts to do out there, I just have so much I want to sew, I really don't have the time to add another hobby. (Let's be honest, I also don't have the space either). So anyway- last year I did see a tutorial on how to make a wreath out of Christmas ornaments and a wire hanger. So I ended up buying 8 $1 boxes of red and green ornaments in the after-Christmas sale at Joann's, and here's what I made:
It really only took 1 hour to make- I just had to hot glue the little ornament "caps" onto the bulb and then strung it onto the wire hanger (which I had made circular). The only thing that stinks about it, is it can break pretty easy I think. Gregory loves to stare at it.