Ho Ho Ho and on We Sew - Grippy Christmas Stocking Tutorial

Hello and welcome to my stop on the wonderful year round blog hop Ho Ho Ho and on We Sew, which is the creation of Fiona and Paula, to help and encourage us to get ahead on our crafting and present making for Christmas. Each month you have the chance to link up your makes and be in with a chance of winning a prize and as a bonus, each of us along the way might have a tutorial for you. Last year I shared my Wrapping Sack and this year I decided to play around with the traditional Christmas Socking.

I love seeing all of the handmade socking hanging on mantlepieces, but in the UK the lovely socking hooks and holders are not that easily available, but after using gripper fabric for a thread catcher I wondered what else I could use it for and an idea was born. 

I'm not going to do a full stocking tutorial as there are LOADS on the internet, but I'm going to show you haw to add on a grippy pad to your handmade stocking.

You will need:

Your stocking pieces ready to assemble 2 outer panels 2 lining panels
1 - matching fabric for pad outer 2.5"x6.5"
1 - Grippy Fabric for pad base 2.5"x6.5" I got mine from this UK seller, but I know they have lots on Amazon.com
2 - cotton/muslin for sand sack 2.5"x6.5"
1 - matching fabric for tab 2"x4"
Play sand dried out (I left mine on a baking tray overnight)

First you need to assemble your inner sack to hold the sand, sew them right sides together, leaving an opening to pour the sand in. Trim corners and turn.

Next you need to assemble the outer of the pad, I quilted my top fabric to match the stocking. With the tab fabric fold in half long ways with right sides together and sew. Press the seam open and then turn the sewn piece to create a tube and then press with the seam central on one side.
Once you have done that you need to sew the back and front pieces together and insert the tab correctly (if you are not using a directional fabric this will be a lot easier).

First put the tab in the centre the top outer fabric with the seam of the tab facing up and the end of the tab at the bottom with the direction of the fabric (if it has one) the right way up. (Does that make sense? Pic 1)
Then roll the end of the tab thats hanging over up and pin it in place (Pic 2)
Get your rectangle of grippy fabric and put it dots down (right side facing) on the top of the outer fabric. You will NOT be sewing all the way around!!
See Pic 4 with the pins showing for where to stop and start your sewing.
Trim the corners and turn the right way around. you should now have two items that look like this!!!

Next we need to get the pad into the stocking, take your backing fabric and one lining fabric. Lay the backing fabric right side facing up pin the tab in position (I put it about 1.5" in from the back of the stocking side), place lining fabric on top and pin.

Sew them together across the top, I double stitched over the tab and then press the seam open.

With the front of the stocking and the other lining fabric, place them right sides together and sew across the top, press.
We are nearly there, next you need to make it look like a stocking without sewing the pad into the seams, with right sides together put the now two stocking pieces together, lining with lining and outer with outer, sew all the around around leaving a good size opening on the foot of the lining. You need to make sure you pin the pad out of the way of the seam.

Turn the stocking the right way out and press, sew the turning opening closed.
Lastly get your dried play sand and using a piece of paper rolled up into a funnel put the sand into the cotton inner sack, not too much as you need to close it and get it into the outer pad. I sewed the opening shut on the machine. 

Put the inner sack into the pad and then hand sew it closed.

And you should have a very grippy christmas stocking!

I hope!
So, time to link your makes up and this month you have the chance to win half a metre of Lost and Found Christmas fabric by Riley Blake, which looks gorgeous.

An InLinkz Link-up

Now these monthly link-up prizes would not be possible without the amazing generosity of the sponsors, a lot of them that I have had the pleasure of ordering from to supply my fabric addiction!!! 

http://www.patchworkelephant.com/

Rambling Rose Settler Shawl

A few weeks ago I managed to finish off my Settler Shawl, unfortunately it took me ages to block it and even longer to blog it, but here it is.

I would love to say this was a relaxing and peaceful knit, but unfortunately I turned it into a bit of a nightmare knit, by me not concentrating on the instructions and blindly knitting away................which resulted in a massive frogging session, sobs from me and very nearly chucking it in the corner to ignore. But I am so pleased that I ploughed on, it has finished as a beautiful delicate and really quite elegant shawl.

The problem started when the pattern told me to repeat two rows so many times and I counted them as pairs not as individual rows, (DOH!!) so knitted way too many. Also, I think I might have been a bit daunted by the border pattern, but that was really easy to do, once I got to it.

I ran out of yarn with just a bit of cast off to do, so instead of more frogging, I grabbed the tiny bit of one of my favourite yarns to finish with.

The Details

Pattern - The Settler Shawl by Libby Jonson

Yarn - 1 Skein of Blush in Rambling Rose by Skein Queen with a bit of Christmas Tree Lights by A Fine Fish Yarn

Knitting time - 6 weeks  (but not very consistently)

The yarn is soooo soft and really a pleasure to wear and to knit with and it even held up really well to the frogging, I find sometimes yarn can really fluff and split when you have to frog it. 

I can definitely see myself knitting another and a lot quicker now I know what I'm doing, I think it would make a good 1 Skein Christmas present make.