A Time Saving Hack for the Night Before Christmas Stocking

The original Night Before Christmas Stocking Pattern features a beautiful hand stitched, English paper pieced stocking with a cute little front pocket and felt mouse inside. As lovely as the original design is, I wanted to show you a hack for creating a stocking using the same pattern, that’s still super sweet, but that saves you a little time.

All you need is some fat quarters, ice cream cone or other EPP papers, circle templates and some rick rack trim.

BUY THE STOCKING PATTERN

I recently made this bright and festive version of the Night Before Christmas Stocking using the Home Sweet Home fabric collection by Elea Lutz for Poppie Cotton. You can read more about my makes for the fabric tour for this collection HERE.

Even though the range is not Christmas themed, I selected the red, white and green prints to give it that festive touch – plus some pinks, because that’s what I always gravitate to first! The colours work perfectly and the tiny florals and pretty prints add some adorable touches. Here’s the whole collection.

To create the stocking I used whole cloth (or a single piece of fabric) for the front and back, instead of piecing them like the original design. I also left off the pocket (though this could have been a really great addition to the inside lining). The back of the stocking shows you how simple but sweet it can look when made with only one feature fabric.

If you know my work, you know I love to add embellishments and details that elevate the look of a project but that are pretty simple and straightforward to do. So before sewing the outer stocking together I decided to decorate the front with English paper pieced flowers with yoyo (or Suffolk puff) centres.

Firstly I glue basted 10 ice cream cone shapes (two from each of the five fabrics I chose). This gave me enough shapes to make two flowers. I used fussy cutting to highlight the little houses designs, and the sweet little bluebirds too. To learn more about English Paper Piecing and glue basting, you can visit my BEGINNER’S TUTORIAL.

If you can’t access the cone flower pre-cut paper templates (these have 2” long straight sides), you could also use another EPP flower design or even make a hexagon flower from 1” hexies (I have a free tutorial and template for that HERE). You just want to make sure the finished flower is no larger than about about 5” (12.5cm) across.

After pressing the basted shapes to set the glue, I sewed them together with super fine stitches and a neutral coloured thread (which helps the stitches become more invisible).

I carefully removed the papers and gave the flowers another press before positioning them on my quilted stocking front and sewing them in place. Again I used tiny stitches so they were less noticeable.

The last step in completing the stocking front was to add a cute yoyo to the centre of each flower shape. These were made with a 3.5” circle template. If you’d like to make your own fabric yoyo’s, they’re REALLY easy. You can follow my step by step tutorial for them using the link below. I even include the 3.5” circle template as a freebie in the tutorial.

SHOW ME HOW TO MAKE YOYO’s

After the front was finished, I followed all the same steps in the pattern to put the stocking together. The only difference was that I added some rick rack trim to the mouth of the stocking before I sewed the binding on. And I added it to the outside centre of the hanging loop before I stitched it in place. Rick rack brings some fun and interest to the project with very little extra cost or effort. I must remember to use it more!

My finished stocking is just as cute as the original hexagon design and it also shows you how easy it is to change the look of a project with a few simple tweaks.

This got me thinking of other ways you could change up this project with different fabrics, trims and designs.

You could piece the front using entirely different English paper piecing shapes to the original hexagons. Clamshells would look great!
You could sew the pocket to the inside of the stocking so that you can still make the felt mouse that comes with the pattern, and include it with the stocking.
You can add embroidered details like names and dates to the stocking itself or the pocket.
You can patchwork or piece the front with an entirely new design.

Having held sew-alongs for this design many times, it’s been wonderful to see the different ways that people change up the pattern and make the project their own. I’d love to see yours! Feel free to share via email. You can also check out the hashtags #NightBeforeChristmasStocking and #NBCStockingSAL for more inspiring ideas.