Upcycling project: Sewing Christmas stockings from fabric remnants (with free pattern)

Dear community,
in this blog post you can find easy instructions for sewing Christmas stockings from fabric remnants (with free pattern).

The theme of this year’s BERNINA Advent Calendar is ‘A Sustainable Christmas’. With this in mind, I’ve created a pattern for you to make a Christmas stocking out of old jeans and an old shirt. Are you looking for a last-minute Christmas present but don’t have time to visit the shops? Or maybe you’d rather re-use old materials? Then why not have a hunt around in the back of your wardrobe and see if you have an old pair of jeans or maybe some nice christmassy fabric lying around?

You could sew several of these stockings in just one evening.

Materials

Old jeans
Old shirt
Christmas ribbon
For decoration: ribbons, bows, buttons, bells, etc.
Sewing thread
Lock thread

Preparation

The pattern for this stocking can be seen below. Download the pattern and print it out on A4 paper. Make sure the print settings are set to ‘no scaling’ or print at ‘100%’. There are four pages that have to be glued together.

patroon sok – Christmas stocking pattern – schnittmuster Weihnachtsstrumpf – BERNINA

From pages 2 and 4, cut off the narrow left-hand strip and stick the sides against the line on pages 1 and 3.

Cutting the fabric

Copy the pattern onto pattern paper. Decide how much seam allowance you want to have.
Cut the entire stocking out of the lining fabric (shirt), mirrored twice.
Cut the four separate parts out of the denim, mirrored twice.

Lining

Outer material

Sewing

Use a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine or a lock stitch on the lock machine to finish the edges of all the parts. This must be done to stop the material from fraying.

Place the two lining pieces right sides together, then stitch together on the sewing machine using a straight stitch. Then, right sides together, sew all parts of the denim stocking using a straight stitch on the sewing machine. After that, flatten all the seams.

Flatten all the seams.

Then top-stitch the seams of the toe, heel and top of the stocking on the sewing machine. I used a sewing thread with a contrasting colour. You can also use a decorative stitch or metallic thread to create a festive effect.

Place the outside of the stocking right sides together and stitch the stocking together. You now have an ‘outer stocking’ and a ‘lining stocking’. Simply slide together both stockings, right sides together. Don’t forget to add a nice ribbon!

Top-stitch around the stocking, leaving a small hole for turning it back the right way again. Then reverse the stocking, flatten the seam and top-stitch it. You can then firmly stitch up the hole right away.