Brady's Stocking Is Done!

Cross another one off my Q4 list!  I am feeling so pumped that I am going to start the final borders on Dayna's grad quilt next....  I nearly took that sentence off... because that means I can't shy away from it again; her quilt, okay, a little raw honesty here, kind of terrifies me. nvm here is Brady's stocking!

Doesn't it look purty against our Nootka Cypress? How I love this "old man" tree.  Gotta say I love the stocking too!

Had I known all the angst this stocking would cause me over the three days it took to construct, I would have had a lot more trepidation in advance of starting it.  So that is good advice for Dayna's quilt: just do it.

I sort of based this on a pattern in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine's "Quilt It For Christmas" 2004.

Early stages:

... paper-pieced trees, (oh how I love that mint fabric from Kate and Birdie!), prepped star appliqué from gold lamé, 2.5" strips cut for patchwork. You can see Joanne's Snowalong blocks waiting to grow up (I got the white with silver arcs fabric from the snowalong project ziploc), and Bella, who is not amused that I stopped playing "chase the fuzzy ball on the end of the yarn" with her.  My sister Linda pointed out how hilarious she looks with just her little butt resting on her cat cushion!

Finished flimsy:

 FMQ on the stocking front in progress:

The Bernina is FMQ-ing without a hitch with Sulky metallic thread

Brady's name on the stocking cuff--how I wish I'd closely read their pattern for how they did their "cuff" which wasn't a cuff at all... :-(

Pulled out my Totally Stable from the stabilizers class I took eons ago when I first bought the Bernina, a 180 Artista

She (the Bernina) and I made beautiful appliqué together!

I used another Sulky metallic, a gold, green and red variegated. LOVE the sparkle!

I used Word's Marker Felt font to make the templates for the letters for his name.

All the parts ready to assemble:

Exciting!

A little closer reading of the rather skeletal pattern, a little more ripping, a little lightbulb moment to cut the binding on the bias, a little hand sewing the binding to the back of the stocking, a little more ripping, a little tearing of hair out, but finally got the cuff, a proper cuff, applied and voilà.

Some tree decorations photo-bombed the stocking photo, lol. These are all handmade. The folded patchwork star is from 2000, the little felt reindeer is from 1991, the plastic canvas fireplace, snowman (not visible) and dove (spun around) from circa 1988-9. It took me two Christmases to get all 10 done.

So the pattern had you make the entire patchwork front of the stocking, and then apply the 11" square to the top, stitching it down across the foldline, and then apply the letters (no indication of how, and if a person wanted to satin stitch them down as I did, that would be a tad difficult with the stocking attached) and then (dumbest of all) trim the cuff even with the stocking edges!  So what's the point of having patchwork under the faux cuff? Why not sew a 5.5X11" rectangle there, and appliqué the letters to the batting since it's not a real cuff?  You quilt the patchwork to the batting anyhow.

Here's that dove!

Still can't see that cute snowman I hung...somewhere...

Actually the pattern had you quilt the stocking through the lining too, like a regular quilt sandwich, but I wanted a "floating" lining, so I just quilted through the flimsy and batting layers.  Here's how the inside looks:

had to leave my flip flop toes in the shot! No, I did not wear them to walk Rocco today, but it did get up to 44F/7C!

So I ended up topstitching the cuff to the bound edge of the stocking.  In retrospect, I could've left a 6" tail of bias binding from the heel side edge of the stocking, as the pattern suggested, to make the hanger.  I couldn't quite wrap my head around the whole cuff procedure at that point.  In future, I think I would sew the underside of the cuff to the unbound edge of the stocking, and then turn the top edge of the front side of the cuff, which I would have about an inch longer than the underside, over the seam and hand whipstitch it to the lining.  Clear as mud, right?  Wait, the bound edges still interfere with that thought process...

Here is the back:

Can you see Brady's name quilted in?  I repeated the funky stars and snow crystals, and echoed some of the trees

So sparkly! He will love it.

Stocking Stats:
Pattern: Patchwork Stocking from "Quilt It For Christmas" 2004
Size: 20 3/4" long by 12 1/4" from toe to side edge
Fabric: 100% cotton, some I purchased and some from my stash
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: Sulky metallic, gold and variegated