GO! for Luxury with a Holiday Stocking

Holiday greetings from AccuQuilt and Terri at Lizard Creek Quilting. Friends, I'm going to share how to make a luxurious holiday stocking using the new GO! Santa Stocking die (55854) along with some tips on working with unusual fabrics.

The idea came about while cleaning out a cupboard in my sewing room and I found several yards of teal upholstery fabric that I was going use to recover a chair. Well, that never happened...but the fabric had such a lovely texture that I imagined it paired with some faux fur for a luxury holiday stocking.

Die Used:

• GO! Santa Stocking (55854)

Tip #1: Upholstery fabric and the faux fur will have a nap to it. Nap is defined as the hairs of fabric that must lie in a particular direction. You can feel which direction the nap must lay by rubbing your hand over the right side of the fabric.

Fabrics Needed for One Stocking

Boot

• Teal upholstery – two pieces 13" W x 17" H – Pay close attention that the nap of the fabric is laying down towards the 13"
• Lining – two pieces 13" W x 17" H

Cuff

• Faux fur – 11" H x 9" W – Nap must be laying down towards the 9"
• Lining – 11" H x 9" W

Cutting

Tip #2: When laying fabric for boot on the die board, pay close attention to the design of the fabric. Use the straight top edge of the boot as a guide when placing the fabric on the board to keep the plaid design running straight along the boot.

Boot:

• Place upholstery fabric right sides together and cut two boots – since upholstery fabric is a bit thicker, I only did two layers
• Cut two boots from lining

Cuff:

• Faux Fur – see instructions below
• Cut two cuffs from lining

Faux Fur Cuff Cutting

As you can see above, cutting faux fur will work with the die board, but the little cut fur hairs make a huge mess. These clean up nicely with a lint roller. However, I did notice that die cutting the fur made a blunt edge of faux fur hairs. Don't worry, I have a work around for that: 

First, subcut your faux fur into a rectangle that's about a ¼" larger than the cuff. That will come out to about 8¼" by 5⅛". Flip that rectangle over on your table so that the faux fur is facing you. Gently remove the loose fur pieces from the edges, then with your fingers, comb the faux fur away from the edges and toward the center of the rectangle.

Once you have most of the fur pieces facing inward, place it onto the cuff shape of the die and set a cutting mat over. Run the through your cutter. Be prepared for some shedding when you remove the cuff from your die! Again, gently comb the faux fur in the natural nap direction. You'll have nice long fur edges!

Tip #3: A walking foot will help manage these unusual fabrics. Sweep the long fur hairs down so they are sewn into the seam. That will make it so that you can fluff out the fur hairs for a pretty edge finish.

Attach the cuffs to the boots with ¼" seam for both the stocking and lining pieces. Lay out pieces as shown above. Place stocking and lining pieces right sides together and sew a ¼" seam on top the straight cuff edge.

Open the fabrics and top stitch a ¼" line on the lining. This will make for a nice crisp edge to the stocking.

Place stocking units right sides together, pin as shown and stitch around unit with ¼" seam allowance leaving an opening for turning.

Pull stocking right side out through opening. Hand or machine stitch the opening closed then push the lining down into stocking. Fluff the fur hairs on the cuff and hang stocking with pretty garland, on your mantel and ENJOY!

It's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.
--Mother Theresa

So what do you think – are you ready to use some unusual fabrics with your AccuQuilt dies now? I would love to see your finished project so be sure to share your creations with us on social media. Tag me @lizardcreekquilting and @AccuQuilt on Instagram and always use the #AccuQuilt hashtag so we can see them! Give us a follow while you're there and you'll be the first to know what we're making.

Until next time, peacefully quilting,

Terri