Best Quilted Christmas Stockings

Do you love Christmas as much as I do? Do you love to decorate your home every year again and again?

Great, then let’s make the best quilted Christmas Stockings for years to come.

Where does the tradition of Christmas stockings come from?

The Christmas stocking tradition started in Europe. A lot of Christmas traditions have their origin in Europe/Germany mostly, not sure why though, I have to get into that some other time.
Christmas stockings traditionally have the owners name written on them, makes sense, otherwise Santa wouldn’t know where to put the presents, right?

” The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St.Nicholas soon would be there.”
– a visit from St. Nicolas –

Why People Hang Stockings ?

The Christmas stocking tradition is said to have started with a noble man named Nicholas, who was born 280 AD, in Patara a city on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. (If you ever visit Turkey , you have to visit that coast, it’s beyond beautiful).
Nicholas became a priest and used all his money to help the poor, the needy, sick or suffering. He was very religious and was made Bishop of Myra at a young age.
He never married or had children. Nicolas did love children and gave gifts often. This is why he became known as the gift giver of Myra.
He was a rich man and traveled all over the country and gave his gifts generously.
He didn’t want people to know his identity. This is the reason, Nicolas decided to give his presents late at night.
He became known as Saint Nicholas the patron saint of children and sailors.

The most popular legend about why stockings are hung on Christmas:

A very poor widowed father of three girls was worried his daughters weren’t able to get married. He did not have enough money for their dowry.

St. Nicholas heard the story of the man and wanted to help, but he knew the father wouldn’t accept any charity.

He slid down the chimney of the family’s house and filled the girls’ recently washed stockings, which were drying by the fire, with gold coins.

The girls woke up in the morning, overjoyed with the generous gift, they were now eligible to marry and they all were happy ever after…

And there you have it, the Christmas stocking tradition was born.

How To Make a Christmas Stocking with Hexies?

Now lets make some great Christmas stockings ourselves:

Fabrics needed for a Hexie stocking:

– fabric scraps for about 42 – 1″ hexies
– 2 pieces of fusible interfacicing 16″x 9″
– 2 pieces of fabric 16″x 9″ for front and back lining
– 1 piece of fabric 16″x 9″ for the back
– 1 strip of bias binding 2″x 28″ for the top of the stocking and the hanging tab
– optional: tassels and fabric for the hangtag

Her you can download the Christmas stocking template:

Sewing the hexie Christmas stocking:

1. Print the stocking template and glue the two pages together and cut out the template.
Find the PDF of the template here:

2. Baste 42 – 1″ sized hexies and place them on your stocking template. Depending on how you place them, you’ll only need half hexies on the sides.
This is a perfect way to use up all your adorable Christmas fabric scaps and do some
fussy cutting.

If you don’t feel like using Christmas fabrics for your Christmas stockings, they look especially cute with all sorts of other fabrics too. I could not resist and had to make some with this uber adorable fabric line from Riley Blake Designs called ‘Quilt Fair’ by Tasha Noel.

Christmas stockings in ‘non-Christmas-fabrics’ are jus as cute? Don’t you agree?

3. Sewing your hexies together and quilting the top of your stocking:

Sew your hexies together by hand.
Make a quilt sandwich with your hexie top fusible interfacing and lining piece of fabric and quilt to your liking.
I quilted diamonds.
Repeat the same for the back of the stocking. Add the fusible interfacing to the back fabric, add the lining fabric wrong sides together and quilt as desired.

4. Cut your quilted pieces into stocking shapes using the stocking template.
5. Place front and back of your quilted Christmas stocking right sides together and stitch along the outside edge using a 1/4″ seam allowance.

6. Turn your stocking inside out.
Attach the bias binding strip to the top edge of your stocking right sides together and raw edges aligned. Stitch along the top edge of your Christmas stocking with 1/4″ seam allowance, then fold over the bias binding twice to the inside and stich in place by hand or machine.

Add a little hanging tab to the back of your stocking made out of the same binding strip. Clip or pin in place and stitch in place at the back seam of the Christmas stocking.

7. Optional:
Add pompoms and/or tassels. You can easily sew them in place by hand

Make a little name tag.

Use white fabric and embroider the name of your choice on it. Add fusible interfacing to the embroidered name tag. This gives it a little more volume. Place another piece of white fabric to the backside.
Stitch the ‘sandwich’ in place with a small piece of fussy cut motif and cut the outer edge of the white fabric with zig zag shears.
Add a metal eyelet, or just use a hole punch and thread a little ribbon.
Attach your name tag to your stocking.

Et Voila …. all done!

Now let your fantasy go wild and create stockings with all sorts of different patchwork techniques and styles. These Christmas stockings will definitely make a lasting impression.

Use a variety of different quilting shapes such as clamshells, squares, hexagons, diamonds or triangles.

If you are celebrating Christmas, what’s your choice of Christmas stocking?
Are you making one yourself? Let me know in the comments.

happy sewing

Ingrid x