Tis Nearly the Season

I realized that I never followed through with making any more elf stockings for our Christmas mantle.  It's the story of my crafting life these days.  As a refresher, I made this stocking earlier this year:

It's super skinny.  I can't even fit my hand down to the heel.  It doesn't matter, really, because I doubt anyone will ever put anything in it...It's my stocking.  I have since added a bell and patched a hole with some velvet ribbon.  It's ready to go!

I decided to tackle the other stockings before my Xmas crafting season gets underway.  I really should've started the gift making first, but this was much easier and more fun.  For the next two stockings I used a commercial pattern:  McCall's M5261 (out of print).  I had to flip the pattern so that the toe pointed to the right, though I really only used one piece of the pattern in order to get a better sized stocking.  

I marbled four pieces of fabric when I took that marbling class.  I used the gold piece in the above stocking.  I used this piece for the next stocking:

 It's a sturdy polyester, so it held up a lot better than the gold when I was sewing it.  And here's the result:

I changed the toe from the original pattern for a more elfin appearance.  I love all these colors!  I used faux purple fur from a failed bunny costume from a few years ago as the top cuff and I embellished it with some weird strands of home dec rope things:

I backed it with some light green that I had to piece together to make enough to fit.

I added some decorative stitches to the toe because the fabrics were a bit warped at that seam.  I still need to add a bell to the tippy toe, but I only have red or gold bells and it needs a silver bell.  Actually, I think I have one silver bell somewhere -- it was the bell from the cat's broken collar.  I figured I would find a use for it instead of throwing it into the landfill, but it's small and I can't remember where I stuck it.

As it's been hanging on the mantle for a day or two, I realized that the stocking needs more sparkle, so I may add some sequins to some of the seams.  I have those strands of sequins, so it would be a really quick and easy addition.

I also want to find some little craft letters for each of our initials and glitter them up.  I thought they could hang on the same hook to designate each person's stocking.

Stay tuned later this week for Stocking #3!