Before you cart your old sweaters off to the thrift store, consider upcycling/repurposing them into vintage Christmas stockings. They are super easy to make, and they’ll look like they are straight out of a Christmas card hanging on your mantel.
For the record, you don’t have to be a seamstress to make these. They are S-I-M-P-L-E. If people ask, feel free to tell them you spent HOURS on them. I won’t tell.
You’ll need:
- A sweater
- Sewing machine
- Thread
- Needle
- Straight pins
- Scissors
- Tissue paper/grocery bag/wrapping paper
- Ribbon
Directions:
Make a pattern using the tissue paper/grocery bag/wrapping paper, etc. I recommend tracing the pattern from another stocking, but you can also free-hand it for a more whimsical “Who-Ville” sort of look.
Lay the sweater out on a flat surface. Pin the patter to the sweater. You may be able to get more than one stocking out of the sweater, so pin your pattern accordingly.
Cut the sweater out along your pattern. I recommend cutting through both sides of the sweater at once, so that you’ll have to identical stockings to sew together. If you need a Powerbar to tackle both sides of the sweater, take a break, juice up and get back at it.
Unpin the pattern from the now cut-out stockings and then pin the two stocking cut-outs back together, flipping them so the inside of the sweater is on the outside.
Sew the two pieces together. Sew in about 1/2″ from the edge, so that when you flip the stocking right side in when you are done, the thick seem will help the stocking hold its form. As a word to the wise {lesson learned}, don’t get humming along on your machine and forget to leave the top portion of the stocking open.
Once the stocking is sewn and flipped right-side out, attach a hanger by looping a tying a bow out of the ribbon and hand sewing it onto one side of the stocking.
Looks like an old-fashioned Christmas to me. Now hang the stocking by the chimney with care and hope Santa fills it with tons of garden seeds and chocolate. {I think these would also be a super clever way to give a bottle of wine for Christmas, just slide in the bottle and present.}
~Mavis
**I’ve posted this tutorial before, but wanted to post it again for any new readers.
KC says
To be even lazier, if all areas of the sweater are acceptable for stocking use, you can turn the whole sweater inside out at the beginning so you don’t have to re-pin floppy, stretchy stocking shapes back together. (if you’re trying to center some sort of pattern that appears on the right side of the sweater to fit in the middle of one side of the stocking, though, this would not be the best way to go about it)
I’d also note that some wool sweaters might be worth “felting” before making stockings out of them to, say, cover up tiny moth-holes, and make the fabric more secure. There are gobs of sets of instructions, but generally get it wet, then agitate it a bunch (either by hand or washing machine) is the idea.
Caroline says
I was thinking the same thing, KC!
martha says
Theis works to make mittens too! Felting helps them be more waterproof, but is not necessary.