kattitudes

These are so easy to put together, with just a little ric-rac trim and some pom-pom trim. I absolutely adore the different colors used and the deviation from the traditional standard colors of Christmas.

The embellishments are easily sewn either by hand or by machine. And any quirkiness or funny looking bits in the sewing only adds to the incredible charm of the handmade stockings.

I am so in love with the Christmas tree theme and try to add as many trees to my house as possible, without going too terribly overboard on actual trees. I am trying to keep the actual number of trees with ornaments down to a handful, but pull the rest of the decorations around the house together by tying them with a general tree and stocking theme. Love it.

Although I never went into my marriage planning this, I have ended up with new stocking for us each year. It was not intentional. It was the stocking fetish. I still have yet to decide if that is going to happen this year. I have a few contenders, but we are still waiting to see how it shakes out.

I have said it before and I know I am going to say it again. I am still obsessed with felt fabric. I am hoping that at some point, this obsession will end and I can move on to working with another fabric. I suppose it is just as well because my last fabric obsession was chiffon and silk. Let me tell you - that was like sewing spiderwebs.

This Christmas stocking is a breeze when cut and sewn from felt fabric. The snowflakes can be cut in any design that you remember from your childhood (and who did not make eleventy thousand paper snowflakes over their elementary days?).

Although I would prefer to stitch the resulting snowflakes onto the stocking before you sew the two halves together, it would be just as easy to attach the snowflakes with stitch witchery if you are not into sewing.

The edge of the stocking is reinforced with a gorgeous blanket stitch, but if you are not comfortable with using an embroidery stitch like that (remember that you can check the reference websites in my sidebar for both picture and video instructions on embroidery stitches), you can just sew the two sides of your stocking together and be done with it. The Christmas stocking would still be perfectly adorable.

I really love the snowflake motif here. Living in drought stricken Georgia state, the thought of snow is so far away from possible that it is actually hard for me to even decorate with snow during the holiday season. Someday. Someday I will have snow during the Christmas season. It snowed during Christmas when I lived in London and when I lived in Germany. Perfect Christmases, both. Just picture perfect.

Not everyone wants a Christmas tree or Santa Claus proudly adorning their living rooms throughout the winter season this year. It is nice to have other embroidered options available to make for yourself or to gift to others.

Here in America (although certainly not in the ghastly hot state of Georgia where the heat never ends and the drought goes on and on, even after our great and mighty elected Governor Purdue stepped up to address the problem… by asking us all to pray. For rain. But moving on.) the secular Christmas holiday season is accompanied by images, not only of Christmas trees and Santas, but snowmen and other wonders. And that is just what this pillow is chock full of - nine wonderful variations of Frosty Snowmen.

Oh, I have so many examples of embroidery for the Christmas season. You are going to be tired of seeing them! But that is ok. I will keep showing them anyway.

So easy to make, these should just be illegal!

You do not need a pattern, just sketch out a mitten shape and cut cut cut. If needed, you can find a clip art of a mitten and print it out on your printer, and use that as your pattern. Use a nice heavy fabric like a fleece shown here.

Sew your two halves of your fabric almost all the way together, but leave yourself a small hole that you can use to fill with your sachet fillings. I have a nice funnel with a good long neck that I can use to fill my sachets, but if you do not have a funnel, a rolled up piece of paper works wonders (and is amazingly free! plus it is a fantastic way to use up all that dratted junk mail that comes into the house free of charge to you. Did I mention the free part yet?).

So, we are up to the dumping in the sachet contents. Pour in whatever botanicals you have selected, then sew up the hole you left for your filling spot. And presto, you have the cutest season appropriate great smelling sachets around.

You could embellish them either before (so much easier) or after the fact with any kind of fabric embellishment that you have floating around.

These would make fantastic Secret Santa gifts. And if this tickles your fancy, you do not have to stick with the mitten shape. Check out your clip art collection and see what easy to cut out shapes are there. Maybe there are a hundred shapes just waiting to be discovered that you could make into sachets.

And these are not limited to just sitting in drawers making clothes smell good. Filled with lavender and sewn firmly shut (I use a very tight stitch on my sewing machine so I do not have to worry), I give them as dryer additions. Just toss into the dryer with your load and oh man, they make a load of clothes smell heavenly. Just fantastic!

If you have not done this, make yourself one with a good load of lavender and try it on a load of towels or better yet, a load of sheets. What a treat! The great thing about this experiment is that if you do not like the results … just rewash the batch! Easy to fix. But oh man - such a relaxing smell and so easy to do. It is one of those incredible touches that will make your family and guests think you are a miracle worker and all you did is toss a little pillow of herbs into the dryer.

If you like Christmas posters and the like, then you know Mary Engelbreit’s artwork entitled Believe. Personally, it is probably one of the only bits of hers that I really enjoy. And I do really like this particular piece.

And since I love it so much, let us translate it into an embroidery pillow for the holiday season.

A little embroidery. A little felt. A little imagination. A lot of patience and a little creativity and we have a perfect gift for the occasion for anyone (like me) that just loves the idea and the concept behind the original artwork itself.

Maybe you might consider taking the time to put one together before Christmas this year? What a wonderful gift this would make for someone, would not you agree?

I just adore this Victorian stocking look. And all in all, even without an official pattern, as long as you have a good striped or oxford type fabric, you would have yourself an adorable look.

Any well stocked fabric store will have the goods you need to make self fabric buttons. They sell them in a little package right in with the rest of the buttons. They are very easy to put together. And if you do not wish to use actual buttons, you could just create a little knob of fabric and sew it in place as a button.

Either way, this is a beautiful Christmas stocking, and another one of those that I just did not want to pay the ninety five dollar price tag that was attached. Ninety five. I am sorry. No way. I can create my own for so much less than that!

But I already started pulling out the stocking collection and goodness. Adding more will be a challenge, but I am up to it. I know it is silly, but it is something I can sew myself, and it makes me happy to make more. It is something inexpensive and if I keep scraps from old projects, pretty much free. Making stockings is a joy really. And it is a fantastic way to always have an extra handmade gift on hand to fill with baked goods for that surprise guest that knocks on the door.

This is the end, no more Thanksgiving pillows.

Nice simple embroidery. Good solid work. I love how the felt was stuffed just a little to make a slightly three dimensional look on the turkey feathers and the pumpkin.

And with this pillow, we are but one away from reaching the end of my stockpile of embroidery suggestions for the Thanksgiving holiday throw pillow suggestions. Which actually I think is pretty good because after a while, how many freaking turkey pillows can one house stand to have? One. One pillow.

As with all the others, I just cannot see this as a little pillow. Were I to have these in my house, they would have to be significantly oversized to make them doable. That is the only way I could see enjoying them. But nonetheless, the work is still lovely.

This is something that Martha Stewart made, but you could oh so easily reproduce. In fact, the very shape of this makes it a super cinch for you to make with absolute low fuss.

In addition to making clothes smell wonderful, lavender actually works a charm as a natural (green) method for driving away moths and other creepy crawlies from your clothes and other valuable linens. And given the prices on some of the clothing out there these days, putting together a package of lavender stashes like these would be a perfect gift to give to your favorite clothes horse.

Although I am sure that Martha has instructions somewhere on her site, this particular idea was posted so many years ago, I honestly do not know if she still would. However, the basic construction is so simple that you really do not need a pattern. This is just a large square of fabric sewn with a good chunk of lavender in the middle. This particular fabric is pretty opaque (it looks like a type of chiffon), but if you are not familiar with sewing on chiffon type fabrics, they can be slippery and a little tricky. I would use cotton muslin instead if you an inexperienced sewer. The weave of some cotton muslin is very loose but the fabric will not be slippery.

Anyway, after sewing almost all the square shut, fill it with some lavender (but do not stuff it full. Look to the picture for reference. You want it to be able to shift around). Then stitch the hole where you put the lavender in shut too. After that, have fun sewing seams through your big square. In this example, Martha (or whomsoever at her company made this) just used straight seams and divided it into smaller squares. You could do the same, or you could have fun sewing small hearts, small trees, whatever creative shapes you feel like making.

The main idea here is that you create a large sheet of lavender big enough to cover a large expanse of fabric at once. Something that can protect an entire cashmere sweater or treasured linen family tablecloth. Sometimes a small adorable sachet is not enough. You need a big chunk of lavender to keep the moths at bay. This protector should do the trick.

Almost done with the Thanksgiving pillows. This is one of the last entries. The devil is in the details of the work, but at least the shape is changing.

I would still do this in a much larger size than normal throw pillows just for interest sake. It would be more fun that way.