How I Monogrammed a Set of Stockings

First, I am embarrassed to admit that I have had this project sitting on my table since January. Yes, JANUARY! I agreed to monogram these stockings for a friend back when there was a strong possibility that we might move out of state. When God confirmed that His plan was for us to stay put, there was no longer a rush to get it done... and it continued to get bumped by more time sensitive projects.
But today was the day!

I added the names to these stockings in an amazingly short amount of time... so short that I'm mad at myself for waiting so long. :)
I'm hesitant to agree to monogramming stockings until I can get them in my hands and see how easy they are to lay flat. These fold-down cuffs could be flipped up and maneuvered easily in my single needle (which you will see later) so I proceeded on.
A quick note about the stockings: These were made by the matriarch of the family, who has since passed away. So there was an added amount of pressure to get them perfectly right; I had no room for error. My brain processed for months how I was going to hoop these to ensure the names were straight and all positioned in the same spot. I'm happy to say it was easy and turned out perfectly!

These stockings are not that big, so I planned to use my 4x4 hoop. We picked Embird Alpha #4 (Comic Sans) and I made the longest name (Caroline) 4" wide. The rest of the names were generated at the same settings so they had a consistent size. In the end that makes the short ones (Ray and Lisa) seem a little on the small side when you look at them individually, but I really prefer a consistent look across the board.

The cuffs were all a pretty consistent size (about 7" wide and 2 1/8" tall). So I modified Embird's built in basting stitch to create top and bottom lines that were exactly 2.125 inches apart, with little notches where the center was. That created a nice window for me to be sure the names were visually centered both horizontally and vertically. (For Ashley and Ray I ignored those dangly Ys and visually centered the capital letters; all names had the baseline in the same position.)

Now for the super fast hooping!
Disclaimer: This may not be the most sound hooping technique ever and has potential for error so please practice before using sentimental items!
I hooped sticky stabilizer and ran the placement lines directly on the stabilizer (sorry, I should have used a dark thread so you could see better!):

 

I measured and marked the center of the cuff with a straight pin:

Then I lined up the stocking on my hoop with edge along the stitched line and straight pin at the center notch:

Then I pinned the stocking (outside the stitch area) to the sticky for extra measure and headed back to my machine to stitch the name. (I did remove that center marking pin before hitting start :) )

Here's where the cheap conservation lady kicks in -- I VERY CAREFULLY removed the stocking from the sticky stabilizer WITHOUT unhooping. That sticky stabilizer is still usable!!

I lined up another stocking, floated a scrap of tearaway underneath, pinned the stocking, sticky and floated tearaway all together, and stitched stocking #2!

and #3, and #4, and #5, and #6.... Check out my stabilizer at the end! At this point the stickiness of the stabilizer is basically gone so I would have needed to start over with a new piece of sticky stabilizer. Thankfully I was done. :)

I'm super pleased with how this turned out. Not only was it a fast way of cranking through them, it ensured that every single name was the exact same distance from the bottom of the cuff, centered and straight with no worries!

So there you go. Writing this blog post literally took longer than monogramming the stockings from start to finish. I hope this helps on your next stocking project!





And now a moment for true confessions:
I created the designs, embroidered the stockings, photographed them, edited the pics, wrote and published this entire blog post... and THEN noticed that Ray's name was in fact smaller than the rest. It took me a moment to figure out why, but I remembered that I created his name separate from the rest, and the size settings in Embird must have returned to the default setting without me realizing it. UGH. So I picked out the stitches (which took longer than all of the above combined) and redid the name. Bah. It originally was a fast project... :)

Miscellaneous December Monogramming

Random project share time... miscellaneous monogramming from December!
Blankets for Melissa to give to her sons and daughter-in-law. These were super soft and I was tempted to "accidentally" put my name on one!

I used Embird alphabet #7:

The Williams family grew by two this year when their adoption was finalized, so the younger boys needed stockings! This is a terrible picture, they looked so much prettier in person!

Again, I used Embird alphabet #7:

Susan asked me to monogram fleece which she then constructed into these cool pillows:

I used Embird alphabet #38 for these:

Urenda ordered this backpack for a little friend:

The Ballet Embroidery Font is from 8 Claws and a Paw:

And finally, a tie tee shirt. This is actually a men's shirt! I took GG Designs Neck Tie design (the 7" file), enlarged it to fill my 6x10 hoop, reduced the pull compensation so the satin stitches weren't huge, and stitched away! My original intention was to deliver this shirt as a gag gift in front of a whole group of people, but circumstances prevented that. The recipient love it anyway, and that's all that matters. :)

Completing a family set of stockings

Last year, I'm pretty sure on December 26, Michele chatted me on Facebook to ask if I could make her daughter a stocking. Every other member of her family had a handmade stocking except for Katie, the youngest. I said, "Sure, I'll take a look, thanks for giving me a whole year's notice!" :)
Of course, when did I complete the stocking?? Not until the Saturday before Thanksgiving... ah well, I doubt Michele would have hung it up before then anyway.
Here's the final product:

And here's what I was trying to match:

 The beauty of these handmade stockings is they were made over the course of several years. Harry and Michelle's were made at the same time -- they have the same green felt, same lining fabric and same size Aida cloth. Peyton and Colin's however have a slightly darker green velvet, a different sized Aida cloth, and one had a different trim around the edge. They all had different ribbon hangers and were slightly different shapes. When I saw that, I was relieved -- it alieviated the pressure to make something *exactly* the same.
I can do cross-stitch, but I am WAY out of practice and have extremely limited supplies, so I enlisted the help of my friend Michelle. I'm pretty sure the weekend after I asked her to help she had already picked a design and stitched it. That was back in February. :) She was really on the ball, and did a fabulous job! Thanks, Michelle!!
I found the same color velvet as the boys' stockings, lined it with something from my stash and added an eyelet ribbon similar to Michele's.

I was pretty pleased with the results, especially since I have never made a fully lined stocking before! I traced one of the stockings for my pattern and just made up the construction process. Here are the kids' stockings -- I think Katie's coordinates quite well!

Monogrammed Stocking

Last year Bonnie purchased monogrammed stockings for all her grandkids. She was a smart grandma and purchased some extra blank ones in anticipation of future grandchildren. Jack was born recently and needs a stocking with his name on it!
Valerie brought me Kylie's stocking so I could try to match the font and thread color. I have absolutely no idea what font was used on these (no perfect match was given at WhatTheFont.com), so I found as close as a match as I could. Thankfully "Jack" doesn't share a single case-sensitive letter with any of the other grandkids, so I didn't have to worry about it being perfect, just a decent match.

Kathy digitized his name in Avant Garde Book for me:

Update: Here it is hanging with the rest of them!

Monogrammed Stocking

About a year ago Lily was born. This spring her mom asked if I would monogram the stocking they bought for her at Christmas. She gave me her husband's stocking, and my goal was to match the font, size, thread type and color. I should have taken a picture of John's stocking so you could judge how well I did, but I didn't. Here's Lily's stocking, ready to go for next Christmas!

Thankfully the font was easy to match (Times New Roman-ish) and I used Embird Alphabet #16. Metallic thread is a challenge that I'm going to have to either avoid altogether or spend lots of time practicing...


As I was stitching this, I remembered a couple other stockings I did but never blogged about. In December 2007 Susie bought a couple stockings for her daughter, anticipating a marriage proposal. I stitched them at that time, but Susie decided to wait and give them as a wedding gift for their November 2008 wedding. Of course my December was a little crazy and I didn't think about them again until this week. :) I used Embird Alphabet #2 for these.

Dashiell's Stocking

When we got home from the hospital, Annaliese noticed that Dashiell didn't have a stocking hanging with ours. Grandma Kathy will make him one that matches for next Christmas, but I had already told her not to worry about getting it done for this year, especially since we didn't know if he'd arrive in time.
To appease Annaliese's concerns, Daddy and Annaliese ran to Wal-Mart and picked up a stocking. Christmas eve, at 9pm, I stitched his name on it! I used Embird Alphabet #8.


While I'm posting pictures of Dashiell from today, let me give an updated modeled picture of a previous project. In August I made Annaliese and I matching shirts to announce that our baby was a boy. I did get my boy in time for Christmas!!

Items for Chloe

Jennifer asked for a couple personalized items for baby Chloe. The first thing we worked on was a stocking. Jennifer brought me a red stocking that she had purchased, and while she was here for Thanksgiving we looked at embroidery designs to add. She wanted a design on the stocking and Chloe's name on the cuff. This is what we came up with:

The cute applique gingerbread design is from Designs by JuJu.

I used 8 Claws and a Paw's Tinker Toy font for her name, adding the hat to the C.

The other thing Jennifer wanted was a onesie for Chloe to wear during her upcoming visit to meet her grandmother:

I used Embird Alphabet #17 to do the text.

Monogrammed Stockings

Terri asked if I could add Selena and Reanna's names to their Christmas stockings while they are in town this weekend. These cute stockings were purchased at Hobby Lobby (NOT in Tallahassee, since we don't have one...sigh...) I used Embird Alphabet #33 and each girl picked out the thread color for their name. The side seam was easy to pick out, so we did that to make them easier to embroider. The top of the stocking is a satin with some loose-scrunchy-translucent material, but thanks to some solvy on top, monogramming went without a hitch. It's hard to photograph though because of the reflective nature of the material...