I think I have about lost my mind. There are Christmas stockings stacked everywhere...here a pile...there a pile....everywhere a pile. The piles seem to be growing and growing and growing.
Usually during the week of Thanksgiving, I machine embroider the names of all of the students on my team at school on to Dollar Tree stockings that I buy for 50 cents each the year before while they are on clearance sale. For the past several years that has been about 75 students. This year we increased that number by one more class. Make that 102 stockings. Still no big deal if we A) hadn't traveled over most of Thanksgiving vacation (It was worth every mile.), B) my original embroidery machine that I bought back in 2003 died. (DH wanted to know if I wanted to bury it in the back yard...hahaha. I told him it would be a great door stop.), AND C) the new one was delayed in shipping for 3 days because of bad weather across the Mid-west.
The new machine has finally arrived. I have the embroidery done on 92 stockings. 10 to go. Then the sewing begins.
There are three methods for getting an embroidered name on a stocking. I feel the need to share this because these stockings look better than $1 (unless you look too closely...5th graders don't know any better so looks count for everything...that and jingle bells and gold thread!) I could not buy the fabric and trim that goes into making these stockings from scratch for $1.
Method #1 (I only had 8 stockings that I could use this method with this year.) If the stocking has a nice, loose flippy flap, flip it and embroider. These needed soluble stabilizer because they had a fuzzy pile.
Method #2 Remove some stitches to make a flap. Unfortunately most of the stockings fell into this category. I am grateful for the loose stitching on Dollar Tree stockings for this very reason. After all of the stockings are embroidered I will have a sewing party to reassemble them by stitching up the side seam. I turned them inside out as I pulled them off of the embroidery machine. Eventually the pile was higher than my head! (Not a great big thing because I am short.)
Method #3 If a stocking is way too fuzzy to embroider on OR it will not remain intact when a side seam is removed, names can be embroidered on felt and added later. There were a good many of these, too. (40 to be exact.) I discovered and used this method last year. It was a time saver and a sanity saver.
Later,
Lorrie
Usually during the week of Thanksgiving, I machine embroider the names of all of the students on my team at school on to Dollar Tree stockings that I buy for 50 cents each the year before while they are on clearance sale. For the past several years that has been about 75 students. This year we increased that number by one more class. Make that 102 stockings. Still no big deal if we A) hadn't traveled over most of Thanksgiving vacation (It was worth every mile.), B) my original embroidery machine that I bought back in 2003 died. (DH wanted to know if I wanted to bury it in the back yard...hahaha. I told him it would be a great door stop.), AND C) the new one was delayed in shipping for 3 days because of bad weather across the Mid-west.
The new machine has finally arrived. I have the embroidery done on 92 stockings. 10 to go. Then the sewing begins.
There are three methods for getting an embroidered name on a stocking. I feel the need to share this because these stockings look better than $1 (unless you look too closely...5th graders don't know any better so looks count for everything...that and jingle bells and gold thread!) I could not buy the fabric and trim that goes into making these stockings from scratch for $1.
Method #1 (I only had 8 stockings that I could use this method with this year.) If the stocking has a nice, loose flippy flap, flip it and embroider. These needed soluble stabilizer because they had a fuzzy pile.
Method #2 Remove some stitches to make a flap. Unfortunately most of the stockings fell into this category. I am grateful for the loose stitching on Dollar Tree stockings for this very reason. After all of the stockings are embroidered I will have a sewing party to reassemble them by stitching up the side seam. I turned them inside out as I pulled them off of the embroidery machine. Eventually the pile was higher than my head! (Not a great big thing because I am short.)
All done! Check out the finished stockings below!
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| 102 stockings...all ready to go! |
Have a great weekend! Don't do anything too crazy! Keep in mind that one hundred of any one thing is not done in "moderation". What kind of crazy Christmas thing did you get yourself into this year?
Later,
Lorrie
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