Heirloom Quilted Holiday Stocking

1. Introduction: M Hi there. I'm Julie Ray, a textile artist and natural dyer based in Portland, Oregon. And I'm so happy that you've decided to join me for this special class, making your own heirloom quilted holiday stocking. If you're like me, perhaps you've become a little disheartened by how commercial the holiday season has become. I find one of the best ways to counter the trend of consumerism is by embracing the slow practices of making. A handmade quilted holiday stocking is the perfect way to slow down from the rush, to push back against the consumerist culture, and to create something meaningful and beautiful that will be cherished for years, perhaps even decades. Imagine adorning your home or the home of a loved one with something that was made with intention and love. That is the true spirit of this season. In this class, I'll guide you through the whole process of creating a quilted holiday stocking. If you're new to quilting, no worries. I've structured this class to make it friendly for beginners. And if you're a more experienced quilter, there's lots of opportunities to bring your skills to create something new and beautiful. This course, you'll learn how to create a ribbon star block, some basic piecing and quilting techniques, how to add a lining to your stocking, and how to finish your stocking with some beautiful details such as a hanging ribbon and top stitching. We're going to have a lot of fun. And the next lesson, we'll talk about the class project, as well as some options for personalizing your stocking. 2. Class Project: For this class, you'll be creating your own quilted holiday stocking. I'll be creating the original version as described in the pattern, which features a ribbon star block as the main design. However, I encourage you to personalize your stocking by choosing your own color or even by varying the quilt block that you use. On page 12 of the quilted holiday stocking pattern, which can be found in the resources section of this course, I offer several options for customizing the design of this block. If you're a more experienced quilter or perhaps you have a specific quilt block that you'd like featured on your stocking, that will work great, too. You can use any quilt block of your choice in place of the ribbon star block. The unfinished block size should measure 5.5 " by 5.5 ". So as long as your quilt block meets those measurement requirements, you can swap it out, no problem. Be sure to take a picture of your finished project and upload it to the resources section. I'd love to see the beautiful work you create. In the next lesson, we'll talk about some of the materials and supplies you'll need for this course. I'll see you there. 3. Materials and Supplies: In this lesson, we'll talk about some of the materials and supplies you'll want to gather for this project. If you've been sewing for a while or if you've made a quilt, you should have most of these on hand. First of all, you'll of course need a working sewing machine. You don't need anything fancy. Anything that can do a basic straight stitch will be sufficient for this class. Here are some of the notions you'll want to be sure to have on hand for this project. You'll, of course, need thread for sewing. I like using a 50 weight cotton thread for both piecing and for quilting. You'll need straight pins. In addition to straight pins, I also like to use binding clips. I find these to be really useful. These are optional if you don't have them. Straight pins will work fine. However, I would say these are a very worthwhile investment if you plan to do a lot more quilting. For basting the quilt, you will need pins for sting or a basting spray, a seam ripper, of course, for, you know, the little mistakes that we tend to make along the way. You'll want some kind of marking tool. This is a air and water soluble disappearing ink pen. You could also use chalk or a marker or something to use for marking fabric. There are three different kinds of presser feet that I will be using for this project. For piecing, a quarter inch presser foot is really useful. This has a quarter inch guide to help us make sure we have a consistent seam allowance. A standard presser foot, which is useful for some of the final steps when we're piecing our stocking together. And I highly recommend a walking foot for quilting. Some of the cutting supplies that we'll need are a self healing cutting mat, which I have underneath here, fabric scissors and a rotary cutter. I recommend changing out the blade of your rotary cutter. If you've used it recently, it's always nice to have a fresh blade for a new project. You also need a cutting ruler. If you don't have an acrylic cutting ruler, this is a staple for quilting. If you only get one, I recommend this large one. It's 6 " by 24 ", and this is by far the most versatile and the one you'll use the most. If you have the means to invest in a second ruler, I'll be using the six by six inch ruler to cut out some of our smaller pieces. All right. You will also need two pieces of batting. I'm using cotton batting, and these two pieces should measure about 14.5 " by 20.5 ". And finally, you'll need some kind of ribbon, and we'll be attaching this to the stocking so that you can hang it. I'm actually using a piece I cut from the salvage of the fabric that I'm using as the background fabric, but you can use any ribbon that you have. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you'll need fabric. I recommend working with quilting cotton, especially if you're newer to sewing and quilting. This fabric is going to be the easiest to work with. Thankfully, there are no shortage of options when it comes to quilting cotton. There is a wide array of colors in both solids and in prints. This is the fabric that I am choosing to use. For fabric A, which is the color of the star, I'm using this green that I naturally dyed with marigold and iron. We're going to be cutting small pieces from this. So a quarter yard or a fat quarter of fabric A will be sufficient. For the background fabric or the main color of my stocking, I'm going to use this natural linen. Linen is trickier to work with than cotton. So as I mentioned before, if you're new, stick with cotton, I'm going to be going with linen because I kind of want this very natural look to my stocking. You'll need about a yard of the background fabric, which is listed as fabric B in the pattern. You'll also need about a half yard of fabric for the lining. This is going to be on the inside of your stocking. You could certainly use the same fabric that you're using for the background. I'm going to use this off white solid quilting cotton for the lining. So these fabric requirements are for the main variation of this pattern, which looks like this. If you are planning on making another variation of this pattern, check page 12 of the PDF download of the pattern for fabric requirements for the other variations. If you're planning on making your own quilt block, go ahead and make that as you wish and make sure that the unfinished size is 5.5 " square. And then we'll be able to use that in place of the star in the pattern, no problem. While we're here, you will also need a copy of the pattern, and you'll also need a copy of the template that accompanies this pattern. We'll discuss that more in the next lesson. 4. Pattern and Template: So in this lesson, we're going to take a closer look at the quilted holiday stocking quilt pattern that's included in this course. If you haven't already, go ahead to the resources section of this course and download a copy of the quilted holiday stocking pattern so that you can follow along. You're welcome to print this pattern out, but if you're comfortable looking at it on a screen, that's fine, too. The only part of this pattern that we'll need to print will be the template. And we'll talk about that when we get there. I always recommend reading through an entire quilt pattern to familiarize yourself with the process before beginning. So let's take a moment to do that. This page offers an overview of the pattern, talks about some of the techniques and blocks that are used. Here are some notes to read through before beginning. This section talks about the fabric yardage and materials that are required. This table shows the cutting instructions for each of the pieces of fabric. The first step in creating our stocking will be to make the ribbon star block. And this page provides some diagrams and instructions for creating that and it continues on. This next part describes how we will be piecing the stalking front together. After that, we will baste and quilt our stalking front and stocking back. This page talks about how to assemble our template, and we'll be talking about that in a few minutes. Then we get into assembling our stocking. And attaching our hanging ribbon, and then we're done. On page 12, you'll find some design variations to help you personalize your holiday stocking. If you choose to use one of these variations, there's a little description about how the cutting instructions will differ from the table we saw at the beginning of the pattern. There's a coloring page for you to kind of play around with different colors that you might want to use for your stocking. So pages 14 through 17 are the pages you'll need to print for the template? Because the stocking is bigger than a standard piece of paper, the template spans over four pieces. I'm going to show you how to print this out and piece it together. So I'm going to go up to File Print. And I don't need to print off the whole pattern. So I am going to only print out pages 14 to 17. I don't need to print these in color. So the most important thing to check before you print your template is the scale. My printer automatically defaults to this option scale to fit, and this will print the template smaller than we want it to be. We actually want to print this at 100%. So I'm going to select scale 100%. Your printer options might not look exactly like this. So make sure before you hit Print, that the pages are scaled to print at 100%. And then you can go ahead and hit Print. Alright, so I have my template pieces printed out here, and I don't have the best printer. It looks like my nozzle needs to be cleaned, but this will be fine for our purposes. The first page of the template will have a one by 1 " square here. This is intended to be used as a reference to be sure that this was printed correctly. If you chose to print it at full size or at 100%, this should measure 1 " square. And I always like to check just to be sure, and that looks perfect. Great. Now that we have our pieces printed out, we're going to lay them out in the proper order. You'll notice these grade out triangles that will match a number on a corresponding pattern piece. So the one and the one will match up. And in order to get these to fit together, you'll cut off one edge. Be sure to use your paper scissors for this and not your precious fabric scissors. And you can line these up and tape them together. And then I'll do the same for these two pieces, matching the four and the four together. Make sure those are lined up. Oops. Then taping those in place. And finally, we'll put these two pieces together. And if you've lined up the first two properly, you should have the twos and the threes. And just like before, I'll cut off one edge. And you have your full stocking. And when you tape these together, you only have to worry about taping inside the line of the stocking. All of this part on the outside will get discarded. So don't worry about taping outside of the stocking. Once you have your four pieces of paper taped together, you can go ahead and cut out the stocking shape. Just some things to note on the pattern piece, it has the name of the pattern on it. It has the cutting instructions, and we'll talk more about this when we get to actually using the template to cut out our stocking pieces. We'll use this for both the outside of the stocking and for the lining. And most pattern pieces will have an indication of the grain line. The grain line is the direction in which the threads run. And so this just indicates that you want to line this up along either the warp or the weft, either the vertical or the horizontal threads, as opposed to diagonally, as that could cause the fabric to stretch and distort. So now that we have a big picture overview of the pattern, and we have our template pieced together and ready to go, we're ready to get started. Join me in the next lesson where we will make our ribbon star block. 5. Ribbon Star Block Part 1: Square in a Square Block: All right, let's get started. For a ribbon star block, you'll need fabric A and fabric B. The ribbon star block is constructed of two basic sub blocks, a square and a square block, surrounded by four flying geese. Let's begin by making our square and a square block. To make our square on a square block, we'll need the three inch square of fabric B and 41 and three quarter inch squares of fabric A. I've already cut out my squares. If you need a little bit of a refresher on how to cut out fabric pieces for a quilt. You can go ahead and watch the cutting lesson in my quilting for beginners course. I've gone ahead and linked that in the resources section. We're going to start with the smaller squares, the one and three quarter inch squares of fabric A. We can lay those out. And you'll notice one of mine is not a perfect square. The corner got cut off. And because I know that as I'm constructing this, I'm not going to need this whole corner. I left that as is. You'll see what I mean as we put this together. So what we need to begin is a straight edge and a fabric marking tool. I'm using this disappearing ink marking pen. We're going to mark a diagonal line from one corner to another on each of these four squares. So I'll line up my straight edge, so it goes from corner to corner. Take my pen. And mark a line. I'll do that for all four squares. Next I'm going to take my three inch square two of the squares of fabric A that I just marked, and I'm going to pin them to opposite corners. I don't know if you're able to see, but I want to make sure that the line I marked goes from the center of one side of the square to the center of the other side rather than coming from the corner. I have the line I marked going this way, almost like it's cutting off that corner of the three inch square. And once I line both of these up, the two lines that I marked are going to be parallel to each other. Once I have those in place, I'm going to use some of my straight pins to hold these. I want to make sure that I have the raw edges lined up on each side. Okay. And once I have those pinned in place, I'm going to take this to the sewing machine and sew a line of stitching right on each of those lines that I marked in the first step. So I'm at my sewing machine, and I have just my standard presser foot placed on here right now. We're not using a quarter inch seam at this moment, so I decided to just keep my standard foot on. Remember, we're going to be sewing a line of stitching right on the line that we marked in the first step. Before I begin, though, I do want to make note of my stitch length. I generally put my stitch length down to 1.8 or 2.0 when I'm piecing. Especially for smaller blocks like this, I like to have a shorter stitch length. So I'm going to line this up right on that line that we marked. And right now, we don't need to worry about backstitching or locking in the stitch, since all of these stitches will be locked in by other stitches from the blocks we add in the future. So There is my first line of stitching. And I'll flip this around. And there's my second line of stitching. As you can see, I like to place the pins parallel to each other so that I can stitch right in between them without having to remove them while I'm sewing. Now that I have those stitches secured, I can take my pins out, and I'm going to bring this back to my cutting mat. So I'm back at my cutting mat, and before I go ahead and press these, I'm going to trim off the excess from these corners. I'm just going to use my rotary cutter, and about a quarter inch from that line of stitching, I'm just going to trim. You can use a ruler, but I don't find that it's necessary to be that precise. Just make sure it's about a quarter of an inch. Flip it around, do the same thing here. And this is what your piece should look like. I'm going to bring this to the pressing mat and press these triangles open. Okay, so I'm at my pressing mat, and I'm going to go ahead and press these open, so I'll flip this around. And I like to press my seams open, so I'm going to place my finger kind of in the seam to flatten it out. And I have my hot iron Place that over the seam to. Press that flat. Flip it around and do the same thing over here. Finger pressing that seam open. And I'm placing the iron on it to flatten that out. Flip it around to the front and give it a good press from the front. And there you have half of a square in a square block. We are going to repeat all of those steps for the other two corners. Alright, so I'm back at my cutting mat, and I have the other two squares that I'm going to place in opposite corners. And just as I did before, I want to ensure that these two lines are parallel to each other and not meeting up with the corner where I placed the square. This is that funny one that had a little part cut off. And because I know I'm going to be cutting this corner off as excess, I'm going to place this part over here. So you're going to notice this edge isn't going to line up with the raw edge over here, and that's okay. I am still going to line everything else up, so I have a little bit of this edge here to line up. And this bottom edge, I can line up, so I know it's in the right place. And then I'll use my pins. And then just as I did before, I'm going to take this to the sewing machine and sew a line of stitching right on each of these lines. So I'm back at my cutting mat. I just sewed a line of stitching along the two marked lines. And just as I did before, I'm going to cut the excess from the two corners. I my rotary cutter. Go to roughly cut about a quarter inch from the line of stitching. And I'm going to take this to my pressing mat and press. These two seems open. And there is my final square in a square block. So your block, which is considered unfinished because it has raw edges and it's not sewn into anything yet, the unfinished size should be 3 " by 3 ". Let's move on to making our flying geese. 6. Ribbon Star Block Part 2: Flying Geese Blocks: All right, so I'm going to set my square and a square block aside for now. And I've cut out the pieces that I need for my four flying geese blocks. You will need four, 2.5 inch squares of fabric A. Remember this is the fabric that will be the star. And you'll need four inch square of fabric B. Um the method that I am going to show you for creating flying geseblocks four at a time is a little bit different than the method that I describe in the quilt pattern. I have since started making my flying geseblocks a little bit different. It's not quite as efficient, but I find the results are a little bit better. The method that I show you in the pattern results in some of the flying Geaseblocks having a funny little tab that's kind of tucked in at the corner. If you do try that method, you'll see what I'm talking about. And this method, while it's not quite as efficient, this one, in my opinion, produces a cleaner result. So I'm going to show you this method. We start with the same pieces. But what we're going to do, rather than sewing these pieces together, we're actually going to cut them apart first. So with the four pieces of fabric A, we are going to use our ruler or straight edge and rotary cutter to cut these in half on the diagonal. And you can do that one at a time. Or if you feel confident, you can stack them and cut all four at once. Or you can cut two at a time. I actually think I'm going to do two at a time. Four seems like a lot. I'm going to place my ruler so that it is angled corner to corner. And I am going to cut. So, this gives me four triangles, and then we'll cut this on the diagonal as well. This um I'll scoot those up. This larger background piece, we're actually going to cut into four pieces. We're going to cut on the diagonal in this direction, and in this direction. So I'm gonna place my ruler and cut from corner to corner. And then without moving any fabric, I'm going to turn my ruler. You're welcome to mark these lines before you cut if you're worried about things shifting or moving. And then I'll cut a line from corner to corner, like. So, now we're going to arrange these into our four flying geese blocks. So this triangle is going to be the center fabric. Maybe I'll do it like that. And then these smaller triangles that we cut from fabric A are going to go in the corners. So you'll notice on these triangles hoops, there are kind of two short edges and one long edge at the base. This long edge will match up with the side edge of the larger triangle. Like, so. And you notice that they don't fit perfectly. That is because we need to account for seamouns. Make sure I have all the pieces that I need. So you can kind of visualize our four flying geese blocks. Let's start with one of these. We're going to sew one side on at a time. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of center this along that edge. And if I've done all my measurements correctly, you should have about a quarter inch of the fabric A sticking out on each side of this edge. From here, I'm going to flip this along the edge of stitching. So we're going to be sewing this here, and I'm going to flip this over so that these are right sides together. Like sew. You're welcome to place a pin there. And when I flip this over, again, you're gonna notice that things aren't lining up properly, that's okay. So I'm going to bring this over to the sewing machine now, and we're going to sew with a quarter inch seam allowance. Okay, so I'm back at my sewing machine. I still have my stitch length set to 2.0. But before I begin sewing, I am going to switch out my presser foot from my kind of standard default presser foot. To my quarter inch foot. Because for these blocks, we are going to be sewing using that quarter inch guide. Oops. There we go. And now I am going to sew a line of stitching right along here, where my pin is using a quarter inch seam allowance. And there's my line of stitching. Now I'm going to take this over to the pressing mat and press my piece open. So I have half of my flying yest block done. Now we're going to repeat that same process for this other corner. I'm going to take my piece of fabric A and line it up on this edge. I'm going to center this so that I have about a quarter inch sticking out from this side and from this side. And then I'm going to take this piece of fabric A and flip it over this diagonal edge. And I can place a pin. Make sure those raw edges are lined up. Now I'm going to bring this to my sewing machine. I'm going to sew a line of stitching, a quarter inch from this raw edge. So I have my line of stitching sewn here, and now we're going to press this open. And there is my first flying geese block. I am going to repeat this process three more times to create a total of four flying geese blocks. Alright, so I have all four of my flying geese blocks sewn together, and these need to be trimmed. Trimming flying geese blocks can be a little bit tricky because there are a few different things that we need to keep in mind. We need to trim them all to the same size. In this case, they are going to be 3 " by one and three quarter inches. One of the things we need to make sure of is that this point is a quarter inch from the raw edge that we trim up on top. That way, when we sew this block into the next block, the line of stitching won't cut off that tip or won't leave a gap. The other thing that we need to be mindful of is ensuring that this point is centered between the two edges. So we can't simply take our ruler and just trim to the size. We have to be mindful of this point. And I'm going to show you my process for trimming flying geese blocks to help keep all of those factors in mind. So I always begin by trimming the top. As I mentioned before, we need to make sure we have a quarter inch seam allowance between the point and the raw edge. So I always start there. I am going to take my ruler and place it along this edge. And I'm going to find some point along this quarter inch marking to align with the point. And then I'm going to kind of square everything else up the best I can. I'm kind of looking at this bottom edge and at the side edges. They might not be perfectly square. They may have gotten a little askew from sewing, and that's okay. Just square the rest up as best as you can. And then I'm going to trim the rest of the excess from the top. Alright, that's done. Now, I am going to use this top edge as a reference for everything else. The next thing I'm going to do is trim the bottom, which in this case, is one and three quarter inches. So I'm going to line up my one and three quarter inch mark with the top edge that I just trimmed, and now I can trim the excess off the bottom. All right. It's looking better. Now, we just need to trim the sides. And as I mentioned before, we want to make sure that this point stays centered. According to the pattern, I want the width of this block to be 3 ", which means this point would be halfway between 3 " or at 1.5 ". So I'm going to use the top and bottom edges as reference points to square this edge. And then I'm going to place the point of the triangle at the 1.5 inch mark. And then I'm going to trim the excess from this edge. It doesn't matter if you start with the right or left. Since that is going to be centered, you can start with either one. And now I just have this left edge to do. I'll flip this around, and this is the easiest one because if I've measured everything else correctly, I should be able to line the three inch mark here and trim off that excess. Make sure this is all square. I'm checking that point is still at the 1.5 inch mark, and I'm going to trim. So there is my final flying geese block. Go ahead and trim your other three flying geese blocks and coat back here at the cutting mat, and we'll put all of these pieces together to create our ribbon star block. 7. Ribbon Star Block Part 3: Putting it all Together: Okay, so I have all of my blocks that I've created, my square in a square block, and the four flying geese blocks. And the other piece that you'll need or pieces are your 41 and three quarter inch squares of fabric B of the background fabric. These are going to become the corners of your ribbon star block. So let's start to put this together. In order to create a star, the square in a square block will be the center, and the flying geese will become the points. So we're going to place these at the top and the bottom, kind of mirroring each other like so to create two points. And then we'll take these other two flying geese blocks on either side, like so. And these one and three quarter inch squares of the background fabric will go in the corners. There it is. So in order to sew this together, we're going to sew together three rows. We can start here. I'm going to take this piece of fabric and this one, and I'm going to flip this over the line of stitching so that we have right sides together. Take this to my sewing machine and sew using a quarter inch seam allowance. I have this sewn. I haven't pressed it yet. We're gonna press all of the seams after we've sewn them because we're gonna press them strategically. And you'll see why when we get there. But for now, just leave the seams unpressed. Now I'm going to sew this piece of fabric to this end, and I always like to lay everything out, so I know everything is oriented in the way that I want it. I'm going to flip this edge over here. Make sure these two raw edges line up. You're welcome to pin these together if you're worried about them shifting, and I'm going to sew another line of stitching right here. Alright. So I've got those two pieces sewn together. I'm going to do the same thing for this bottom row, sewing this piece to here, and then sewing this piece to this side. All right. So we have our top and our bottom rows pieced together. Now we're going to work on the centerpiece. And the part that is a little bit trickier. I'm actually just going to set these aside for now. A little trickier about this is ideally, in a perfect world, these points, once these are sewn together, we meet. That doesn't always work out perfectly. Even as long as I've been sewing, my points aren't always perfect. We are creating something by hand, and while we aim for accuracy, we also want to embrace the imperfections that make handmade things beautiful. But let me show you what I do to help increase the chances of getting these points to match up. So we have them oriented how we want. And just like before, we're going to flip this over so that we have our right sides together along this raw edge. And in a perfect world, we've measured everything you know, so accurately that we could just sew this together, and those points will be perfect. We don't live in a perfect world, and so that rarely happens. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of open these up where the seam allowance is. And I kind of want to find those two points and get them to meet up as closely as I can. And then I'm going to take a pin. And I'm going to place a pin right at the point here. And I'm going to come through, and I'm going to open up again. And I want this pin to intersect the point of this other piece of fabric. And then once I have those two pieces and I can even check from both sides, Ooh. And I can see mine got a little off as the pin turned. There we go. That's better. That looks really good. Now that I have that in place, I'm going to secure my pin and take this to my sewing machine. And while I am going to use a quarter inch seam allowance, I'm going to pay extra close attention to where the thread or where the seam intersects. And I want to be sure that the seam intersects right where I inserted the pin, since I know that's where both of my points are. So let's bring this over to the sewing machine. Alright, so I'm here at my sewing machine. I've got my blocks pinned together, and I'm going to use my quarter inch presser foot to sew a line of stitching. And I'm gonna go really slowly. This is not a time for speed. This is not a race, and I'm gonna pull my pin out. Moment of truth. Let's see how I did. Oh, not too bad. Not too bad. You can see that my quarter inch seam allowance got a little off because there is a little bit of a gap between those two points, but I'm not going to get too nitpicky about it. If your points are very off, that's what your seam ripper is for. Go ahead and take out that line of stitching and try again. If you're like me and not aiming for perfection, you can grab your other flying geese block, flip it over this edge, pin right where those two points meet. And so, let's bring this to our pressing mat, and I'll show you how we will deal with pressing these seams. Okay, so I have our three rows here. Let's get the setup, how they will look in hoops when our block is completely assembled. And now we're going to up the level of complication just slightly because now not only do we have these points to match up, but we have these seams to match up. And again, not aiming for perfection here, but let me show you how to increase your degree of accuracy with this. So, I like to press my seams strategically to help them nest. So what I'm going to do is for the top and the bottom row, I'm going to press the seams toward the outer edge. Let's do that. So I'm going to kind of not pull, but I just want to tug to be sure that these pieces don't get, like, caught and folded under as I'm pressing. So you just kind of want to give it a very gentle tug to make sure everything is pulled out from underneath. Take my iron and press. And again, I'll press on the back and then flip it over and give it a little press from the front as well. And I'm kind of lifting my iron and pressing it down. Especially since I'm working with linen. I really want to be careful not to move my iron on top of the fabric in a way that would shift it. Quilting cotton is a little bit more durable in that way, but linen, especially is really shifty. And I'm gonna do the same with this one. I'm gonna kind of finger press those down and take my iron and press. And you can feel when you press your seams to one side rather than open. When you run your finger over the seam, it's not flat. One side of the seam is raised a little bit. And we're going to use that as a way to help us line our seams up. You'll kind of see what I mean in a moment. So these two rows we press to the seam toward the outside. We're going to do the opposite for this one. For this row that's in the center, we're going to press the seam towards the center. So just like I did before, I'm going to take it, kind of hold it along the whole width and give it again, just a gentle tug. Make sure we don't have any fabric kind of tucked underneath. I'm going to press this seam toward the center. Now, let's pin these together. I guess we'll start with these two rows. So I'm going to first start by pinning these two points just like we did when we sewed this row together. We're going to place a pin right where those two points meet. I'm going to flip the right sides together and place my pin right at that point. And once I have that pinned in place, find one of the seams. And you're going to notice that this bottom one is kind of bulkier on one side. That will allow you to kind of nest right where those seams. If you hold it like this, you can kind of see those seams will kind of nestle right in with each other. Once you have that in place, you can pin and then do the same thing with this other seam. We're going to kind of nestle these right in with each other, and you may find I notice that I have my fabric is bulging a little bit, so I may need to kind of ease that in or maybe stretch one side slightly. You don't want to do too much because that's really I don't know if you can see how much extra fabric I have on this bottom layer when I nest my seams, and I'm not willing to stretch my fabric quite that much. So I'm actually going to compromise a little bit. So my seam won't be perfectly aligned, but I will have a little bit more even fabric there. And sometimes we just have to make those calls. I'll pin that together. It's going to be close enough. Now I'm going to take this to my sewing machine and sew along this edge with a quarter inch seam allowance. All right. So I just finished sewing my line of stitching. I opened it up. This actually looks really great. That point looks really nice. That seam looks really nice. This is the side where I had to fudge that seam a little bit, so those don't match up perfectly. But when you stand back, it's hardly noticeable, especially to somebody who's not a quilter. At this point, you can press this seam in any way that makes sense. It's starting to get a little bit bulky. I think I'm going to opt for pressing this open just to reduce some of that bulk. I also get a little tricky pressing open at this point because there are multiple layers. Okay. Who. Almost there. I am going to now as my final step, sew this top row here using the same process I just did, flip it over right sides together, placing a pin here at the point and then nesting those seams and pinning before I sew with my quarter inch seam allowance. Alright, so I'm back from my sewing machine. I have my line of stitching sewed. And I'm gonna press that seam open. Here is my ribbon star block. Your block should measure at this point 5.5 " by 5.5 ". If you have any weird little spots that are kind of sticking out funny, go ahead and trim them. Be mindful, though, about these points. Just like when we trimmed our flying geese blocks, and we wanted to leave a quarter inch seam allowance from the point to the raw edge of the block. You want to make sure you have that here as well. So don't trim these too much because you don't want to lose this seam allowance. Otherwise, you'll end up sewing off a point of your star. I can see a couple places like here. I don't really have much seam allowance there. So in this case, I will end up with a little bit of the point of that star cut. That your ribbon star block is complete, we can go ahead and assemble the rest of our stocking front. We'll do that in the next lesson. 8. Piecing the Stocking Front: In the last lesson, we worked on creating our ribbon star block, which you should have ready. If you are using another quilt block as part of your design, you can bring that over to your table now. I've also gone ahead and cut out the other four pieces that we'll need to assemble the stocking front. These two smaller pieces measure 3 " by 5.5 ". This top piece measures 3 " by 11 ", and this bottom piece measures 12 " by 14.5 ". The longer side of this big piece will attach to the bottom of these assembled pieces. Go ahead and sew these together. I'm going to begin by sewing these smaller pieces, one to each side of my quilt block. So I'm going to take one of these, flip it so that these are right sides together, matching the raw edges along the side and along the top. You can go ahead and pin that in place, if you like. I'm going to sew this, making sure I have a quarter inch seam allowance, and then I'm going to press this seam open. Alright, so I have my first piece here sewn onto the quilt block. I went ahead and I pressed that seam towards the outside. These corners were getting a little bit bulky. So rather than pressing it open, I decided to press the seam toward the outside. I'm going to go ahead and do the same thing with these two pieces. Alright, so here I have those side pieces sewn to my quilt block. Next, I'm going to attach this top strip. So I have all of these pieces ready to go, and you might notice that this longer strip doesn't quite match up with the edge. Don't worry about that. This is all going to be cut out using the template eventually. So if these edges don't match up, don't worry about that at this point. Now, our last step is to attach this bottom piece to the top piece. Remember, this is the longer edge of this rectangle that we cut. And you might notice that these don't seem to match up at all. That's intentional. What we're going to do is we're actually going to align these two pieces along the left edge. And this will allow for the stocking to be cut out and leave room here for the toe. Let me show you what I mean. Once we have this basted and quilted, we're going to be using our template that we had assembled in an earlier lesson to cut this out. This whole piece is going to be cut out into this shape. Just to kind of help you visualize where this is going. I'm actually going to turn this. And we want to make sure this is lined up along the left edge. Then I can take this top part, flip it over so that we have right sides together. I'm going to match all these edges up. And I'm going to take this to my sewing machine, sew using a quarter inch seam allowance, and press this open. Alright, so here is my completed stalking front. I'm going to turn it sideways so that you can see it in the full shot. So this piece is ready to go. Before we move on, let's get our stalking back piece ready. The stocking back is just a plain piece of fabric. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut out a piece of fabric that is 14 " by 20.5 ". I'm going to show you how I would go about cutting a piece of fabric this size. It is likely that you don't have a ruler that is 14.5 by 20.5 ". I certainly don't I'm going to show you what I do when I'm cutting out a large piece like this. Let's see. I'm going to find I have some kind of random bits cut out. I think I'm going to use this piece of my fabric. You can see I've got some little odd bits here. I'll probably clean that up. And I'm going to use this to cut out my piece. The first thing I'm going to do is kind of clean up this corner and this edge so that I have a nice square corner to work from. So I might start here and line up my ruler. And I know that I need a piece that is 20.5 " long, so I'm just going to at least cut to that measurement. There we go. And then let's clean up this corner, and I want to make sure that I have it nice and square. So I'm going to line up this edge with one of the straight line measurements on my ruler and cut. And again, I know that this measurement needs to be 14.5, so I'm just going to make sure I make my straight edge at least that long. Next, I'm going to fold this in half and actually cut this fabric doubled up. Because 20.5 " is my longest side, that's the direction, I'm going to fold it. So this requires a little bit of math. Half of 20.5 " is ten and a quarter inches. So I'm going to fold this fabric in half. And I'm going to measure this to be ten and a quarter inches, which is half of the full length that I need. I actually have this ruler, which measures 10.5 ", which is almost exactly the size I need. I'm going to use this ruler. It is useful to have a variety of rulers. As you get more into quilting, you can begin to build your collection. So I'm going to use this as my guide. And this measurement doesn't need to be 100% accurate. I wouldn't go any smaller. But remember, this piece just needs to be big enough to be able to cut out our stocking shape. So we have a little bit of wiggle room. Alright, so I have this at 10.5 ", which, again, is slightly larger than I need, but I'm not going to worry about that. And in this direction, I need it to be 14.5 ". This ruler is only 10.5 " wide, so I somehow need to extend this. I'm gonna rotate my fabric. I'll show you how I use a second ruler to act as an extension. So this is the fold. This measures 10.5 ", which means when I unfold this, I'll have a 20 1 " piece, again, slightly larger than what I need. That's okay. And I need the measurement in this direction to be 14.5 ". This is 10.5 ". It means I need four more inches to reach the desired measurement. I'm going to use this second ruler to help me add four more inches. So I'm going to slide this over. And I'm going to line this edge with the four inch mark of this ruler. When I put these two rulers together, I will have a measurement that is 14.5 ". This is 10.5 " plus 4 ". Then I can actually slide this ruler up so that this bottom edge aligns, and I can cut this piece using these two rulers. There's my piece. Before I move on, I'm just gonna grab my template and do a quick check and make sure that that fits. Yeah, it looks great. Bring your completed stocking front and stocking back to the next lesson where we will baste and quilt our pieces. 9. Basting: In the last lesson, we assembled our stalking front, and we cut out our stocking back. In this lesson, we are going to baste these with a piece of batting. So what you need is your stocking front and stocking back. Be sure these are really well pressed before we begin basting. And you'll also need your 214.5 inch by 20.5 inch pieces of batting. I'm going to be demonstrating two different methods for basting, and you can choose which one you prefer based on the materials that you have and your preferences. The first method, and this is the one that I use the most is spray basting. And I'll do this with the stocking back. So I'll take my stocking back and one of my pieces of batting. I've gone ahead and put some paper down to protect my surface. The adhesive spray that I use for spray basting can be a little tacky, so it's nice to protect your surface. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by laying my piece of batting down nice and flat. And then I'll smooth the stocking back on top of it. If your fabric has a right and a wrong side, you'll want the wrong side facing down. So the wrong side of the fabric touches the batting, and the nice or the right side of the fabric is facing you. I'm going to smooth this out as best I can. So I'm using this temporary adhesive spray that I bought at my local quilt shop. It's really easy to use, and it works really well. I'm going to start at one edge and just kind of pull the fabric back halfway. Going to get my spray ready, and I'm going to hold it about a foot away from the surface. A little bit of this goes a long way, so you really just need a gentle touch. So I'm just going to do a quick little spray. Place that fabric down, and then starting in the center, I'm going to smooth out towards the edge. All right. And then I'm going to do the same to this side. I'm going to lift up this edge, pull it back. And you should feel a little tug where the fabric is adhered to the batting already. So I'll stop there and do the same thing. Just a couple really light sprays are all you need. I'll fold this back over and starting always from the center towards the outer edge. I'm going to smooth that out. So I have this piece ready to go. I'm planning to just quilt these two pieces of fabric together. If you're worried about this batting, creating too much lint in your sewing machine, you are welcome to baste another piece of fabric over the top of this. Whatever fabric you use on the side of the batting will be hidden inside your stocking, so it won't be seen. So you could use an old bed sheet or some other piece of scrap fabric if you would like to cover this side of the batting before you quilt it. I'm going to leave it and just know that after this project is done, I'm going to give my sewing machine a really thorough cleaning it will create some extra lint. I'm going to show you how I would base this using pins. Pins are a really great option because unlike the adhesive spray, which is consumable, which means you'll use it, and it will eventually be used up and you have to purchase more. Basting pins are a one time purchase, and you can use them over and over again. So if you are mindful of what you use and what you waste, pins can be a really good option. It is a little bit more time consuming, but for a project this small, definitely not a big deal. So I'm going to start the same way. Again, if you are planning to put another piece of fabric on this side of the batting, start with that piece of fabric down first. And then you'll lay the batting on top of that. This is the quilt sandwich, which if you've made a quilt before, you should be familiar with. So place your batting down or place another piece of fabric down first with the batting on top of that. And then place your quilt stocking or your stocking front on top of the piece of batting and smooth it out as best you can. Really, the better and flatter you can get your fabric at this stage, the better your quilting results will be. So these are my basting pins. I generally store them in here open like this. The little bit of time that's saved from not having to open each one really adds up. So I just have to be careful when I'm reaching in, knowing that I've got lots of shark points in here. Basting pins are different from regular safety pins because they have, I don't know if you can see, they have a slight curve here, which helps them enter into the fabric and exit out really easily. So when I'm basting with pins, I start I always start in the middle and work my way towards the outside. And that way I can smooth out any bubbles or any places where the fabric might be a little bit bunched up. So I'm just going to start in the middle. And I'm not too strategic about where I place the pins. Whoops. I've got this paper underneath, which I don't want to catch in the pins. And I like to place my pins every 4 " or so. I'm actually going to remove. This paper so that I don't catch that in my pins. So I'm just gonna place my pins, working from the center towards the outside and kind of smoothing as I go. You don't need to be too precise about your pin placement. The most important is just to make sure your fabric is nice and smooth, and that you have enough pins to feel like your fabric isn't gonna shift while you're quilting. All right. That looks great. The next step before we move to quilting is to mark our quilting lines. And I'm going to start with the stocking front since I have that here. For this piece, I actually think I'm going to make diagonal lines that kind of mimic the shape of the star. So to begin, I'm actually going to start by finding a diagonal line in the star and using that to help me mark my first line. So I've got a straight edge. You'll also need a marking tool. You could use the same marking tool that you used when we were making our square in a square block. For marking my quilting lines, my preferred tool is a a marker. And what this tool does is it creates a small crease line in the fabric. That essentially disappears once the line of stitching is created, but it's visible enough to use as a guide. A non serted butterknife would also work really well for this. Just make sure it doesn't have the little ridges that it's not serrated because the ridges will tear up your fabric. You could also use chalk or tape or anything else that will allow you to create a temporary marking on your fabric. So I have my ruler kind of lined up with this diagonal line on the star. I'm gonna use my herro marker to extend that line. Since I used pins here, there are some places where the pins interfere with the line. I just kind of skip over them, and when I'm quilting, I'll remove this pin and continue that line. The next quilt line, I want to be here because I also want to kind of mimic this line. So I'm going to use that as my spacing. Looking at my ruler, these lines are going to be one and three quarter inches apart. So I'm going to use that as my spacing measurement. So I'm going to line this up along this diagonal line. I'm also kind of looking to make sure that these two diagonal lines are parallel. And then I'll use my marking tool. Ooh to mark here. Now that I have those two lines drawn, I am just going to continue marking my lines at kind of regular intervals. I'm using one and three quarter inches as my mark all the way along the whole stocking front. And Alright, so I have all the quilt lines marked on my stocking front. I'm going to move to my stocking back and do the same thing. I have my stocking front and stocking back both pasted, and I have the quilting lines marked and planned out. I will meet you in the next lesson where we will quilt these pieces together. 10. Quilting: So I'm over at my sewing machine, and I have both of my prepared basted stocking pieces. The first thing I'm going to do is set up my sewing machine for quilting. First of all, I want to make sure my stitch length is a little bit longer than what I use for piecing because we are sewing multiple layers of fabric together and it's a little bit thicker. I increase my stitch length to about 3.0, sometimes 3.5. That's kind of up to your personal preference. So go ahead and make sure that is set. And the next thing I'm going to do is actually switch out my presser foot. I still have my quarter inch foot on here, and I am going to switch this out for my fancy walking foot. If you have never used a walking foot before, they're really great. It's not anything to be intimidated by. Let me take my other presser foot off. Generally, when you're sewing, you have these feed dogs that lift and grab the fabric and help move it through the machine. What a walking foot does is it syncs with the movement of the needle to grab the fabric not only from the bottom, but also from the top, which is really important when you have multiple layers of fabric moving through. You can imagine if you have two or three layers of fabric, and they're only being pulled through on the bottom, but that fabric can begin to shift and become misaligned. The walking foot helps prevent this by moving both the top and the bottom layers of fabric through evenly. So I highly recommend if you don't have a walking foot, acquiring one. They're not very expensive, and you can get universal ones that will fit any machine. The most important thing when you are installing a pressor foot is, you'll notice that there's this little lever. That's what helps the feed dogs on the walking foot sync up with the feed dogs on your sewing machine. So you want to make sure that this little lever hooks onto the pin where your needle goes up and down. Um let's see if I can move lift my sewing machine so that you can see. There's this little bar that is connected to the mechanism that lifts and lowers your needle, the little lever from your walking foot. Hooks should hook right onto there. That's kind of the easiest thing to miss when you're installing a walking foot. And if you are new to using walking foot, I recommend maybe taking some scrap fabric and baste it to a piece of batting, and running a couple test stitches on it so that you can get used to the movement and make sure the tension is correct. Now I'm going to quilt. So I'm going to start with my stocking front. Whenever I quilt, I always start with a line in the center rather than moving from one end to the other. I always start with the center and work my way out. That way, again, if there are any bubbles or any fabric that isn't completely taut, those puckers and wrinkles will hopefully work themselves out as we move to the end rather than become amplified as they all move in towards the center. So I'm going to start about here. Quilting is not a race, so it is good to go slowly. And I'm using this line that I marked as my guide and trying to keep my stitch right on that line. When I get to the seam, I'm going to try to stitch in the ditch, which means I'm going to try to keep that needle right in the space where those two fabrics meet. All right, let me take that out and see how that looks. That looks really great. I'm happy with the tension. I'm gonna continue sewing on all of my quilt lines this way, working from the center to the outside. Once I do all the diagonal lines in one direction, I'll flip my stocking and do the same thing, starting in the center, working my way towards the end. If you did opt for pin basting, if there's a pin that's kind of between two quilt lines, I'll leave it and take it out when I'm done. If there is a pin that intersects where a quilt line is, I'll just kind of take it out as I go. I'm going to quilt both my stocking front and my stocking back, and you can do the same. And I will meet you when I'm done to see the final results. Alright, so I'm back at my cutting table. I have my stocking front and my stocking back quilted. Probably a little hard to see the line. Since the thread kind of blends in with the stocking, I love kind of that subtle look where the quilting gives some texture to it without taking away from the design. I will meet you in the next lesson where we will use our templates to cut the stalking shape out of these pieces. 11. Cutting Out the Stocking Pieces: Alright, if you've been following along with me, you should have your stocking front and stocking back quilted and ready to go. We are going to work on using our template to cut out the stalking shape from both of these pieces, as well as from our lining. And I'm actually going to begin with my lining fabric because I have that here underneath. In the quilt pattern, it tells you to cut out a couple of rectangles from the lining fabric that are the same measurements as the quilt backing 14.5 " by 20.5 ". I'm actually going to skip that. It's not entirely necessary. That size requirement is just to make sure that your template will fit on the piece of fabric that you have. I'm actually just going to keep my yardage as it is. I have a piece that is quite a bit larger than the template, and so I'm just going to leave it as it is. And I'm actually keeping my fabric folded in half so that I can cut two pieces out at once. You only two pieces cut out from the template using the lining fabric. Now, if you are using a printed fabric, this is solid, so the right and wrong sides are the same. But if you are using a printed fabric that has an obvious right or wrong side, you'll need to make sure that the pieces are mirrored. If you fold your fabric in half and cut them at once, you'll end up with two mirrored pieces. If you're using a lining fabric that doesn't have a right or wrong side, you don't need to worry about that at this point. So I'm going to place my stocking template right on my fabric, getting it as close to the edge as I can. I'm going to give myself a little bit of space. And I'm going to hold this down if you like to use pattern weights or something to hold that template in place you can. These are my basting pins that I happened to have handy. And there's a couple of ways you can cut this out depending on your personal preference. You can use a marking tool and trace along the edge of the template and then use a fabric scissors to cut it out. Or with the template here, if you feel comfortable moving around the shape with a rotary cutter, you can just take a rotary cutter and trace along the shape of the stocking with that. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to start at the top. And I want to try not to trim into the paper because I'm going to need to use this template to cut out my other pieces. So I'm gonna very slowly and carefully trace around the shape with my rotary cutter. Really helps to have a nice sharp blade for this. And you might need to move around the table. There we go. And there I have my two stocking pieces from the lining. As a note, I didn't mention this earlier, but the stocking template includes the seam allowance. So you can go ahead and cut this template out as is and trust that the math has already been factored in to the template. I'm going to set those aside, and I'm going to grab my stocking front. And I'm going to do this one first because I know which way this needs to go. Because this edge kind of sticks out a little bit more, I know that this makes room for the toe of the stocking. And the other thing I need to keep in mind when I'm cutting out is I want this design to be centered at the top of the stocking. So in order to do that, I'm going to use my ruler. And I'm going to measure about an inch and a half from the edge of my quilt block to the edge of the stocking. Now, you can see this side is at a little bit of an angle. These two edges aren't perfectly parallel, so it's not going to be a perfect inch and a half. As long as you get close, your design will appear centered. The stlking is going to be three dimensional. So if it's off by a quarter inch or so, not that big of a deal. So I'm going to line my ruler up with the top of the ribbon star block. And then I'm going to move the stalking so that this top edge of the template meets at an inch and a half. I am actually going to use these to kind of hold that in place. Now I'm going to look from side to side, and I want to make sure the side edge measures about an inch and a half out to the edge of the template. Place my ruler there, and that's pretty close. I'm gonna check this side. I have a little less space on this side than on this side, so my design is a little bit off center. I'm going to shift my template that way. Let's see. That gets me about an inch and a half there. And I think I overcompensated just a little bit. So I'm gonna move it over slightly. That looks pretty good. If you are uncertain about the placement of the design, I would highly recommend using some kind of temporary marking tool, such as chalk or disappearing ink to trace around the design so that you can check and see that you like the placement of the quilt block before you cut. Oh, yeah, that looks perfect. For the stocking back, we need to make sure that this is a mirror image of this. Since I used the template face up to cut out my stocking front, I need to flip this this way to cut out the stocking back. So for this one, I'll just place it somewhere in the middle and cut. Ala. So you now have your four stocking pieces, two of the outer fabric, and two lining pieces. In the next lesson, we will begin to put these pieces together to assemble our stocking. 12. Assembling the Stocking: Alright. In the previous lesson, we cut out our lining pieces and our stocking front and back pieces. So let's begin with the exterior pieces. We are going to sew these together. And so I'm going to flip these right sides together. I'm going to match up the edges, and I'm going to pin all along this edge. The top we're going to leave open. You can use straight pins, if you like. Because we're going through multiple layers, I'm going to opt for my my binding clips, my clips all along here. And then I'm going to bring this over to my sewing machine. Alright, so I'm over at my sewing machine, and I still have my walking foot on my sewing machine. I'm actually going to leave that on for this step because I am sewing multiple layers together. One thing I am going to change, though, from my quilting settings is right now my stitch length is 3.0. I'm going to shorten that just slightly to 2.5. All right. So I have my exterior stocking pieces here pinned right sides together. I'm going to start at the top on one edge. And I'm looking for a half inch seam allowance. And if you're unsure of exactly what that looks like, I recommend grabbing your ruler. And measuring from the center where your needle is to the edge, a half inch. I have this line right here on my sewing machine that lines up right with where that half inch mark is. So I can use that as a guide. And for this step, I do recommend backstitching. A back stitch is just a couple stitches forward, a couple of stitches back before you begin your seam. And that just helps lock in the stitches so that they won't come apart. So I'm going to do a couple of stitches forward, a couple of stitches back. And then sew when you get to the curves, just slow down trying to maintain that half inch seam allowance as you go around the curve. All right. And when you get to the end, you can finish with another backstitch. So a couple stitches forward, a couple of stitches backward, and a couple stitches forward again. All right. That side's done. All right. So we're going to do the same thing with our lining pieces, placing them right sides together. And so we're going to pin these together just as we did with our exterior pieces. The only difference this time is we're going to leave a six inch gap here kind of where the sole of the foot would be. And so I'm actually going to use my marking pen just to make a little mark there. And there. You don't need to measure 6 ", but leave yourself a nice, generous space. We're actually going to be using this space to turn our stocking right side out. Now I'm going to pin all around. And since I just have these two layers, I am actually just going to use my straight pins. I have my lining pieces pinned together, and I'm going to bring this over to the sewing machine. All right. So I'm back at my sewing machine with my lining pieces I've pinned together. And I'm going to sew this exactly the same way I did my exterior pieces using a half inch seam allowance and backstitching at the beginning and the end. The only difference is I need to keep in mind that I'm going to leave this gap open at the sole of the foot. So when I get to this point that I marked, I'm going to stop. I'm going to back stitch and then cut my thread, and then I'm going to start again where I made this other mark. Make a backstitch, and then finish around the rest of the stocking. All right. So here I have my lining and my exterior. Before I move on, the first thing I'm going to do is snip wherever I see a tight curve, whether it's a concave curve like this one or a convex curve like the toe. I'm just going to take my scissors and very carefully Snip within the seam allowance. You want to be really careful not to snip the line of stitching, or you will end up with a hole. And this is just going to help it'll help reduce the bulk because the fabric will have a little bit of space to either kind of settle in with each other or spread out. As you can kind of see I just made some little snips right there in that tighter curve. I'm going to come around and do the same kind of all around the toe. So I have those snipped, and I'm going to do the same thing to the lining pieces. Snipping in the seam allowance right around those tighter curves. Alright. This is the fun part. Going to flip the exterior part of our stocking right side out. So we're gonna just reach in. And I like to stick my hand inside and really get into all of the little crevices to kind of push out the heel and the toe. All right. Now what we're gonna do is we are going to place our lining and our exterior right sides together. So to do that, right now, on my exterior, the right side is facing out, and on my lining, the right side is inside the lining. So what we're going to do is insert the exterior part of the stocking into the lining, just like this. It helps if you can kind of get your hand in there. This is one of the reasons we back stitched so that if there is any pulling or tugging at these edges, hopefully those stitches are locked in place and won't come undone. And so I have my exterior inside of the lining. I'm now going to match the raw edge at the top. Before we pin these, the last thing you'll need is your ribbon. This is a 5.5 inch piece of ribbon. I actually using a piece of the salvage. I thought that would be kind of a fun little accent, but use whatever ribbon you have on hand or can find. I'm going to fold the ribbon in half, and I'm going to pin it to the heel side of the stocking. And so I'm going to kind of pull this out a little bit. So this is the toe, right? This is the heel. And so I'm going to come up the heel side, and I'm going to pin the ribbon to the exterior piece kind of right on the seam line. I'm going to use a binding clip just because that's what I have handy. And this ribbon is going to go in between the two layers. So it's going to go inside. And now I'm going to pin the seam from the lining right over the ribbon that I just attached. Right at this seam, you actually have three layers. You have the exterior piece, the ribbon, and then the lining piece on the outside. Next, I'm going to come over to the other seam, and I'm going to line these up. Again, these don't need to be lined up perfectly. It won't be that obvious and pin or clip. And then I'm just going to clip along the rest of this raw edge, just to be sure all of these pieces of fabric stay in place. Now, I'm going to take this to my sewing machine, and I'm going to sew the lining and the exterior pieces together at the top. Okay, so I'm back at my sewing machine with my stocking. This is kind of a tight space. It's a little tricky to sew together. Um, one thing you can do if your sewing machine has kind of this little storage compartment that can be removed. That can be helpful 'cause now I can put this right through like that. If your sewing machine doesn't have something like that, I recommend sewing it with the lining facing down. So I would go insert it like this and sew from the inside where the batting is, if that makes sense. I'm gonna sew it like this. It's a little bit easier. And we're again going to use a half inch seam allowance and backstitch at the beginning and the end. When you get to the place where your ribbon is, just make extra certain that the ribbon is down and kind of out of the way so that the loop of your ribbon doesn't get sewn into the seam. And once I get back to the place where I began, I'll come to meet the starting point backstitch. I will meet you in the next lesson where we will do the grand reveal and finish our stocking. 13. Finishing the Stocking: All right. In the last lesson, we sewed our lining and exterior pieces together, and then we sewed those to each other along the top of our stocking. Let's open this up and see how it looks. If you remember, we left this gap in the lining, and I said, we'll be using this to turn our whole stocking right side out. So through this hole, we're going to grab the exterior piece and pull. And as you do that, you can flip your lining piece so that it is also right side out. You can check your loop. Your ribbon should be attached there right at the seam. I'm going to kind of stick my hand into the lining so that I can get my fingers into the toe. And so this is what it should look like now. Before we stuff the lining into the stocking, we want to close up this seam. So I'm actually going to bring this over to my pressing mat. All right. I have my stocking over at the pressing mat and right now I'm focusing on this gap. The first thing I'm going to do is press these raw edges of the gap in to create a half inch seam allowance. Then once you have those folded inwards and lined up, go ahead and give it a good press with your iron. Even take a couple pins to hold those together, and then we're going to bring this to the sewing machine and just stitch really close to the edge to close up that gap. If you prefer a cleaner look, you're welcome to take some thread and hand stitch this together. Since this is on the inside of the stocking and won't be seen, I'm usually okay having a little seam on the outside of the bottom of the lining. Alright, so I brought this over to my sewing machine, and I am just going to put this under my presser foot, and I'm just sewing a line of stitching kind of as close to the edge of that fold as I can. I want to make sure that I'm catching all of the layers in the stitch and that I backstitch at the beginning and at the end. For this, I'm just using my 2.5 stitch length, the same stitch length that I used to sew the rest of the stocking together. We'll backstitch at the end. I should look something like that. So I'm back up my pressing mat, and we're ready to finish. So I'm going to kind of open up my stocking and stuff the lining down into the exterior. And again, kind of getting your fingers in there to really push out the toe and it's going to feel a little bunched up in there, but it's okay. Nobody's going to see in there. And it'll provide a little cushion for whatever treats you stuff these with. And the last thing that we need to do to give this a nice, clean finish is reinforce this seam line so that the lining doesn't shift and kind of pop out and become visible. So I'm kind of folding over the exterior, so it comes over the lip and that the seam where it meets the lining is inside of the stocking, it's about a quarter inch. And that way, the lining won't be visible. From the outside of the stocking. Once you have that where you like it, kind of fold it in. Take your iron and press and kind of open it up and press from the inside all the way around. You're welcome to place some clips around the edge. The final stitch that we're going to make is a top stitch all the way along this outer edge. And that's going to hold the lining in place and prevent it from shifting and coming out of the stocking. So I'm at my sewing machine. And because I still have my little storage compartment off, I'm going to use this kind of narrower part of my sewing machine to place my stocking in. Again, if you don't have a sewing machine that allows you to kind of make a little narrower base here, you're welcome to put this underneath and sew from the lining side all the way around. But because I have this space, I'm going to use it. I'm actually going to start from the back of my stocking, and we're going to be sewing a half inch from the top edge. So I'm going to put my presser foot down. I have my sewing machine set to a 2.5 stitch length. You're welcome to lengthen that a little bit to 3.0 since we are going through multiple layers. If your sewing machine is having a hard time, increase your stitch length a little bit. I'm going to start with a couple stitches forward and a backstitch. And then I'm going to sew around this whole top edge. Make sure your ribbon stays out of the way. You don't want to sew that down onto your stocking. And your stocking is complete. 14. Final Thoughts: You've done it. If you've been following along with this class, by now, you should have a beautiful stocking to use this holiday season. And I hope you have the confidence to continue making many more. I'd love to see the beautiful stockings you create. If you haven't already, be sure to take a photo of your finished stocking and upload it to the resources section so that we can celebrate the beautiful creative work of everyone in the community. If you loved this class, I would really appreciate it if you would leave a review. Reviews will help others find this class, and your valuable feedback will help me continue to create quality courses in the future. If you're interested in learning more advanced quilting techniques, be sure to check out some of my other course offerings on Skillshare. You can also follow me to ensure you don't miss any new classes that I make. And if there's any classes that you're really curious about and want me to create, reach out. I love to know. Thank you so much for letting me be part of your quilting journey. Bye for now.