Thursday, December 20, 2012

Crazy Quilted Stockings

Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human. 

Anthony Robbins



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December 24

I thought I would give you a closer look at my Crazy Quilted Stockings.  Now I suppose it would be a little more logical to talk about the simpler stockings first but I had the pictures done of these so they are what I'll talk about.  If you are thinking of making some this will give you a few days to get it done before Christmas.  The easy ones can be done on Christmas Eve if needed.  It really doesn't take too long to do any of the ones I've made unless you add a lot of hand work like embroidery, beading, applique or such. Cross stitch is another matter and I don't know how to knit.

I'm not going to do a tutorial on Crazy Quilting.  There are plenty of them on the web already.  I might do one for next Christmas or something.  I'm going to just show a few close ups of the two I've done and talk about what I did.  I have a few more in progress that I'll try to get to later.

Gold & Neutrals Crazy Quilted Stocking



Trims used are: 

  1. Lace Appliques sewn on by machine with invisible thread
  2. Various Buttons
  3. Various Laces & Trims, White, Gold and Ecru
  4. Glass Snowflake Charm
  5. Hand Beaded Snowflake (pictured below)


Wonky Beaded Snowflake

Fabrics used include cotton prints, satin, shantung, upholstery weight brocade, gold lame`, moire.


Heel & Toe accented with Gold Trim

I played with the fancy machine stitches and metallic, rayon and invisible threads.  Adding the fancy stitching and trims as the crazy piecing is done buries the thread tails and trim ends which cuts down on raveling.



Stocking Back

The back is more of the decorator fabric brocade.  It has an Oriental look to it.  I inserted a twisted rayon cord piping at the top and added a 5/8 inch wide gold metallic grograin ribbon for the hanger which is nice and sturdy.  The lining is white satin.

If you want these fancy fabrics a good place to get them is the remnant bin.  It doesn't take but a little bit to crazy quilt.  A half yard will easily back a couple of stockings and the trimmings can be used in the piecing.



A Special Stocking

This one is special because the green fabric and lace flowers are from the fabrics I made the outfit I wore to my oldest son's wedding.  All the other fabrics are cotton except for a little black velvet and a small triangle of white satin.




I cut a full fan from the fabric to start and gave it seven sides.  I used some pearl chain beading and used it as an accent on the fans.  I stitched in on using a cording foot and a zig zag stitch with invisible thread.  If you come up with an angle you can't work with remember that is what the trims can be used for.  See the little bit of silver lace above to the left of the green button.  It is hiding an edge that wasn't cooperating in the piecing.





I played a with the fancy stitches and a few threads again and added just a few trims.




Two matching fans were just perfect for the heel and toe.  They had to be appliqued on because of the curves.  Pearl beading was added for accents.




The back is a metallic printed cotton.  The lining a black polyester lining fabric.  The gold metallic ribbon worked well for the hanger again.

I did add batting to both the back and front of these.  There is no actual quilting on either of these stockings.  The crazy quilt piecing was done on a muslin foundation.  


CRAZY QUILTING TIPS
  1. Incorporate bits of fabrics and trims that hold special memories.
  2. Shop the remnant bin for fancy fabrics.
  3. Play with the fancy stitches on your machine and fancy threads.
  4. Add trims, laces and stitches as you piece to cover edges and thread tails.
  5. Add batting to both sides to balance the stocking. 
  6. There are no rules, do what looks good to you.  I've seen just fabric used with no trims or accents that look good.  
  7. It takes a larger number of fabrics than you think it will to avoid having the same fabrics wind up against each other.  Color and/or value variation is a big help.
  8. Avoid working with pieces of fabric that are too small or too large.
  9. Try not to have the seams of the piecing fall too close to the seam of the stocking.  The extra bulk makes the curves harder to turn out smoothly.
  10. Note where ridged trims are when sewing the stocking together (i.e. the pearl beading in the one above) sew up to them and then hand turn the wheel and/or raise the presser foot to get over/past them.  If needed reinforce those spots with a few hand stitches.

So that's the tale of these two crazies.  Want to try to get a little crazy too?

5 comments:

  1. Your photos and tips made a perfect tutorial. These stockings are simply glorious, I can't choose a favorite - they're each wonderful in their own way. Thanks for sharing all the close-up photos!

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  2. Your Crazy Quilt Stockinsg are sew wonderfully unique and personalized. Thanks for sharing the details and tips for sewing ... :) pat

    ReplyDelete
  3. What beautiful stockings Pat and the one with the fans on the toe and heels.....perfection!

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  4. These are so beautiful! Our Christmas family get together got moved up to today... I'm hoping to finish a stocking tomorrow AM to include.

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  5. I love the helpful hints/tips you've included here. I'm thinking I'd love to make crazy quilt stockings for Todd and I for next year ... I'm going to make note of this post!! :)

    ReplyDelete

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