Because I’ve now got my full set of children, I really wanted to make them each a Christmas stocking this year. We’ve used all different things over the years… made-in-china ones, pillowcases, paper ones… but I didn’t want to make them before I had all the kids because I wanted them to be a bit similar, so that they’d obviously belong together.

Another good thing about waiting, is that my boys are now old enough to have ideas for their stockings, and of course they have favourite colours to incorporate too.

I was probably spurred on by this photo in Inside Out –

And of course, there’s SO MUCH inspiration on the net -

Jane Foster, Maggie Makes, Recycled Sweaters and Pusteblomster respectively.

That last photo inspired me the most, so I decided to make the girls stockings with strips and trims from the stash. S would be mainly red, and B would be pink. They’re padded with cotton batting and the inside seams are finished with binding. I cut a pattern from an old shop-bought stocking that I’d fallen out of love with. They’re big enough to fit a sensible number of gifts, and to really have to burrow to find what’s right down at the toe end.

The boys were both keen to have stockings made from old jeans. There was one particular pair that I wore last week and, having glimpsed myself in a shop window, knew I’d better cut up to save me from myself. For one stocking I used a leg from one pair, and a pocket from an old denim skirt. His favourite colour is yellow, so I wanted to incorporate that.

And for the other, I used the top part of the jeans, a strip of binding and some gorgeous natural linen I bought from Thea & Sami last year. I used interfacing inside that one. The screenprinted heart is from a sketch I did a while ago, and the hanky in the pocket is because his favourite colour is red too.

I’ve got a plan to stitch on their names in cord like in the magazine, but we’ll see. Probably won’t get done ’til next year, let’s be honest.

I really loved making these. We don’t have a mantelpiece to hang them from though, just the old desk under the tree.

At the moment it seems this may be remembered as the “NO BOO! Don’t touch that!” Christmas. Hope that will change once she gets used to having the Christmas stuff around.

I think we had a playpen around the tree when S was this age. What did you do to keep the tree out of little, mashed-up-crayon-and-breakfasty-hands?