Mac's Stocking

My mother-in-law Ruth bought a stocking for her only grandson and my nephew, Mac, and asked if I would write or embroider his name on it. I finished it up the other day and thought I'd share pictures of how easy it is to personalize a store-bought stocking.

Here is the blank stocking:



First, I tried sketching out "M A C" on the cuff, but my washable fabric pen wouldn't grab or show up on the velveteen of the stocking. So instead, I found the center and finger-pressed a little seam there so I could tell where the middle was. Then, starting from the middle out, I stitched on big block letters with thread, sequins, and seed beads. All you do to stitch one beaded sequin on is: come up through the fabric with your thread, string on a sequin and then a seed bead, and go back through the hole of the sequin and the fabric. This keeps the sequin in place by using the bead as a stopper over the hole, if that makes sense.

You can see the first bit here of the "A" and the right side of the "M" -



You can see what the stitching looks like underneath the cuff here:



You can tell it's not anything fancy - as soon as you stitch on one sequin, come up through the fabric about a half-sequin length from the edge of the last sequin, string on another sequin and bead, and go back through the sequin hole and fabric again. If you have to jump big widths (like between letters) you might want to tie off your thread and start again. It helps keep all the sequins secure without tugging on the fabric.

All done! Much better, I think:



Beaded sequin embroidery is one of my favorite things to do because it looks a lot more impressive than it is difficult. And it's a super cheap craft! You've probably seen me show how I used the same technique on felt - felt is super easy to use for this kind of embroidery. It doesn't cost much, it's sturdy, and it's easy to just whip-stitch around the edge of little plushies - or you can leave raw edges. Try it out. I started out just winging it, and now I love it.