How to Sew Lined Stockings

In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to sew a lined Christmas stocking.  I’ve created a free pattern that you can download to make it easier to follow along, but it’s easy enough to make your own pattern as well.

Before we get started, let me tell you a little story.  For Christmas 2019, I planned on making my family a set of matching Christmas stockings with our names embroidered on the cuff.   I wanted to make stockings for me, my husband, our son, and even our unborn baby – really planning ahead so that I don’t procrastinate on the fourth stocking and so that all four stockings would exactly match by the time Christmas 2020 rolled around.

Sewing Roadblocks
Sometimes there are unexpected roadblocks when sewing! As pictured, Parmesan stopped my progress fairly often.

It’s mid-January 2019, and I’m just posting this blog tutorial now, so you can probably guess that I didn’t quite finish this entire project in time.  I finished sewing the stockings for my husband and son on Christmas Eve, but I put my own stocking aside so that I could finish up other activities, like making a gingerbread house with my son and finishing wrapping a few gifts.

Don’t follow in my footsteps.  Give yourself extra time so your sewing experience is more relaxing.  Rushing leads to mistakes.

So here I am, posting a Christmas tutorial in January.  You’ve  got a lot of time to prepare your stockings before Christmas, so don’t be like me and try to sew them all in one day.  I figured I’d might as well post my free pattern and tutorial now rather than waiting until next Christmas for you go-getters out there who are much more organized than me.  If you’re sewing in the off-season, it’s also a great time to scoop up those great Christmas clearance fabrics to save some money!

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a little commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. Thank you!

Prefer video?  Watch this Lined Christmas Stocking tutorial on the Craftcore DIY and Sewing YouTube Channel!

If you don’t like video, keep scrolling! Text-based instructions are below.

Skill Level – Confident Beginner

I’ll be teaching you how to sew a lined Christmas stocking.  You won’t need to purchase a pattern to follow this tutorial. I’m assuming that you already know basic sewing techniques  but it is beginner friendly.

This is a basic stocking tutorial that you can modify to suit your needs.  I personally like a slightly chubby stocking, while some people may prefer a skinnier or pointier stocking.  I’ll walk you through the process for 3 design options:

Option 1: You can replicate a stocking shape of a stocking you already own.

Option 2: You can draw your own stocking shape and I’ll tell you how to make that into a pattern template.

OR Option 3: You can download and print my free pattern pieces.

Here are the Supplies You’ll Need

  • Sewing machine and basic notions like thread, pins, and/or clips
  • Main Exterior Fabric: Non-stretch fabric for the main stocking and hanging loop
  • Lining Fabric: Non-stretch fabric for the main stocking
  • Contrast Fabric: Non stretch fabric for the cuff
  • Iron-on Fusible Fleece
  • Paper for Pattern Piece Templates
  • Tape

The amount of fabric you need will depend on how big of a stocking you want to make.  If you’re printing my Craftcore stocking pattern, you’ll need:

  • Main Exterior Fabric: half yard
  • Lining Fabric: half yard
  • Contrast Fabric (Cuff): fat quarter OR minimum 10″x18″
  • Fusible Fleece: one package OR scrap piece minimum 13″x20″

If you’re designing your own pattern, you’ll need to lay out your pattern pieces to estimate how much fabric you’ll need.

For Option 1 and 2: Make Your Pattern Piece Templates First.

For the sock: If you already have a stocking you like on hand that you want to copy, you can simply trace it (carefully) on a big piece of paper to create a pattern, and add a quarter of an inch around the outside for your seam allowance.  

If you have a stocking shape in your mind, take a big piece of paper and draw it out, then add a quarter of an inch to all sides for seam allowance.  I’ll call this the main sock template.

You’ll need to make two additional templates: the cuff template and the loop template.  

For the cuff: decide how tall you want your cuff to be.  Then measure the width of your main sock template.

You’ll need to cut out a paper rectangle that is double the desired height PLUS half an inch tall, and double the desired width PLUS half an inch wide.

For the loop: cut out a paper rectangle that measures 4 inches wide by 5 and a quarter inches long.  Feel free to adjust if you want your end result bigger/smaller.

For Option 3: Free Pattern Download

Option 1 and Option 2 are great if you want a custom stocking.  If you just want to print out a free pattern, I’ve got you covered!

After downloading the pattern, you’ll need a PDF reader such as Adobe Reader to view it.  Print the pattern and double check that you are printing at 100% scale, not shrinking to fit.

After printing, cut along the edge of the thick grey rectangular page border.  Line up the pieces of paper, carefully lining up the arrows so they butt up against each other.  There should be no overlap and the points should just touch.

Use clear tape to attach the pieces together, then carefully cut out the three pieces: the cuff, the loop, and the sock.

Cut Your Fabric 

For each stocking you want to make, you’ll need to cut out 4 of the main sock pattern piece, 2 right side up and 2 wrong side up, from your main fabric.  I used the same fabric for my lining and exterior fabric, but if you wanted the lining to be different, you would need to cut 1 right side up and 1 wrong side up each from the main fabric and the lining fabric.

You’ll also need to cut out 1 cuff pattern piece on your contrast fabric and 1 loop pattern piece on you exterior fabric.

Finally, cut out a piece of fusible fleece from the main sock pattern piece.

Stocking Templates
This is what the loop, cuff, and main sock templates correspond with.

Let’s Prepare the Main Sock Fabric

First, fuse the fusible fleece to one of the main sock pieces.

Layer the fusible fleece with the sticky side up and the main sock piece right side up.  Follow the exact instructions for your brand of fusible fleece, but generally, you’ll be pressing with your iron to apply heat to activate the glue.  Put a scrap piece of paper over your work so that in the event that the sock piece isn’t cut exactly, you won’t get the glue on your iron which is annoying to clean off.

Once the fusible fleece is securely in place, take your second main sock piece and layer it right sides together with your fused sock piece.  Use pins or clips to hold them in place.

Take your two lining sock pieces and layer those right sides together, and use pins or clips to hold those in place.  

On the exterior main sock, we’ll be sewing along all edges with a quarter-inch seam allowance, except for the top of the sock, which will stay open.  

For the lining main sock, we’ll be leaving the top open, plus we’ll be leaving an additional gap at the foot of the sock that will allow us to turn the sock inside out later.    Leave about 4 or 5 inches.

Sew Around the Edges

Once your seams are sewn, flip your main exterior stocking right side out.  You’ll feel and see that with the fusible fleece, the stocking has a bit of body and stiffness to it.  

For now, leave the lining fabric wrong sides out.

Let’s Prepare the Loop Fabric

I’m not a big fan of turning thin strips of fabric inside out, so I’ll show you my favourite way of making the loops we’ll use to hang the stocking.  Take your loop fabric and fold it in half length-wise, wrong sides together. Finger press this to make a faint crease.

Then, take fold the raw edges of the fabric to meet with the crease.  Finger press again. Fold it once again, so that the raw edges are totally encased on the inside.  When you look at your fabric from the side, you’ll see two folds along one edge and one fold along the other.  Press the fabric with your iron, then pin or clip the fabric into place. Sew a seam close to each edge to hold everything into place.

Make a Loop

Let’s Prepare the Cuff Fabric    

If you want to embroider a name or embellish the cuff in some other way, now is a great time to do it, before it’s stitched inside your stocking.

embellishment

Since the cuff is self-lined, you’ll want to embellish the top left quadrant.  You can see that I used my embroidery machine to sew on a name, but you could hand stitch, you could do some applique, you could do some iron-on designs – the only limit is your imagination, really!  

Fold the cuff lengthwise first with your embellishment on the outside, and press with your iron.  Next, fold the cuff in half width wise, with your embellishment on the inside. Bring the cuff to your sewing machine and sew a quarter-inch seam along this short edge.  You can leave the long edge raw.

Cuff Folding

You can now flip this right side out so your embellishment will be on the front of the cuff.

Assembling the PiecesAssembling the Components

Now that your main sock exterior and lining, loop, and cuff are prepared, it’s time to attach it all together.

Start with your exterior main sock on your work surface. 

Slip your cuff in place around your exterior main sock.

Fold the loop in half so the raw edges are together.  Pin or clip the loop in place at the back left of the stocking, near the seam but not directly on top of it.  The raw edges should be lined up with the hole of the stocking, and the folded edge should be pointing down toward the toe of the stocking.

Attach Loop

Finally, take your lining fabric, which should be wrong side out, and slip it over all the other pieces.  Line up all your raw edges along the top hole of the stocking. You can use the turning hole of the stocking to help make sure all your pieces are lying flat.

Carefully pin or clip all the layers into place.  Make sure that you don’t pin your hole closed – when looking at all your layers from a bird’s eye view, from outer layer to inner layer, you should be layered like this:

  • Lining fabric (wrong side out)
  • Loop (2 raw edges)
  • Cuff (2 raw edges)
  • Exterior fabric (right side in)

If your sewing machine has a removable arm, take it off the machine to make it easier to sew in-the-round.  I start and stop on the loop pull, and reverse stitch along the entire edge of the loop for extra stability.  Sew all the way around the top raw edges of your stocking.

Now it’s time to flip the stocking!  This is very satisfying. We previously left a hole in the foot of the lining.  You can pull the entire stocking through the hole to reverse all your layers.  Then all you have to do is sew the hole closed. You can hand stitch to close this with an invisible stitch, but I’m lazy, and since it’s the inside, I just sew close to the edge and stitch it close.  Before you close everything up, make sure that everything came out as you would expect – especially the hanging loop.

Ta da!  You have a stocking!

Close Up View

3 thoughts on “How to Sew a Lined Christmas Stocking – with free pattern!

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