I had such a hard time trying to decide what project to work on this week, but I finally settled on my Valentine’s Day stockings. I had been anxious to find out if my design would turn out the way I hoped it would. They are very time consuming and I have to do six in all so I’ll break them up and just do one a month or every other month.

My Ideal Seam guide was the perfect tool for this project. I ended up sewing squares into rows and then sewing the rows together and because I had used the guide each square lined up perfectly with the ones on either side of it.

The ultimate goal was to have these turn out like a rag quilt. It was a pain snipping all the seams, but the end product was exactly as I had envisioned!

The picture on the top is the finished stocking before it was washed and the one on the bottom is after it was washed. I love how the ragged seams look!

The inside of all of the stockings will be blue, regardless of whether they’re for the girls or the boys.

I still need to put the hook on it, but I’m going to put all the hooks on them at the same time so it will be a few months until it’s done. I’m excited to see how the rest look with their own patterned fabrics.

This week I also had the privilege of fixing my nephew’s favorite pair of shorts. They were in town for Easter and my sister had brought these shorts hoping that I could figure out a way to fix it. She didn’t expect me to be able to, but I managed to concoct a solution that worked. Needless to say I am his favorite Aunt right now, and he has eight so that is saying something.

The material behind the button had completely ripped away.

To fix it I sewed a square piece of material to the back and then sewed the ripped fabric to the square. I then sewed the button back on by hand. It’s not the prettiest fix in the world, but when his shorts are buttoned up you can’t really even see the fix.

It has been so fun pushing myself and seeing what I can do. I love following a pattern, but there is definitely a great sense of accomplishment to finish something I designed myself. I cant’ wait to start working on the Easter project I have in mind. That will be my own design as well. So exciting!