Thrifted: Old Sweaters Into Stockings . . .

Remember how I purged my Christmas decorations of red?  Well, that meant selling six Pottery Barn stockings in a garage sale this summer.  I’ve combed the stores looking for knit stockings with that vintage homemade look. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot out there unless I want to spend a whole lot of money. Which doesn’t exactly bode well with my cheap mentality.

So I did what I do best – I hit the thrift store on half off clothing day.  I ended up with four sweaters for $1.50 each in the colors I like for Christmas – greens, blues and browns.  That, my friends, is a SERIOUS BARGAIN.  You should have seen the look on the little old worker lady’s face when I told her I was going to cut up some perfectly good sweaters to make stockings.  She could not comprehend it.

Here’s what I did {sorry for the bad lighting – it was late at night}. I hand drew a stocking pattern. Then using the hem of the sweater as the stocking opening, I cut out a front and back from the existing sweater. Since the hem of the sweater is already finished, it will not unravel and makes a perfect stocking top.

Next I pinned the two pieces together with the wrong sides facing out and ran it around the edges {except the top opening, of course} with my sewing machine.  I used any spare hem to make a loop for hanging the stockings.  And a final step  before turning the stockings right side out was to drive over to my mom’s to have her run the sewn edges through her serger to prevent fraying.

Now my kids have fun, vintage sweater stockings. I still have to find two more sweaters for the Hubby and myself, but I’m out of time until after Christmas.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Or are these stockings awesome?