Are you burning the midnight oil trying to finish up last minute Christmas gifts? I know I am. The unusually warm weather here in New Jersey made it hard to get into the Christmas spirit and now here I am with only 4 sewing nights until Christmas and SO much work to do!

So today's blog post is a Christmas Gift quickie. If you need a gift for someone on your list that is hard to shop for, what about a Christmas Stocking? A beautifully hand crafted stocking hardly takes any time at all and can be made with mostly scraps.

My stocking here uses 1/2 yard of quilting cotton (purchased at Hobby Lobby), 1/2 yard of poly fleece (scrap from my stash) and a 6" by about 15" strip of fabric (from my scrap bin). You probably have everything you need in your stash right now.

I used the free Pattern Revolution Christmas Stocking Pattern. Printing was super fast (5 sheets) and I could have used the extra applique pieces to fancy this up. I opted not to because I'm on a time crunch!

So, to take this from "meh" to fancy, I used those extra stitches that nearly everyone has on their machine. My machine has over 200 stitches. In a normal sewing month, I use 4, maybe 5 of them! So I took out my manual (seriously, I wasn't even sure what half the stitches did) and figured out that I have an alphabet on my machine. Not just 1, but 4 (Whoops). Adding a personalized message or a name takes things up a notch. I used a metallic thread (something I don't normally do) and also some more decorative stitches. As I was looking through all the stitches on my machine, I started thinking of all the combinations I could make...

Then I remembered, TIME CRUNCH! WAH!

So giving someone an empty stocking is sort of bad form, but here's where you can recruit someone else in your family to help. Fill the stocking with candy (anyone else still have Halloween Candy leftover?), hat and gloves, a gift card, toothbrush and toothpaste (a family tradition here), a few miniature toys (dinosaurs, My Little Ponies, Shopkins, etc) and you're set. Hit up the dollar store or the $1 bins at Target and you should be able to find some small things to add to the stocking. OR, go traditional and add an orange, clementine or tangerine. A real thought out gift in record time.

I hope this helps you check off just a few more names from your list. May you actually get to sleep on Christmas Eve night!