I would normally not put so many charms/motifs so close together as these 3 are but I do like how this lot looks on the block…
The iron on tree motif worked well to cover a glitch in the stitching and the star on the tree links it to the fabric above…I chose the Cherry charm as a pair up with a piece of fruit that will go on the other stocking, cherries are a seasonal Christmas fruit in Australia but not be in the northern hemisphere where these stockings are to live so I wanted to hide the cherries and I liked the way they blended into the holly print on the fabric behind them…The Gingerbread house is there because I still felt that the stocking needed something else so I was going through the Christmas charms/buttons that I had and when I put the gingerbread house in the curve of the stitching it just looked so right that I looked no further, I had found the something that this stocking needed to finish it.
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In the Victorian era spiders webs were considered a symbol of good luck and it has become traditional to stitch a spiders web into crazy quilts…I don’t put spider webs onto every piece of crazy work I do sometimes it suitable to a block and I didn’t put a spiders web on any of the first 4 stockings but since then I have learned that there is a Christmas Spider Story and for that story I have stitched a web onto one of the twin stockings and put a spider on the other.
There seems to be several versions of the Christmas spider story This Christmas spider story seems to be the more common version but I did like This version of the Christmas spider story.
Click here for instructions how to stitch a spider web .
 
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 The Holly leaf is the same as and the bells similar to charms on one of the first stockings.
Music is very much apart of Christmas and a theme that has run through All the stockings with the music fabric and different musical instruments….The image on the left is an unpainted Violin charm, the next image is the same Violin charm after my son Sam had painted it…I love how how much more detail can be seen on the charms after they have been painted and the Red Guitar painted up even better than I had hoped it would, it is a real cutey.
 
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With all the seams done it was time to put the names on the tops of the stockings…Stem Stitch done with a red rayon thread and a green silk thread.
The fabric on the left was not easy to stitch on and rayon thread was not a good choice of thread to use on it but It was the red colour I wanted and like the finished texture of the stitch…and I like what happened to the lettering because of it, my original intention was to fill in the spaces on the letters but when the red rayon on the gold satin was so difficult to stitch with I decided not to fill the spaces and I like how light and airy the letters look.
I finished the tops with a butterfly on one and an angel on the other…The angel is the same charm that I put on the cover of the book but unlike the one on the book that I intended to be hidden this one I wanted to be seen, even though it is a very tiny charm the fine paint work done by my son Sam does make it visible.
On my sampler I have written twins to represent the type of stitching and the threads that I used, I thought that it would be a nice way to finish of the twin stocking section on my sampler.
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This is the last seam on this stocking and I thank Sharon for the idea, I was pondering what to put along the seam when I went to visit her, to balance the over all stocking I knew that I wanted to emphasis green along the seam, and because of the position of the seam on the block I knew that the area needed a focal point and I had the snowman charm…Sharon looked at it and suggested repeating the trees beside the train track on the other stocking, perfect the trees are the green that I needed and they make a lovely background for the snowman creating the focal point that I wanted.
The green star is also from sharon, when I was visiting a couple of weeks ago there was just 2 green sequin stars in the dish of beads she was sorting, she asked if I wanted them for the stockings and I said yes I will put one on each stocking, (some of you may have noticed them tacked on the toe of one stocking with detail 810), where I put them so I wouldn’t loose them, the other is above the bear in the wagon in last nights post.
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This seam is a combination stitch being Chevron Stitch on the top side and Cretan Stitch on the bottom side…Along the bottom side I put star shaped beads in every second space and in the alternating spaces I used groups of Bugle beads that link to the bugle beads that I used to trim a different stitch on the same seam of the other stocking. I like the way trimming a seam with alternating embellishments gives more shape to the edge of the seam.
This is the last seam on this stocking and I have started adding embellishments, on the left a bear in a wagon button on the right a gift shaped button (a shank button) and a gift shaped charm. In this post I explained that I was choosing charms that would make a find the matches type game, the Gifts are a match up for the gifts I embroidered under the tree on the stocking you can see here.
 I added that the gift button had a shank because when shank buttons are stitched on the surface of a crazy block they tend to wobble, normally that wobble is is of no concern to me and if I do want the button to sit still a few beads around the shank will stabilize it but sometimes, very occasionally, I do want the button to sit flat on the fabric…
This was one of those times, the the gift charm is 3 dimensional and I wanted it to overlap the gift button but the gift button is thick and has a big thick shank and the only way to get any overlap was to disappear the shank into the fabric…To disappear the shank into the fabric I used a skewer to make a hole in the fabric (if the skewer is hard to push through use a big needle to start the hole) and rather then just push the skewer through, gently twist the skewer so that it screws its way through the fabric. Most times the skewer hole is big enough to push the shank through, if it is not quite big enough use a pencil point or something thicker then the skewer to expand the hole, if the hole is still not big enough resort using scissors (only tiny snips are needed), which is really no problem because there is nowhere for the fabric to fray to. When the shank is through to the back of the fabric it needs to be held there, I used to use a short length of beading wire with the ends twisted into loops that I could stitch to the back but when I was doing this button a friend suggested using ribbon through the shank, it works well, it is easy to stitch on either side of the shank and makes for a softer finish.
Below is the combination Chevron and Cretan stitches on my sampler.
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Cable Chain Stitch which was TAST Week 36, this seam is Zig Zag Cable Chain…
Sometimes Cable Chain Stitch gets a twist in it…I wanted to know why, not just so that I could avoid it happening but also so that I can make it happen because I like the twist…To find out I did some experiments on my Sampler…
My Conclusions.
The twist can be caused by Stitch Tension…If the thread is loosely wrapped around the needle when the needle is pulled through the fabric it is more likely to have a twist then if the thread is snugly wrapped around the needle.
The twist can be caused by the distance between the chains…A short space between the loops is more likely to twist then a longer stitch.
The twist can be caused by the type of thread…Rayon the most likely to twist.
The twist can, and is most likely to be, caused by thickness of thread…The thicker the thread the more likely it is to twist…
Summary…Thick Rayon Thread makes the Best Twists.
While I was working the zig zag portions of my experiments I noticed that when the thread twisted each side of the zig zag line looked different…For the last 2 stitches at the bottom edge of the last line I worked the stitch as a mirror image of the top edge by wrapping the thread around the needle in the reverse direction which makes the stitch sit very nicely.
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This seam is the variation of Spanish knotted Feather Stitch which I did last year for TAST Week…There is a glitch in the stitching part way along the seam that I didn’t notice until I had finished the seam but it is not a bother as I will be able to work an embellishment over it.
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 Stitch repeated on same seam with different setting…when I reread what I just wrote I thought maybe I have done a few to many cryptic crossword puzzles lately…When my sister saw the Candy stitch that I did on one of the stockings she thought that it should be on both stockings because it is such a happy stitch, I decided to do it on the matching seam of the second stocking…I like that even though the candy stitches are the same colours and angles on both stockings, the different embellishment at the bottom of the seam gives each a different look.
The iron on Noel motif is the same as on one of the original stockings and as well as adding holly beads to the motif I added holly beads to some of the holly on the bear fabric.
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 Having emphasized the small stars on the first stocking toe I have emphasized the big stars on the second stocking toe.
The stitch I did on the seam is Crested Chain Stitch with alternate stitches flip flopped from one side to the other of the seam, which I really liked on detail 371.
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