Best Christmas Stocking Kits

Yes, you can create a beautiful handmade Christmas stocking for someone you love!

Whether you prefer the bold bright colors of felt applique stocking, the subtle needlework and cross stitch styles (like the counted cross stitch kit for the Sledding Snowmen Stocking shown here), you'll find the best stocking kits here, with all the materials and embellishments you need to complete a craft project to decorate your home or give as a treasured gift.

If knitting and crochet are more your speed than needlework, there are unique kits that come with all you need for your craft, too. And for knitters and crochet fans who already have a good supply of yarn on hand, you'll find patterns for festive stockings, too.

No matter your skill level or experience with sewing and crafting, there's a Christmas stocking kit to suit.

The two brand names that come to mind first for felt applique Christmas stocking kits, if your hobby is arts and crafts, would likely be Bucilla (or at least its parent company, Plaid) and Dimensions. Bucilla is best known for its bright embellished felt applique projects - especially the holiday kits - while Dimensions is a familiar and trusted brand for crafters in a wide range of needlework and stitchery.

This photo shows "The Workshop" (left) and "Tree Shopping" felt stocking kits, finished and hanging ready for Santa to visit.

Bright colored felt fabric, lavishly embellished with embroidery, beads, and sequins, the Bucilla Christmas stockings are surprisingly easy to make from the all-inclusive kits, although you'll need to plan ahead if you're making it for a gift and want to be done in time for Santa Claus to come fill them up! The great amount of detail in these kits means they do take an investment of time - but if you're looking for a felt applique stocking that your loved one will love to use every Christmas Eve for years to come, these beauties are a time-tested choice.

If you're looking for a kit to make a bright and modern Christmas stocking in an eye-catching contemporary style, take a look at the Dimensions line. Pre-cut pieces with holes punched in make it a breeze to put together a personalized Christmas stocking for that special someone. Thread, needle, and easy-to-follow instructions are included in each kit along with the multi-colored die-cut felt pieces.

Needlepoint is one of the first crafts I learned to do as a child, and it's still one of the leisure activities I find most relaxing. Once you get the hang of the basic needlepoint method, it can go along quickly and easily - depending on the complexity of the design and how fine a thread or yarn you're working with, of course.

A needlepoint project done in soft muted tones and fine stitches has a wonderful vintage look that echoes the magic of Christmas past - it can almost look like a painting from a distance. Needlepoint is often used for bold graphical designs as well, and the way the yarn is worked in needlepoint means that some finished pieces can tend to be fairly robust, compared to other needle crafts. No doubt that's why we so often find needlepoint used in footstools and throw pillows, household décor that gets some active use, not only in special-use table linens and decorative arts like wall hangings.

Very fine needlepoint work is known as petit point, by the way, and interesting effects can often be achieved by combining the two techniques. But that's a topic for another day.

Let's get back to the Christmas stocking kits!

In the world of cross stitch craft kits, Dimensions is the clear leader for the quality of the materials and instructions, as well as their unique designs. As well, I find this company has the broadest range of designs available, meaning that it is easy to find the perfect stocking to make for each and every person in your family. Here are a couple of my current favorites to give you a taste.

If you're a beginner at needlepoint, here's a handy introduction to set you off right with your needlepoint Christmas stocking kit - and any other needlepoint project you might want to make in the future.

One more thing about needlepoint, it lasts and looks good for years to come - a real consideration if you're dreaming of having your handicraft displayed in a museum some day in the far future, or even if you just hope that your grandchildren's children will get the same pleasure from hanging these stockings each year that the current generation does right now.

Before you store the handmade Christmas stockings away for the season, just give a gentle brush to remove any dust from the yarn stitches and damp-sponge any spots that sticky little fingers may have left behind.

The same care instructions apply to any handcrafted Christmas stocking, including those made in cross stitch, a dainty traditional kind of needle craft that fits well with the warm sense of nostalgia we enjoy in the holiday season.

When we talk about Cross Stitch needlework, there are two different approaches to choose from, and you'll find kits for both.

In counted cross stitch you work out the pattern by counting threads of the canvas or Aida cloth, following a chart. In printed cross stitch the pattern is already printed on the canvas, so you don't have to worry about keeping track - it's a bit like a paint-by-numbers kit, only you fill in the colors with X's of thread.

Printed cross stitch would seem like a good way to introduce a beginner to the technique, you might think, but I've found the printing process is never all that precise on fabric or canvas and trying to guess where the colors are meant to go can actually make the project more frustrating.

Counted cross stitch is very much more popular, and that's what most of the really good kits are - plus, once you're a whiz at counted cross stitch, you can easily start to develop your own original patterns, too!

Personalized with the child's name, this is a sweet gift. The illustration reminds me of Currier and Ives paintings you so often used to see on calendars and greeting cards in the holidays, years ago.

In this crochet pattern book, author/designer Grace Kaplan gives you instructions to craft 15 unique Christmas stockings, as variations on one simple stocking pattern. There's no end to the variety of stockings you can crochet based on her basic pattern.

I've just discovered the most amazing kits for knitting a unique Christmas stocking, with a couple dozen (!) different patterns to choose from. The kits are complete with yarn, embellishments, and charted instructions - all you need is the needles. The knitting chart with the kit is printed in full color so its easy to follow, and an alphabet is included so you can personalize the stocking with a name or message. Here's the knitted Christmas stocking kit I've got my eye on:

But then, if you are like most knitters, you've probably got a good stash of yarn leftover from other projects - so perhaps you need a pattern instead of a full kit, so you can use your own supplies to knit your Christmas stocking.