Karmann Jean: Personalised Knitted Christmas Stockings

Hello Everyone,

And if you are in the UK happy bank holiday, I hope you are all well and having a great bank holiday weekend. I've mostly spent mine on the sofa watching lots of football. Before I start todays blog post all about my new personalised Christmas stockings, I just want to say that my blog is a year old (well it was on the 14th but I missed it). I can’t believe that I have been able to reach a whole year, it was my aim to but if I’m honest I wasn’t too sure if I would or not, so thank you for being on this journey with me and taking the time to read my post or look at my pictures. I really appreciate it. I mainly wanted to start my blog to show my journey of how it started as in at school with textiles and hopefully the journey of Karmann jean, and I’m so grateful that a year one, I am still here writing this post. I know I’m not the best writer, so it means a lot that you actually come here and see what I have to say, and I’m intrigued to see where this can go, do I have enough things to talk about to make it to another year. I think the posts might be a bit more textiles/knitting based, as I can’t post about new Etsy listings all the time like it seems I have been doing recently. I do have a few blog post plans but if you have anything you’d like me to write about, or anything you'd like to know about me or my business, then please let me know, all my links will be at the end.

Anyway back to why you are here, today I am going to talk/show you my new personalised knitted Christmas stockings. Last year when I started my Etsy shop (if you didn’t know Christmas stocking were my first item that I ever made for my shop) I had quite a few requests for personalised Christmas stockings which I didn’t know how to do. I didn’t have the correct machine (intarsia carriage) which I actually got that Christmas from Santa that year. So this year I knew that I had to try to personalise my knitted Christmas stockings. Now I know that I could have personalised my stockings other ways like embroidery or patches but I’m not the best at hand sewing. I can sew up seams perfectly fine by hand but I’ve not had much experience with decorative sewing, and I’d never want to sell something that I wasn’t fully happy with, hence why I’ve had to wait till now for personalised stockings.

Below you will find all the information about these new stockings, in the same style as I usually do with a new listing. But I just want to say here, that this is just the start. As you will see, only my plain knitted Christmas stockings can be personalised with one letter at the minute, but in this upcoming week/weeks I will be working on trying to add letters to my other designs. But as I know lots of people asked about personalisation last time I wanted to get these stockings out first. Hopefully though if the plan I am thinking of works, my other Christmas stockings should hopefully be able to be personalised soon. Also just a warning that if you saw my last blog post a lot of what I am going to tell you is the same (although this week I have actually rewritten it instead of copying and pasting). This is basically the same Christmas stocking expect you can add an letter to it, so I won’t be offended if you just want to skip the next bit and just look at the photos.

Personalised Knitted Christmas Stockings:

- As always every Christmas stocking is knitted by me using my knitting machine (which is not electric is solely powered by me. I might to a blog post introducing a knitting machine, as I know I never knew about them before I went to uni). They are then hand finished by me sewing up their seam and attaching their hanging hook.

- Design - This stocking has the same sock style design as my other Christmas stockings, by this I mean that the cuff (top band), toe and heel are often are different (block) colour to the body of the stocking. This particular design is exactly the same as my plain ones expect you have the option of adding a letter to it. The letter is produced by intarsia knitting (for any knitters who wanted to know). You’ll be able to see this in the photos but just so that it’s clear the cuff, heel, toe and letter is one colour (white or green) and the rest of the stocking (body) is red. Each Christmas stocking also comes with a knitted hanging hook so that you can hang it on your fireplace or bed ready for Father Christmas to visit.

- Colours - I only have two set colour options as you will see below, which is white and red or green and red. However that doesn’t mean that you have to stick to these colours, you can have whatever colour you like; for example if you like the colour fiesta from my hat and scrunchie collection, just ask and I would be more than happy to knit a stocking in that colour. Same as if you don’t like any of my colours, just message me and I can show you pictures of all the colours available from my supplier. Then you can have a full range of colours to pick from. This applies to any of my items, I have just picked a few colours to create a mini collection but I’m happy to try new ones. Actually a few of my colours only joined my collections because family/friends wanted them.

- Materials - Like all of my knitted items this Christmas stocking is made from 100% acrylic.

- Size - 45cm long and 21cm wide (approximate size) this is the size for all my stockings expect the mini ones of course.

- Price - These Christmas stockings are £12 each. Plus £2.90 postage for the UK, it is a lot more for international shipping, but you will have to check that over on my Etsy. The postage is a onetime cost, for example whether you by one Christmas stocking or ten you will still only be changed £2.90.

- Processing time - Like a lot of my items I have listed the processing time for my Christmas stockings as 1-2 weeks. The main reason is to cover myself in case I get a lot of orders and therefore run out of yarn (which is a problem as I don’t have any yarn shops or haberdasheries near me, so I have to ordered them which can take a few days). However I always try my best to get my orders out as quickly as possible. If this time concerns you we can discuss it further. (Ok, I might have lied I did copy this section, but that’s only because I think it clearly explains everything).

Well I think that, that is it for this week’s blog post. Bit shorter than normal but I suppose I’m only talking about one item/design unlike last week. Anyway I know I’ve already said it but thank you again for reading my blog, I can’t believe that together whether you were here from the start or this is your first time, together we have made it to a year, and I can’t thank you enough. Next it will be my first anniversary of my Etsy shop, which is insane; as if Karmann jean has nearly existed for a year (I mean the shop, me Karmann Jean has existed for 22 years). Below will be all my photos of these Christmas stockings as well as my links for if you want to see my Etsy shop or message me any potential blog ideas that you would like to see.

As always thank you so much for reading,

Love Karmann Jean

My links/contacts:

- etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KarmannJean

- instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karmannjean/

- email: karmannbenson@gmail.com

- facebook page: https://en-gb.facebook.com/karmannjean4/

Personalised Knitted Christmas Stockings.

Knitted K Christmas stocking in the colour green and red.

Knitted J Christmas stocking in the colour white and red.

Close up of the knitted j on my perosnalised Christmas stockings.

My knitted hanging hooks.

Here's a picture that i took of my stockings whilst sat on my sofa.

Disclaimer - The photos you will see below are the letters from my knitted frames collection. This is because I use the same design for them as I do for my Christmas stockings. To not waste time and yarn I decided to only knit two personalised Christmas stockings and since they follow the same design I have used my frame photos to show you the whole alphabet knitted. My Christmas stockings are made to order, as I’m not sure what letters will be wanted or in which colours, hence why I have only knitted two. I didn’t want to waste yarn knitting the whole alphabet. I hope that makes sense and you can understand why there is only a K&J example knitted.