I love goldfish. My logo has been a goldfish for years and years. (His name is Smee.) I have 2 goldfish named Harold and Henry that spend their summers outside in the waterlily pond and the winters in my living room begging for someone to feed them. So goldfish might not seem like an obvious ornament choice, but I love ornaments that are a little whimsical.
Materials
- 4 x 8 inches of blue felt
- 2 x 3 inches orange felt
- assorted small seed beads; gold, brown or cream colored
- 1 white 8-10 mm sequin
- thread to match your blue felt
- green embroidery thread
- 6 inch piece of narrow ribbon
- 2×3 scrap of fusible paper backed webbing (Heat & Bond Lite, Wonder Under)
Tools
- small sharp scissors
- beading needle, embroidery needle
- sewing machine with straight stitch (optional)
- iron & ironing board
Instructions
1. Right-click or option-click the pattern pieces below and save them to your computer. Then you can print them out. Cut two bowls (circles) from the blue felt. Set one aside.
2. With the embroidery needle and a piece of green embroidery thread, use a feather stitch to embroider a plant in the fishbowl. Here’s a great feather stitch tutorial.
3. Use the beads to add a pebble bottom to your fish bowl. With a beading needle and thread, stitch individual beads in a random scatter. Be sure to keep your beads about 1/4 inch from the outside edge of the bowl.
4. Iron the fusible webbing to the back of the orange felt piece, following the instructions on the packaging. Trace the fish pattern and cut it out.
5. Peel off the paper backing and fuse the fish in place.
6. Using the beading needle and thread, stitch on a large white sequin and dark colored bead to make the fish’s eye. Tie a knot in the end of the thread. Bring your needle through from the back and add the sequin and then a seed bead. Bring your needle down through the same hole in the sequin. Pull it tight. The bead will hold the sequin in place and makes the pupil of the eye. Tie a knot on the back. Add a few small clear sequins to make bubbles around the fish, if you like.
7. Layer the two fish bowl pieces together. Fold the ribbon in half and place the cut ends inside the top of the bowl between these two layers. Pin the ribbon in place.
8. Machine stitch 1/8 inch from the edge of the bowl (shown in photo). Or you can handstitch using a blanket stitch and matching thread to go around the edges.
Pattern Pieces
Materials
- Felt – two 9 by 12 inch sheets in different colors
- 4 x 8 inch piece of fine bridal tulle in a pale color
- embroidery thread
Tools
- rotary cutter, mat and ruler
- scissors
- sewing needle, thread
Instructions
1. Using the rotary cutter and ruler, cut the felt in to strips 1/2 inch wide by 12 inches long. You will need 2 strips of felt for each candy.
2. Choose two different colored strips. Layer one strip on top of the second, matching the long edges. Starting at one short edge, roll up the two strips. You will now have a disk with a two-colored spiral. This is your candy.
3. Stitch the short ends of the felt to the roll with a couple of small stitches to hold them in place.
4. Cut a rectangle of tulle about 4 by 8 inches. It should be wide enough to wrap around your candy with a little overlap. This will be the wrapper.
5. Wrap the candy in the tulle wrapper. Cut two pieces of embroidery floss or ribbon. Use a square knot to tie the ends of the wrapper on each side.
6. Trim the ends of the wrapper so they are even.
7. Thread a piece of embroidery thread in your needle. Stitch through the candy and then back again to the other side. Remove the needle and tie the ends of the thread together to make a hanging loop.
Materials
- 6 x 6 inches of white felt
- 6 x 6 inches pale blue, grey or green felt
- white embroidery thread, white sewing thread
- an assortment of white, clear, silver and pale blue sequins, any shape or size
- white, clear or silver seed beads
- narrow ribbon, about 6 inches long
Tools
- Small sharp scissors
- Beading needle
- Embroidery sewing needle
A note about the sequins I used: I found snowflake shaped sequins in the scrapbooking section at the craft store and I think they were really perfect on this snow bear. You can also find squares, stars and other shapes.
Instructions
1. Right-click or option-click the bear pattern below and save it to your computer. Then print it out. Using the pattern, cut out one bear from white felt.
2. Thread your beading needle with a piece of regular sewing thread. Tie a knot in the end. Poke the needle through from back to front, where you would like one sequin to be.
3. Thread a sequin, then a seed bead on to the needle. Stitch back through the hole in the sequin, back through the fabric and pull the thread snug. The bead will hold the sequin in place. Cover the bear shape with as many or as few sequins as you like.
4. Continue to stitch the rest of the sequins in the same way. Be careful not to pull the thread too tight between stitches making the felt pucker. When you have finished adding sequins, tie off your thread on the back and trim the ends. You can add just a few or cover the bear with sparkles. That’s up to you.
5. Place your be-spangled bear on the colored felt. Thread a needle with embroidery thread and tie a knot in the end. Poke the needle from front to back just inside the edge of the bear. Pull the thread until it stops at the knot.
6. Blanket stitch around the edge of your bear. As you get to the top of the bear’s back, fold the ribbon in half, place the cut ends of the ribbon between the layers of felt and stitch them into the blanket stitch as well.
7. Trim the extra colored felt about 1/8 inch bigger than the bear, leaving an outline of the colored felt. Be careful not to trim the ribbon.
I made these little deer ornaments originally as gifts for my co-workers one year. A friend took one look at the goggle-eyed deer and said “That’s what deer in the headlights look like.” The name stuck.
Materials
- felt, 4×5 inch piece in any color
- embroidery thread and sewing thread, any color
- scrap of fabric about 4 by 5 inches
- fusible paper-backed webbing (like Heat N Bond Lite or Wonder Under)
- 8 mm sequins, white or another pastel color
- a few dark colored seed beads
Tools
- pencil
- beading needle or small sewing needle
- iron & ironing board
- small sharp scissors like Fiskars microtip
Instructions
1. Right-click or option-click on the deer pattern piece to save the pattern piece below to your computer. Then print it out. Trace the deer pattern on to the paper backed fusible webbing. Following the instructions on the packaging, iron it to fuse it on to the back of your scrap fabric.
2. Cut out your deer.
3. Peel off the paper backing from the felt deer and place the deer, glue side down, on to a piece of felt. Iron to fuse it in place. Note: If you are using acrylic felt rather than wool felt, please test a scrap first to make sure it doesn’t melt when you iron it.
4. Cut out around your deer again, leaving about 1/8 inch border of felt all the way around.
5. To make the eyes, thread your beading needle with a piece of regular sewing thread. Tie a knot in the other end. Poke the needle through from back of the deer to front, where you would like one eye to be. Pull until it stops at the knot.
6. Thread a sequin and then a seed bead on to the needle. Poke the needle then back through the hole in the sequin, and back through the fabric. Pull the thread snug. The bead will hold the sequin in place. Repeat for the other eye. Tie off your thread on the back and trim the ends.
7. With a 6 inch piece of embroidery thread, stitch through the felt between the antlers and make a loop to hang your deer. Tie the ends together.
I decided to give you all a gift this year. For many years I sold patterns for all kinds of things in my Etsy shop, including a bunch of simple holiday ornaments. But I have really changed the focus of my shop and what I am doing and I phased out those patterns a while ago. But I still have them and they are really cute and they shouldn’t just sit here on my computer with no one using them. So I decided that I would post them here for free as my gift to you.
The first one is a variation on an ornament I made with my mom when I was about 2 years old. She says I “helped”. I have the original on my Christmas tree and used it as the inspiration for this pattern.
Materials
- two pieces of felt, 4 x 6 inches each in 2 coordinating colors
- 6 inch piece of narrow ribbon
- embroidery thread in a coordinating color
Tools
- scissors
- sewing needle
- pins
Instructions
1. Pin the pattern pieces to the felt and cut two birds and two wings.
2. Place the bird pieces so that they are facing opposite directions. Lay one wing on each of the bird pieces. Adjust and pin in place.
3. Using embroidery thread that matches the wing color, stitch each wing to the body piece.
4. Cut a 6 inch piece of ribbon and fold in half. Put the two bird body pieces together, wing sides out, sandwiching the ends of the ribbon in between. Pin to hold the ribbon in place.
5. Stitch around the outside edge of the bird, through both layers of felt. Fold the wings back out of the way as you stitch.
You can use a running stitch, a whip stitch, or a blanket stitch, depending on what look you like. Be sure to catch the ribbon in your stitches to hold it in place. When you have stitched all the way around, tie a knot and you are finished.
Here are the pattern pieces. Just option-click or right-click the image to save it to your computer and you can print it out.
The new issue of Petite Purls e-zine is out and I am a contributor. Petite Purls is a knitting magazine that focuses on projects for kids. This summer they decided to do a mash-up issue that combines sewing and knitting patterns (sometimes even in the same project). They asked me if I would like to contribute something and I immediately thought of this Treasure Dog project. My friend Rae also has her instructions for some cute kids pants, there’s a sweet little apron pattern and a baby sweater with a pocket on the front, which just makes me giggle.
I have been dying to share this tutorial, because I LOVE this project. I originally came up with the idea because we had some leftover pre-quilted cotton at a summer camp and I wanted to use it up on zipper bags, which the kids love to make. Plain black was pretty boring and so by adding a little felt and some ribbon, I created this sweet black lab with floppy ears. We also made dog bone shaped keychains in the same class. The whole tutorial and patterns are here so you can make your own. You can use any kind of fabric you want to, so don’t worry if you don’t have any quilted cotton hanging around. Just sandwich a piece of felt or batting in between two other fabrics, quilt it a bit with some lines or swirls and then you are ready to go.
