Number 10...

It's another Santa! This time wearing a tall hat... in teal. And red.... I got one traditional color in there.

What I used... felt. Good quality felt for the pieces that create Santa, a few beads, coordinating and contrasting floss, a smidge of batting and a little polyfil to stuff him. That's it...

How I did it...

First I cut all of the pieces out... face parts from a peachy flesh, white beard, moustache and hat brim. The hat is from a very bright teal, and the stripes are red. They are not on the pattern, but are just strips about a quarter of an inch wide (I stitched them down and then trimmed the sides). The foundation for it all I cut from white (the back red).





Gauging the placement of the face, I stitched a couple of basting stitches in just to hold it in place. Using the good old button hole stitch I stitched on the cheeks first. Then the nose is placed and stitched.














Next... the placement of the beard. It's stitched just along the top with a running stitch to hold it in place. To gussey it up a bit I decided to add some swirls to his beard by couching some thread in twirls onto it.













When this is all in place I want to be sure to get the rest set in correctly so I pin them into place.

Pinned, then the moustache is stitched in place.

















The red stripes are stitched onto the hat. I used lime green floss (nothing like a lot of color, right?)
















Now all the little touches that finish it up... some white beads on the hat brim, and three lime green buttons on the hat. A little red bow for a hanger... and, of course, a couple of black beads for the eyes...
















And there you have it... the finished Santa in a tall hat...












Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.

We interrupt these 15 ornaments...

For a give away! If I don't get this in, I'll be so far behind Christmas will be here and gone... so..

Remember these:

Number One
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four
Number Five

I'm giving them away. Five of my followers will each win one of the ornaments. Here are the rules... read them CAREFULLY...

1. You must be a follower of this blog. As in over there in the follower list on the right.

2. You must leave a comment on this post.

3. You may leave ONE comment each day until the give away is closed.

If you write a blog and would like to link back to share this with your readers, please do (and thank you for doing it)... but you don't get extra chances for that.

The give away will be open from the posting of this post until 11:59 PM EST, December 10, 2011. I will be using Random.org to generate random numbers, one at a time, and those comments will be the winners. The first number chosen gets the first ornament, second number chosen gets the second ornament and so on. You may only win one ornament, so if your comment is chosen twice, I'll choose again.

I'll be posting the winners on the blog, in a post on December 11th when I share the patters for that week. The winner has 24 hours after the announcement is made to email me their mailing address or I'll head back over to Random.org for another pick.... so... watcha waitin' for?

Number 9...

This one wasn't on the original list, but you guys know how I'm always subject to change. Deb from Learning to Just Breathe asked if I'd show the button hole stitch I keep using... so this one was born. I really like how it turned out, so now it's number 9.


When my Grandmother passed away I was given some of her old cookie cutters.




By far, my favorite has always been a bird cutter. I'm not sure why, but even as a little girl I thought it was beautiful. I've considered turning it into an ornament on my tree for years, but I still love the idea of cutting out these cookies. So, the perfect option... use it as a pattern for an ornament.
I traced around it, then cut two pieces from white felt. I'm going to opt for some wings, so I fiddled around until I got a shape I liked and then cut two of those as well. I also cut two small round shapes in hot pink, about the size of a dime, and four leaf shapes in lime green.





My first step was to judge placement. To do that I used a basting thread to attach the pink circle where I wanted it. (Sounds so much better than saying I stuck the pink dot on doesn't it?) I tucked the leaves in on each side and stitched them down. Then using a light orange stitched the dots down using long stitches.



After that stitching was finished, I attached the wings to the body. Using... guess what? The button hole stitch. Now... technically, it's really a blanket stitch because the stitches are spaced. But my Grandmother called all of these stitches button hole and I guess I just picked it up. (Technically, in the button hole stitch, the stitches lie side by side by side. It's created around, of all things, a button hole, and is meant to stop fraying.)

So let me go a bit more in depth about how that's done.

If you use it to attach something, like I am the wing, you might want to pin it or baste it in place, just to help hold it while you stitch. For this part of the ornament I switched from floss to a size 5 DMC perle cotton. I knotted it, and from the back side brought the needle up right at a spot where the wing and body meet. Move the needle over just a bit (this is probably a shade more than an eighth of an inch) and down, then insert it from the front. Before you pull the stitch all the way taught (it would be a straight stitch on an angle if you did) you bring the needle up through the back again, right where the wing and body meet, directly over where you put the needle through.




I know it sounds complicated, but I promise, it isn't... (my apologies for the horrible photo on this one, but you get the idea... and if you don't, check this out... great pics there!) From here, you just keep stitching all the way around, keeping the stitches even.






When you get the wings on, it's time to join the two body pieces. After lining them up, I knot the cotton and secure it on the wrong side of one of the pieces, and bring it up to the middle of the back. In the end, this will be where the hanger is as well. You will work from the front of the piece pushing the needle through to the back, always bringing it up in the loop that is created by doing that.








Just keep stitching like that all the way around.














After working your way all the way around, stuff it gently with polyfil, and be sure to add the hanger (hot pink ribbon for me) before you take the final stitches. Take note that I knotted the hanger, would make it more difficult to be pulled out should it get tugged on.











The only thing left to do is to add a bead to the center of the "flower" on the wing... and hang it on the tree. Which, by the way, will be going up soon around here...

And, there you go, number 9.








Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.

More patterns...

And here we are... the patterns for numbers 4 through 8. In no particular order. They are all loaded as .jpg's, and should print on our standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper. As always, if you have problems with the .jpg, email me and I'll send you the .pdf file.

If anyone has any questions, just let me know.





Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.

The ArtsyBlogger links...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and that everyone made it home after Black Friday! I hope even more that you get out today for Small Business Saturday. Go visit your own home town treasures... those little businesses offer something really different and unique... and they give you the added bonus of knowing that you are investing in YOUR community!

And now... the links for the week!

Felt Ornament Houses
Cherie makes little felt ornaments for the tree.

Eileen - The Artful Crafter
Do you craft for profit or would you like to? Here are some tips for reaching your target market.

Beading Arts
Beautiful toggle clasps are meant to be seen, not hidden away!

Number 8...

How about a cutie with a tall hat?

Here we are, just a shade past the half way point of the 15 ornaments, and the offering today is a cute little guy with a very tall hat.

He's a combination of cotton fabrics and felt... with a button and a bell to finish him off.















We begin by drawing the outline, and the basic placements on the foundation muslin. As you can see, I was meticulous about pressing off the muslin before I took photos.













My plan is to "stack" layers of colors, well, two colors, for the hat. Hot pink (I know, you haven't seem me use that before, have ya?) is going to be the first layer, and I lay it against the drawn outline to gauge how much of a curve I need to trim at the bottom. When I have the curve cut, I baste the bottom in place, and trim off the edges.















The next layer is going to be lime green... then hot pink again... and so on. I baste each layer on, gently turning under the edge that will be seen so that there is no raw edge. You'll notice that I stitched around the outer edge as well (from the wrong side, where I could see the outline I drew on the muslin) so that I create the area I know I need to stitch within as I stitch down the layers.















I used two strands of a light orange floss and the buttonhole stitch to stitch each of the layers down.


















Next, I cut the body out of felt and basted it on. It extends past the edges of the outline just a bit so that when I sew the ornament together it will be caught in the seam.














The scarf comes next. It's an orange pattern fabric that matches the threads I used to stitch down the hat layers. I stitched it down using hot pink thread.

The cuff at the bottom of the hat finishes out this portion of the ornament. To break up the patterns, I used a green stripe, stitched down with the hot pink thread.
















I cut the snowman out, leaving about 1/4 inch beyond the edges of patterned fabric. It's sewn to a hot pink fabric, the edges cut to 1/8 inch, clipped and turned. Then he's stuffed.












Now come the features that bring out his personality... a "carrot" nose, stitched on using a darker orange floss, a few french knots that create his mouth, and a couple of seed beads to make his sparkling eyes.

He has a jingle bell attached to the tip of his hat, and I added a button to his scarf for interest. And, at the top, he hangs from a hot pink bow.

And, there you go... a snowman in a tall hat. Number 8 in the series.





Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.

Number 7...

This one is going to be short... mostly because you can refer to the Sock Monkey instructions to do it. (Actually, the Sock Monkey was born from creating the pattern for this one.)

I used felt for all of this... simply because it's so darned easy to work with. Cut out the pieces of pattern (no seam allowance needed), be sure to lay them on the background to be certain of the placement, and then stitch them down with coordinating floss.

I stitched them in this order:
The earmuffs
The white face
The black of the head
The beak





When I got all of that on, the scarf was last. There are two ways you could do this. You could cut out the scarf background, and stitch the squares onto it, then applique it. Or, you can do as I did, stitch the scarf background onto the ornament, then add the contrasting squares. For the most part I used a button hole stitch through out using two strands of floss.








Once all was stitched down I used a chain stitch to "connect" the earmuffs.









To finish it up all I did was attach the appliqued part to the backing, using the same buttonhole stitch. Added a bit of polyfil to stuff it, and attached a hot pink (even though it shows up lighter in the photos) bow for hanging.

And there you have it, our second adorable penguin of the season!

Here's wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving day, and all the blessings of all the seasons we begin celebrating now!




Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.

Number 6... and even a bonus...

It's no secret that I love the moon, I'm fascinated with it. I've mentioned it often here on the blog. It's just so darned magical somehow. So you know I'm going to have to do one... maybe even two.

To make this one I found this wonderful, soft yellow, pale plaid-ish cotton fabric. The photos don't do it justice... but trust me, it's lovely. I also used a couple of scraps of hot pink cottons, and some hot pink felt... ribbon, and yellow and black floss.








But, while drawing the pattern, I had another idea too... a moon in his sleeping hat...

For this one I used the same yellow, and pinks... with a pretty blue swirly pattern too. And a tinsel-ish sort of trim too.









Again, the pattern I will be posting on Sunday does NOT have a seam allowance added to it. The line on the pattern is your stitching line. Be sure to add about 1/4th inch of fabric outside of the line (that you will later trim to about 1/8th of an inch) for your seam allowance. Trace the pieces onto the fabric you plan to use, stitch on the lines, cut the excess fabric, clip CAREFULLY, turn and stuff.

I stitched the faces on at this point because, frankly, I don't trust myself to stitch them on the flat pieces, then sew the ornament up so that they are relatively even... this just seemed easier.







Next... for the cheeks I wanted to use a hot pink. The original thought was to applique a circle of the fabric on, but after a bit more contemplation, I decided to make a yo-yo for the cheeks. I cut the circle out about a half inch larger all the way around than the pattern indicated. To make the yo-yo I folded the raw edge of the fabric in just a bit to make a folded edge, then took a running stitch all the way round the circle.










Once I'd gone all the way around, I simply pulled the thread to gather it... and, ta-da-da-daaaaaa.... a yo-yo. then I stitched that to the cheek area on the ornament. Notice, on this ornament I stitched a nose into it... on the other one I did not.

Now, because I never know exactly how an ornament is going to hang on a tree, I did this to both sides rather than leave one plain.







It's pretty plain at this point, so I decided to add a heart. The original intent was to have it hanging from the tip of the moon. I didn't really measure so much as just cut and stitch... cotton fabric onto felt, and it turned out a shade too big. Not wanting to start over, I decided maybe I could place it somewhere else. I sort of like how that works.









For the one in his sleeping cap, I stitched the hat to the moon on both pieces, then turned them right sides facing and stitched the moon together. When he was clipped, turned and stuffed, he was created the same way the first moon was... only this time I got the size of the moon right to make it dangle. And I wanted something sparkly on him, so this piece of trim was perfect. I actually glued it around the hat using tacky glue.










Both of the sweeties will be hanging from a hot pink bow...

And there you go... number 6, and a bonus.

Thank you everyone for your kind words about the magazine article... I admit, I am still smiling about it.








Patterns, images and instructions copyright 2011, june crawford. You may not copy, sell or distribute the patterns as your own. These patterns are for your personal use ONLY, not for making profit. If you choose to make an ornament for charity, please notify me. ALL of the money from the sale of that ornament must be donated to that charity.