Embroidered Felt Template

If you live in a house like mine, where the previous owners adored ceiling hooks, hanging ornaments become a part of daily life, changing with the season or just on a whim.
Supplies:

· 9 x 12” sheet of wool felt
· 1 skein of embroidery floss
· Embroidery needle
· Erasable fabric marker
· Poly-fil or wool roving
· Scissors
· 1/8” ribbon ~ 3 lengths of ribbon, 3 ½” each, and one length of ribbon, 8 ½”
· Sewing needle and thread
· Printed pattern sheet
· A chopstick (to help fill)

Lay your cut template pieces on the felt, and trace around them with the erasable fabric marker. You’ll need 2 of the larger pieces and 6 of the smaller tear-drop shapes.
*You may prefer to embroider the pieces now, before they’re cut.*

Embroidery:
With the erasable marker, draw your embroidery lines onto your felt pieces using the pattern sheet drawing as a guide.

With 2 plies of embroidery thread, embroider on your drawn lines using a running stitch. (to those in the know, you might recognize it as ‘Sashiko embroidery’) Whatever you call it, be careful to not pull your stitches to tightly.
*If you haven’t already, now’s the time to cut out your pieces.*

Assembly:
Choose one of your large pieces to mark the ribbon points. (They are marked on the paper pattern for reference.) Fold the 8 ½” length of ribbon in half and with a sewing needle and thread, tack it to the wrong (back) side at the top center of the marked felt piece. Lay one large piece on top of the other, wrong (back) sides together, and keeping your stitches close to the edge, sew around the perimeter, placing the 3 ½” lengths of ribbon at the last three marked spots.
When you have about an inch left open, fill the piece with poly-fil one pinch at a time. Use the chopstick (if needed) to push the filling into the far spaces. When the piece is full to your taste, finish sewing to the top point. Knot your thread and hide it between the layers of felt.
For each tear-drop piece, begin by tacking the ribbon to the top center of the front piece. Place two pieces with wrong (back) sides together and sew as you did for the large piece. When there is a small opening left to sew, stuff full of poly-fil and sew closed. Et Voila! You now have a cute hanging ornament!


Other Ideas:
Make it a Sachet ~ Fill the large piece with dried lavender buds and hang it in your closet.
Make it a modern mobile ~ Print the template in it’s original size, and then again at 150%, and maybe one more time at 200%. Make a few of each size and hang with strong ‘invisible thread’ over a child’s crib or bed.

Template:

Bio:
Jennifer Lang is a stay-at-home mom to one daughter (Sadie) and one Chihuahua (Oliver), and a lover of art and craftiness, and so created a small handmade business named, {drum roll please}, ‘Sadie & Oliver’.
She blogs here: http://www.sadieandoliver.ca/
She sells her wares here: http://www.sadieandoliver.etsy.com/
She tweets here: www.twitter.com/sadieandoliver

Thanks Jennifer for a great post! Make sure to check out her awesome stuff on Etsy! Can't wait to try this new craft! If any of you would like to share your finished crafts that you have learned from Crafters Guru email me anoriginalbymary(at)pacbell(dot)net ! I would love to post your pix on the sidebar :)