Tis the season to swap ornaments, and when I found these delightful fabrics and felt in my ReproDepot Box-o-love, I knew I had to do something with them. My requirements for my design included:
-Easy to make (I had to make 9)
-Easy/cheap to mail (see above)
-Traditional, yet not
I have been slightly obsessed with the deer templates in December's Martha Stewart Living, so I jumped off from there.
If you want to make these, you'll need:
-4 fat quarters of desired fabrics (the polka dots are from the Building Blocks Collection)
-1 sheet Essence felt (this is high quality- nice and thick, not like acrylic felt)
-Small amount quilt batting
-Iron-on adhesive or fabric glue
-Scissors
-Pinking Shears
-Sewing machine and thread
-Yarn, rickrack or ribbon (for hanger)
-Deer template or other desired shape to trace (you can do a google image search if you don't have the template and find a comparable cutie!)
Step 1: Iron a small amount of adhesive to the back of your fabric according to package instructions. (Note: Some people trace the template onto the adhesive and then iron it to the fabric and cut again. While this might save adhesive, I find that the applique is much less likely to fray if you iron the adhesive first, then do the cutting. Plus, then you only cut once). Pin deer template to fabric and cut out desired number of deer. Peel off paper backing from fabric, iron to second fabric. Repeat with other fabric combinations, if desired. With pinking shears, trim each piece of appliqued deer fabric into a rectangle.
Step 2: Cut appropriate number of batting rectangles, each sized slightly smaller than your deer rectangle. With pinking shears, cut the same number of felt rectangles, each sized slightly larger than the deer rectangle. Make a little sandwich for your machine with the following layers, starting from the bottom: Felt, yarn loop (or other desired hanger), batting, deer square. Pin them together if you like, then machine stitch all around the inside of the pinked fabric edge.
Voila! You have a super cute ornament that only costs 1 stamp to mail. Remember to make a few for yourself, too! Check out all of the ornament swap cuteness over at flickr for more inspiration. Happy Holidays!
