Tutorial for an Easy Padded Ornament

It's so hard to believe, but another holiday season is upon us! After what has been an incredibly challenging and difficult year for many, I know I'm not the only stitcher behind on Christmas gift stitching right now. So I'm sharing an older step-by-step photo tutorial - Final Finish: A Snowflake in Summer! - from way back in August 2013 that is perfect for last minute ornament assembly!

This type of flat, padded stitched ornament with twisted cording edging and tassel is the standard way of finishing stitched ornaments in my family, and I first learned how to do it from my Stitchy Guru Mother many years ago. These days, I've been experimenting more with ornaments laced over cardboard, for a firmer structured look, but these quick padded ornaments are great for sending in the mail - they are unbreakable and light! This makes them extremely easy to store too.

Here's an example of the step-by-step photos I took while making my ornament - here I'm showing how to make the padded insert from two layers of quilt batting. I hope you'll find the tutorial helpful, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments or e-mail me (my address is in the sidebar under the pretty postage stamps)! You can read more about the beautiful snowflake design - a freebie from Wyrdbyrd Designs - and my stitch choices in the original post. 

I added a lot of sparkle with seed beads and metallic thread!

If you make an ornament of your own using this tutorial, I'd love to see it! As the years pass by and I grow older, family traditions like these little padded ornaments mean so much more to me. They are stitched with love, and that is what really matters ❤ Wherever you are and however you are celebrating this year, I wish you health, happiness, creativity and much stitchy joy!!!

❄ Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year from Eglantine Stitchery ❄

GG: Stitching Finish - Tiny Sheep Trio

Stitching Finish! Sheep Trio
February 2019 Design from Cotton & Twine Boxes
(won in a Giveaway, for more information please read this post)
* Crafty bonus: the photo background is a Pineapple Doily that I crocheted! *

Finally, and at long last, my first Gifted Gorgeousness of the year! Although I'm a little late to the party, Jo kindly leaves the linky open until the end of the month, and I'm so happy to be able to jump in with this stitching finish 😊 GG is a great relaxed SAL to encourage stitchers to work on gift projects - either things they have received as gifts, or are giving as gifts. As I won this kit as part of a Giveaway, it was a gift to me!

Although the February Cotton & Twine Box come with a cute floral printed hoop to use for finishing this project (which you can see in my last post) you may notice that this hoop is plain. That's because as I was stitching this cute design I thought the slightly oval shape of the floral frame would make a beautiful Easter Egg! Indeed, I even bought some backing fabric and floss to make an eggy ornament but I ran out of time and Easter has come and gone. So I think I may leave it as is until next year, and then decide 😉

This was a cute, fun Spring design to stitch that worked up quickly! Although the kit instructions said to use two strands of floss, I used three (as I usually do) for a plumper look and I had plenty of floss with the exception of one of the greens. Helpfully, the floss card listed the DMC numbers so I was easily able to substitute a strand from my own stash. This is also very useful if you would like to stitch multiples of the same project.

I shared some progress pictures on my Instagram as I went, and I enjoyed watching the project grow from three teeny tiny sheep 🐑🐑🐑...

...to three sheep in a field of daisies 🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼...

...to three sheep among in daisies, standing under a heart ❤🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼❤:

And finally, the end result: three adorably teeny tiny sheep frolicking in a daisy-filled meadow, under a floral arbor crowned with a heart! 🌸❤🌼🐑🐑🐑🌼❤🌸

For the Easter Egg ornament, I bought some more floss in the pretty pink colour of the central heart to make some cording for the edging, and some coordinating mottled pink cotton fabric for the back. I was hoping to find some sheep print fabric but no luck this year! Maybe that will be my excuse for waiting until next year for final-finishing it - trying to find the right fabric 😂

Did you stitch anything for Easter or Spring this year?
Or are you planning anything for Summer?!

❤🎄 A Very Merry Christmas! 🎄❤

❤ The Greatest Gift is Love ❤
My Variation of a Lizzie*Kate design from the
Just Cross Stitch 2001 Christmas Ornament Special

(There's a lovely finish of the design by Anne on Flickr here, closer to the original)

Hope you're getting into the Christmas Spirit! It's been a little hard for my family this year, as it's our second Christmas without my beloved Grandpa. He died on Christmas Day 2016, and last year was a blur - I have no idea how we got through it to be honest. This year his loss is always in our thoughts, and the grief hits hard at the strangest times. So I stitched this little ornament as reminder to us all that it's not the Holiday hustle and bustle that matters, but the time we spend together and the memories that we make 😊

I really enjoyed working on this, and it stitched up quickly! My first idea was to stitch everything with beads, but the lettering looked too wobbly, since I was using inexpensive silver-lined seed beads that have a pretty sparkle but unfortunately aren't a regular size. So I settled for beading the star and the border, which I turned into little red flowers with gold centers. The lettering is in metallic floss, for some extra sparkle ✨

In keeping with the sparkle, I found this beautiful glittered gold fabric for the back! It is so lovely, especially in the Christmas lights - it looks like it's sprinkled with real gold dust 💛 Unfortunately I had trouble capturing that in the photo.

And I used some of my favourite cording, a red-gold-green tinsel cording I found at Michaels a few years ago (and really wish I'd bought more of!):

It's a little challenging to attach, but I've found that sewing through the trim with invisible thread does the trick. And the end result is fantastically sparkly! I tried to capture all that pretty glitter, and this is the closest I could get (sorry it's a bit dark):

You can see a little bit of that gorgeous silver-lined seed bead shine on the star ⭐

2018 has been an interesting stitchy year for me! Although I haven't been able to do nearly as much with the blog as I'd hoped, I joined Instagram and have greatly enjoyed the huge stitchy community over there. I was awed and incredibly thankful for the support my Joyful Jester entry to the SFSNAD Stitch At Home Challenge brought 🤗 And I've been having a ton of fun experimenting with hand embroidery.

Hopefully 2019 will bring more stitchy time, for all of us! 😄

Best Wishes for A Very Happy Holidays, and a Stitchtacular New Year!

Autumn Leaves Applique & Ornaments

It's so hard to believe that the end of November is already upon us! And it's even more difficult to credit that Christmas is just around the corner - EEK!!! I try to get ready earlier every year, and yet somehow seem to fall further behind LOL ;)

This year, I decided to make something to bridge the gap between Hallowe'en and the Holidays, and I ended up with this little picture of falling leaves. It's a sort of surface applique technique that I've never tried before, and it was fun and quick to stitch!

I had been thinking about finding some leaf patterns online (there's a nice simple template here) and cutting them out of felt or fabric myself, but then I discovered these pre-cut felt Autumn Leaves at the local dollar store (20 pieces for $1.25!):

I've never used felt pre-cuts like this before, but they seem to be very popular for papercrafting, card-making and scrapbooking. There were three sizes in this pack, a large red maple leaf and then two smaller yellow and green maple shapes.

The large red leaves were nice and thick, but the green felt was very thin, and some of the pieces were misprinted with the lines running off the edges of the leaves. But that was okay, because I flipped them over and used them for the backs :)

So I started out making single-leaf ornaments first, which I also used for the three appliques in the frame. I used three strands of DMC 3371 (Black Brown) and a sharp embroidery needle and embellished the lines already printed on the leaves:

I did the main veins in sewing-style Stem Stitch and just used Straight Stitch for the side veins. Fly Stitch would also work well. I started with the bottom of the center vein, worked up to the top, then worked the right side - going up the center vein and adding the branch veins on the way back down - and then over and up the left side.

At first, I was trying to keep both sides of the leaf roughly symmetrical, but I soon realized that it was quicker and looked better if the stitches were a little sketchy!

Because the backing would cover it, I stitched all the way through the felt (which you can see in the last photo in the collage above). Although the stitching was simple and quick to do, I really like the dimension it gave to the leaves :)

Adding a second pre-cut leaf as a backing added nicely to that 3-D effect:

Although I tried using Blanket Stitch for the edges, it flattened out the sharp little dips in the leaf edge, so I settled on Whip Stitch instead. I spaced them randomly, following the contours of the edges - which were asymmetrical - again using three strands of DMC in the shade that matched the leaf most closely.

When I had my three appliques for the frame, and an additional red and yellow maple ornament, I tried a variation using two different leaf sizes/colours layered together. I really like the way these turned out, but since the backs of the ornaments were left showing, I had to do the stitching sewing-style into the top layer of the felt (instead of the regular "stab" style going all the way through), which turned out to be much more finicky and time-consuming. I think I took out more stitches than I put in LOL ;)

And finally, for the framed piece I used three of the single-leaf appliques:

I had this inexpensive 5 x 7 picture frame (another dollar store find!) leftover from another project that didn't work out, and I arranged the leaves in a floaty falling design. When I was happy with the placement, I sewed them onto some pretty aubergine cotton fabric with matching thread. I focused on attaching the centers firmly, and anchoring the bases on the points, leaving the tips free to curl up a little.

As you can see, this let the leaves stand off from the fabric:

Please excuse the fuzzies in this photo - they're from the felt!

Then I dug up some sparkly flat silver cording from my Stitchy Guru Mother's stash, and set about making "wind gusts" with it! I tried couching it first, but after some experimenting, I decided to stitch through the middle of the cord with the Quilter's friend, Invisible Thread (there's a short Craftsy article on the thread here).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out! My red maple leaf and the center gusty curlique were a little too close to the edge once I mounted the fabric on some mat board and popped it in the frame, but it has been nice to see this reminder of Autumn on my bookcase this season :) The ornaments I've hung up above the frame on the living room wall with my little stitchy smalls, and they brighten up the room.

Although it's probably too late to find pre-cut felt leaves, this type of embroidery could easily be adapted to any shape or Season. In fact, I'm really hoping to find some pre-cut felt snowflakes and do a similar thing for Winter! Maybe with some sparkly silver metallic thread? And beads?! (Oooh...doesn't that sound nice?) Once you get the hang of it, it's quick and easy mostly mindless stitching - and it's very relaxing to take a break and do something simple like this every now and again.

Adieu Autumn! and Welcome Winter!

Although I'm unfortunately behind again in my stitchy blog visiting and reading, this is the time of year that a lot of us start to sum up the Stitching Year That Was and talk about our goals for the New Year. Well - my year was a bust LOL! I only made one entry into Jo's wonderful Gifted Gorgeousness SAL, and all my plans went awry.

But that's okay, because it leaves me a lot of things to try next year :) I would really like to give my Sampler of Stitches (SOS) a solid shot, although I'm still not entirely sure how to go about it. There's something to be said for just winging it and trying to figure it out as you go along, and that's where I am right now with everything ;)

Santa Claus is soon coming to town!

Usually this time of year, I'm stressed out already with a huge list of Christmas gift stitching projects - almost as long as Kris Kringle's there! - that I desperately want to catch up with - most of which are never even started let alone finished - but this year I'm doing something a little different for a change. I have a few projects I've meant to stitch up or final-finish off for myself and never got around to doing.

So I'm going to make those poor neglected stitcheries my priority this year! All the ones that have waited patiently to be finished off while I put them away time and again in favour of something else and  for lack of time. I wonder if there's a special place for them, like the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)?

If so, hopefully I can rescue a few during the next few weeks ;)

Can you believe no child wanted the Elephant with his cute pink polka dots?!

How about you? What are your (non-Super Secret Gifty) Holiday Stitching plans?

Free - Berlin Woolwork Rose Medallion

Based on an Historical Embroidery Design by Sarah Bland

From the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum Online Collection

Download the FREE .PDF Pattern from my Dropbox: Rose Medallion

Please Note: You may see a screen asking you to create a Dropbox account, but you do NOT need to create an account to view and save the file; just click the grey "x" at the right top corner of the screen to go to the file. If you have any problems downloading, please let me know - my e-mail is in my sidebar :)

This lovely little rose is actually an old project from 2013! On one hand it's hard to believe that it's been so long since I made it, and on the other hand it's something I treasure so much that it sort of feels like it's been a part of my life forever ;)

It all started when I was searching through the wonderful online collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), and came across this Berlin Woolwork pattern that is part of a larger personal project album designed by Sarah Bland (1810-1905):

Image used for non-commercial purposes © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Isn't it amazing that a design drawn over 100 years ago still looks so vibrant today?!

I was very taken with the rose filling motif, and recharted my own version:

This was actually the first piece of Berlin Woolwork that I've recharted and stitched; the second was the Key and Ribbon I shared last year as part of the Stitch From Stash (SFS) Challenge - it's tiny because it's stitched over 1 on 28 count Evenweave:

As a matter of fact, I actually chose most of the colours for the Key from this project!

I wanted to keep the feel of the original octagonal medallion, and although at first I considered keeping the orange, yellow and turquoise at the corners, I eventually decided to add gold corners in the style of Victorian photo-albums as a frame:

Before Background Fill / After Background Fill

And then I filled in the background with solid white, which finally gave the rose the proper needlework look! Berlin Woolwork was worked with brightly coloured wools that contrasted so strongly we would consider them clashing on needlework canvas, and so the backgrounds were almost always fully stitched with patterns or solids.

So leaving the Aida cloth (14 count white, all cross-stitch with three strands of floss) unstitched made the work look unfinished. With that in mind, I also added a row of white outside the frame, so it would be filled edge-to-edge.

While I was stitching this project, I took lots of photos intending to make a step-by-step tutorial - unfortunately, most of them did not turn out, which is why I decided not to post about it. It wasn't until recently when I was talking to Karen about fine crochet and final-finishing that I remembered how much I loved this rose :)

But after some digging, I was able to find some photos of the process to share!

I made a basic Padded Ornament, just like I did in my Blackwork Snowflake Tutorial:

It was a total accident that I left my opening at the side instead of the top!

But I did something entirely different for the edging, and crocheted into the Aida blocks! I used size 10 South Maid crochet cotton in White and a 1.00 mm (size 10) hook. I worked a row of single crochet all around as a base and then added simple Shell Stitches for the trim and a little hanging loop at the top:

It was fun to work, and was the perfect finishing touch for the rose :) I backed the ornament with a scrap of the beautiful gold velveteen I used in my Floral Heart.

And that's it!! Out of all the many projects that I've made over the years, this sweet simple rose is one of my very favourites, and ever since I finished it, it's been hanging in my living room on a little brass picture frame hook and cheering me up everyday :)

If you stitch up a Berlin Woolwork Rose Medallion of your own, I'd love to see it!

Thanks very much to Karen, for her interest in this project, without which this post would very likely never have been written ;)

SFS Month #4 - A Special Easter Egg!

Although Easter has come and gone and this post is a bit late, I wanted to share my second project for this month. I was working on it feverishly to get it posted up for the Holiday weekend, but this design is one of those that ended up going off in an entirely different direction to what I was imagining. Thankfully, despite all the twists and turns it took and the merry chase it led me on, I do like it and hope you will too!

(This story is a little long, so if you'd just like to see the SFS info, it's right at the end).

When I first signed up for SFS, I decided that my personal goal would be aimed not towards reducing spending as such but towards actually *stitching* from my stash. That hasn't worked out so far (for happy reasons!), but this project fits that goal :)

From the 2011 Christmas Ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine, this egg is "Christmas My Way", by Keslyn's Designs. You can see a version of the original stitched up at this blog. It's full of pretty Specialty Stitches that the designer calls "Sym-Stitches", based on Symmography, or "String Art" (like this lovely example).

Way back when the issue first came out, I bought it just for this little egg pattern, thinking it would look beautiful in soft pastel colours for Easter :) So I set about putting together such a colour palette, and choose these pretty colours:

From top to bottom on the stack, and left to right on the ring: 3824 (peach), 776 (pink), 744 (yellow), 955 (green), 157 (blue) and 210 (purple). Then I remembered that I had used those pink and yellow shades in my Chicken Scratch Heart, so I added in the pretty DMC Colour Variations in 4095 from that project:

I thought it would pull all the different coloured bands together, and it did look really nice up close. But it completely faded away even at arm's length, and I was hoping for this to be a wall ornament for seasonal display. So after much deliberation, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that they were all too light.

So I went back to my floss boxes and played around with combinations. It took me days to decide! Sounds ridiculous, I know. Usually playing with colours and pulling flosses is great fun for me, but I was getting really frustrated. I tried other variegated threads, with complimentary colours. Darker versions of the pastels. Even metallics!

Finally, I kept coming back to this beautiful bright turquoise, and this happened:

Easter Brights! From top to bottom on the stack, and left to right on the ring: 209 (purple), 956 (pink), 703 (green), 743 (yellow) and 3846 (turquoise). And when these colours finally came together, I actually wondered why, exactly, I was thinking of Easter as pastels? New grass green, crocus purple, fluffly chick yellow...it fits!

Special Easter Variation of of "Christmas My Way" by Keslyn's Designs

Here's my finished Egg! Now, this is the first time I've stitched over one on 28 count Evenweave (by M.C.G. Textiles). I really missed the easy counting of Aida blocks, and I had some trouble with the stitch spacing initially, especially the big diamonds on the center line. I ended up taking out almost as many stitches as I put in ;) But by then I was really enjoying the colours and the different stitches, so I kept going.

Here is the Easter Egg before and after beading:

Of course, I did change a few things along the way :) I replaced the second row from the top with Diamond Eyelets, to echo the Half Eyelets on the center band border. The original stitch was very heavy and took away from the Rhodes Hearts directly below it. I also added some more rays on the topmost element to make it fuller, and made some minor adjustments to the Stand at the bottom to fit in all the colours!

But my favourite bit of Spontaneous Stitching is the little polka dots in the center band of the Egg, and the one in the center of the Stand. These are Rhodes Octagons, but at the time I was just fiddling around with thread and liked the shape!

After I added the polka dots, I almost left the beads off altogether! The original calls for Mill Hill Petites in Red, so I had pulled my trusty favourite Mill Hill metallic golds instead to work with this palette. I was thinking of using a regular Seed Bead in each center of the Diamonds, and the Petites everywhere else. I actually stitched a few on, but it really drew the attention away from the Specialty Stitches, so that was out.

Finally, I remembered some pretty little crystals I had left from another project and discovered that they fit the spaces in the centers of the Diamonds perfectly! Happily serendipitous :) They are 4mm faceted Rounds, in AB (Aurora Borealis) finish - that pretty rainbow shine look - from Jolee's Jewels, which is now Create Your Style with Swarovski Elements. The Mill Hills are regular size, #00161, in clear AB.

Since they are mostly translucent, it's hard to see where I added them all!

The beading ended up being my favourite element of my Easter Egg, and it is SO hard to capture all the sparkle! Nothing shines like Swarovski, and in full sun the three center crystals transform into tiny prisms, letting off rainbow flashes in the light :)

My SFS for April, Month #4: Finishing Supplies

As I mentioned, my plan is to turn this little Egg into a padded wall ornament to hang up and enjoy every Easter Season :) After my first project this month, my Chicken Scratch Easter Egg, this the only other thing I've stitched for Easter.

So I didn't have any Easter or Springy prints to use as backing fabric. Honestly, although I was secretly hoping for a small eggy print, I was resigned to settling for plain coordinating cotton at the most. And that eggy print I was trying hard not to want would have to be REALLY small - the Easter Egg turned out very little indeed:

The stitched motif is only roughly 1 1/2 inches wide and 3 inches tall! So imagine my surprise and utter delight when The Great Stitchy Karma Gods smiled upon me and granted me this most wonderful gift:

Eggy fabric! With Springy Flowers!! And Little Chicks!!! And Bunnies!!!! WITH FLUFFLY, FLOOMFY TAILS!!!!! *Ahem* I may still be a little bit excited :)

Can you blame me? Easter Joy! Every time I pull this fabric out to peek at it, I can't help but smile. And there was lovely turquoise Grosgrain ribbon to match too!

My SFS Total: I bought the smallest cut off the bolt, .02 of a meter, for $2.99, and paid $2.20 for 2 meters of ribbon. With tax, my spending totaled $6.57 CA. That leaves me with $18.43 from this month's $25 allowance, and $58.52 in the Bank.

Truly, my family and I had a wonderfully blessed Easter Holiday, and I hope you and yours did as well :) Even though I was disappointed that I didn't Final Finish this little ornament in time, I do intend to try to get it done now so we can enjoy it next year!

The Stitch For Stash (SFS) SAL 2014 is hosted by Mel @ Epic Stitching