The fun with felt felt day started with me trying to use up scraps from my Santa napkins…
And then I found I had some mixed media tag dies as a bonus in an order from crafters companion… fifty tags as embellishments are now in the wrapping resource box!
Then I found that some of my ordinary dies cut felt as well as paper ( the outline ones anyway)
And a flock of French hens, turtle doves or partridges are now being cut, glued and stitched as tree decoration gifts…
A fun felt and glue project …
Many years ago my mother in law made us some Santa napkins. Hers were rolled hem red sheeting and Santa was sewn from fun fur with felt and google eyes. We use them every year and I wanted to spread with joy without making napkins, so a version using paper serviettes and felt was born.
her version has a triangular beard and straight top head but I preferred a combination of outlines I found on pinterest so drew this stencil with a 7 inch band. Felt is forgiving so have a go and scribble out your own version, but keep it simple enough to cut out cleanly.
To make…
trace your stencil onto white felt (thicker is better if you can find a roll of quality felt), I reversed my stencil to get some variation in beard direction
cut it out inside your trace lines so they don’t show on the finished version
cut a piece of flesh tone felt and hot glue it behind the face gap – I suggest you hold the felt with tweezers to avoid glue burns and help be precise-ish, tweezers also pull off any glue strands
hot glue on a red mini Pom Pom for the nose and googly eyes in a characterful position, tweezers again most useful
I added pinking shear cut felt strips as a moustache and tiny pieces for eyebrows then glued the band into a loop with about a one inch overlap
some people embroider on names or add other embellishments… I like this clean and simple version
If gifting a set of these include spare red serviettes to encourage reuse.
A long standing ‘to-do’ is finally done. It was so quick and easy I am inspired to make more.
This is another simple sew where you cut a long rectangle of fabric – here I used some Ikea fleece which I love as it is so forgiving.
I cut nearly 60 inches long (could have done with being 70 inches for less stretchy fabric) and 20 inches wide. I folded it in half (right sides in if the fabric isn’t double sided and then sewed a half inch seam down the long side leaving about four inches and top and bottom open.
I turned it right side out and twisted the tube once before matching up the short ends and sewing the ends together with a similar half inch seam. It works because you’ve left the four inch gaps, but if you get confused there are multiple ‘you tube’ tutorials to demonstrate how easy it is.
Pull the fabric straight and then machine or hand stitch the four inch gaps together (on fleece the stitches disappear) to finish the project off.
Tip: Apparently very long scarves which can be wound round multiple times are popular with younger wearers…
A quick sew which turned out more rustic than planned so will be used for picking up logs and coal.
I cut around the pockets of some old jeans making four pads from one pair and trimmed batting and a fabric remnant to match.
Making a sandwich with the pockets and fabric right sides out around the batting. I then sewed the raw edge of a strip of denim binding made from the same jeans (see previous post) to one side of the sandwich then flipped it over and sewed the folded edge to the other side.
The bulk made this a bumpy sew, so next time I will cut a bigger square around pockets and use traditional binding for a neater finish that can grace the kitchen.
Top tip: Although I have run out of insulbright I have worked out that old ironing board covers do just as good a job with less bulk…
janecrafts 