Crafting for Valentine’s Day is so much fun – especially since you don’t have to put the decorations away after the holiday’s over. Hearts never go out of season!
This pretty heart garland is easy to make (Just one stitch! And there’s a link to a video showing you how to do it!) and it’s a great way to use up tiny felt scraps and stray bits of thread. 🙂
Want the pattern? Here’s the link to download it. It’s free!
Here’s a free felt bird pattern for you to play with! Her name is Daisy. 🙂
Want to make her? All it takes is some felt, a bit of stuffing, and a few easy embroidery stitches. And a pattern, of course. 🙂
She uses just half a sheet of wool-blend felt for the body (I used purple sage, but it’s since been discontinued), a few small scraps for the beak and comb (I used strawberry dream and straw), and embroidery thread in your favorite colors.
You can find links to sources for all my favorite supplies here.
Comb - lazy daisy for the flower with DMC #152 and the leaves with DMC #320. Backstitch the stem with DMC #320.
Step 3
Cut out each piece carefully on the lines. Be sure not to cut into any of your stitching!
Soak the pieces in cool water to remove the stabilizer. I like to soak them for about an hour, then rinse off the mushy stabilizer under cool running water. Use a kitchen sprayer to get off any stubborn bits. Let them dry flat on a towel. Don’t wring them out - just lay them on a towel dripping wet. They’ll dry overnight.
From here on all the sewing is whipstitch around the edges of the felt. I used two strands of floss for all whipstitching. DMC #326 matches the strawberry dream felt I used for the comb, and DMC #161 matches the purple sage I used for the body.
Step 4
Put comb pieces together, right sides facing out, and stitch all the way around the edge. You’ll end up with three comb pieces.
Step 5
Repeat Step 3 for the wings, pairing one embroidered wing with one blank wing.
The blank sides of the wings will go up against the bird’s body where you can’t see them.
Step 6
Place the two body pieces right sides facing out, with the comb pieces sandwiched between the layers. Stitch the body pieces together along the top edge of the body. Stop when you get to the tip of the tail, but don’t tie off your thread.
When you get to the tip of the tail, slip the belly piece into place. The narrow end is the tail, and the wider end is the breast.
Stitch one body piece to one side of the belly piece. When you get to the front, stop stitching, but don’t tie off your thread.
Step 8
Go back to stitching the two body pieces together, this time stitching up the front of the face.
Slip the beak in between the two layers, right up at the top of the face, and stitch through it as you go.
Tie off your thread when you get to the top of the face.
Step 9
Flip the bird over.
Start a new piece of thread and stitch the free side of the body to the free side of the belly, starting at the front tip of the belly.
Stitch for a few inches, then tie off your thread.
Step 10
With a new piece of thread, stitch the rest of the body closed from the tail to the other side of the stuffing opening you started in Step 9.
Stuff the body neatly. You can add plastic pellets if you like, for weight, but this shape doesn’t need it for balance.
Step 11
Sew up the rest of the stuffing opening.
Now she’s just waiting for wings!
Thread a long needle and knot the end. Start sewing underneath one wing, near the front. Sew through the body and out the other side, through the opposing wing. Take a small stitch back into the wing, through the body and out through the first wing. Stitch back and forth like this a few times to secure the wings. Don’t pull the thread too tight or you’ll distort the shape of her body. Knot your thread underneath one wing and bury the tail.
Done!
Isn’t she a beauty? I think this design would also be very pretty stitched up with a single color thread on a single color felt. White thread on this purple sage would be lovely! You’ll just have to make another. :)
Update – I decided to stitch up a new version of Daisy with different colors. Look how pretty she is in this cream felt! (It’s actually called straw.)
Since she’s all hand-sewn, this free felt bird pattern is a great portable summer project. Take Daisy to the beach, to the pool, camping, on long car trips – you get the idea. 🙂
Happy stitching!
Play with some felt! Try the Oddballs – a fun pattern for silly monsters.
Seriously – every time I try this stuff on something new I’m even more impressed with it.
Here’s the scoop on using it with wool felt. . .
Print your pattern onto the stabilizer. Stick it to the felt. Rough cut around each piece.
See? It’s easy to transfer your pattern. And it sticks very well to the felt.
Stitch right through the felt and stabilizer. (Don’t zone out and stitch the outside lines – those are your cutting lines. Not that I’ve ever done that. ahem.) You don’t need a hoop for this – the felt is sturdy enough to stitch through without it. After you’re done stitching, cut the pieces out on the cutting lines.
See? Beautiful stitching and nice, accurate cutting.
Soak off the stabilizer.
See? Not a trace of stabilizer and no ugly marks. All ready to sew!
The soaking. I know this is the part that you’re worried about. Normally I soak it off in a bowl of warm water, then rinse it under running water. I do the same thing for felt, only the water is cold. I don’t want to pebble the surface of the felt by getting too warm with it. I fill a bowl with cold water, then drop the embroidered felt in face down and let it sit for a long time – sometimes as much an an hour or more, depending on what else I get busy with. When I come back the stabilizer is all swollen and mushy and, depending on how much stitching there is, kind of clinging to the felt. Time to rinse.
I rinse it under running water – again cold. The stuff does cling a bit more to fuzzy felt than it does to smooth cotton, but the running water takes it off pretty well. It comes off really fast if I switch my kitchen faucet to the sprayer, but just regular running water will work in time.
After all the gunk comes off, just lay it on a dry towel. For the best results I don’t wring it, twist it, or even press it. Just set it sopping wet on the towel and leave it alone. It will dry – I promise. And look how pretty the results are!
I left the picture nice and big – click on it to really zoom in and look at the texture of the felt. No pebbling! No stray marks!
So – no more frustration transferring your pattern to lovely-to-stitch-on but impossible-to-trace-through and difficult-to-write-on fuzzy felt. Use Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy and feel only peace, joy and felty happiness. 🙂
This little felt bird was such a delight to make! Seriously – I loved every minute of it. I want to make a whole flock of them in rainbow colors! And now you can make her too.
Flora is all hand sewn from wool blend felt and colorful embroidery thread, making her an easy, portable project, perfect for carrying around in your purse.
Transfer the pattern to the felt. When I discovered Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy it changed my life. I made a video showing how awesome it is here. I call it The Magical Embroidery Stuff and I use it for everything. Here I’ve printed the pattern directly onto the Sulky Sticky Fabric-solvy, roughly cut around each piece, and stuck it to my felt.
Step 2 Stitch the design. I used two strands of embroidery thread and the following stitches: backstitch for all lines, French knots for all dots, lazy daisy stitch for the flowers. (Those links all go to video tutorials for each stitch.)
Stitch right through the stabilizer and the felt.
Step 3 Cut out the shapes.
Step 4 Soak off the stabilizer and let the pieces dry.
I lay the pieces face down in a bowl of cold water and just let them sit there for about an hour. Longer is fine – I’ve forgotten mine and let them soak overnight with no problem. The soaking will make the stabilizer all mushy and soft. Rinse it off under cold water. Use a kitchen sprayer if needed to get off any stubborn bits, but try not to rub the surface of the felt. Lay them out on a towel to dry. Don’t wring them, twist them or even smoosh them – just lay them dripping wet on the towel and leave them alone.
Step 8 Sew up the back, starting at the tip of the tail. Stop sewing about halfway up the back and stuff the tail. Mix a few large nuts (from the hardware store) into the stuffing to weight her bottom, otherwise she’ll tend to tip forward. Sew up a bit higher on her back and stuff in more stuffing. Finish sewing and stuffing until she’s nice and plump, and all sewn up.
Step 9 Pin the wings in place, one on each side of the body.
Use the grid pattern you embroidered to line them up exactly. Thread a long needle and knot the end. Starting sewing underneath one wing, near the top. Sew through the body and out the other side, through the opposing wing. Take a small stitch back into the wing, through the body and out through the first wing. Stitch back and forth like this a few times to secure the wings. Don’t pull the thread too tight or you’ll distort the shape of her body. Knot your thread underneath one wing and bury the tail.
She’s finished! don’t you want to sew a whole flock of these beauties?
Howdy everyone! This is the last video in the little felt mini-series I’ve been running. In this one I show you how to attach limbs to your felt softie.
I demonstrate it with an arm, but you could use the same technique to attach a beak, antennae, tentacles – anything that might be growing out of your softie.
You can also use ladder stitch to attach things like this, but I like the look of the whipstitch here.
You might be a little daunted at sewing a flat bottom to what is essentially a tube of fabric – but it’s really not that tricky.
There are two techniques – one for use with larger pieces going through the sewing machine, the other for smaller, hand sewn felt softies. I’ve got a photo tutorial for the first one and a video for the second one – because the second method involves faith and I know some of you won’t believe it until you see it. 🙂
Sewing a Flat Bottom With the Sewing Machine
Cut your round foot and sew your leg or body into a tube. Do not freak out when you think about putting them together. We’re going to break it up into sections and take it one section at a time.
Fold the round part in half and put a pin in the fold at each side. Open it up. Fold it in half the other way, so the pins match up, and put pins in the two new folds. You’ve divided the circle into perfect fourths without using a protractor. 🙂
Now we’ll divide the leg into fourths. Fold it in half so the seam is at one fold. Put a pin in the opposite fold. Now refold it so the pin and the seam match up and put two pins in the new folds. See? Perfect fourths – no measuring.
Put the two pieces together, matching pins.
Now take it just one quadrant at a time, fitting the curve of the round piece to the edge of the tube. Add more pins as needed. Fleece (like I’m using in this photo) is a dream to do this with. The fleece just stretches right into the curve and doesn’t need many pins. Non-stretchy fabrics might need a few more. I like to divide the quadrant in half and put in a pin. Then if it needs more, divide each half in half and put in a pin. Keep going until you feel like it’s all held together neatly – then run the thing through the sewing machine. I like to sew with the flat part down so I can see (and control) the excess fabric in the tube.
Sewing a Flat Foot by Hand
For smaller, hand sewn felt softies it’s even easier – but you do need to have faith in your pattern designer. It looks like there’s NO WAY this the little round bit will fit on the tube – but it will. I show you the whole process in one shot from start to finish.
See? That flat bottom fits right on there – almost like I used math or something to calculate the exact size needed. Which is exactly what I did – and then I tested it a couple of times to make sure I did that math right. 🙂
(In case you’re curious, that’s whipstitch I’m using to sew the foot on. There’s a tutorial here showing how to do it.)
Ready? Go give your softies some flat feet and cute sittable bottoms. 🙂
When you’re working with felt, the basic mechanics of how to whipstitch are the same. But felt is a little different than regular fabric – it’s thicker and you don’t have to turn the edges under. These make it a delightful fabric to work with (especially wool felt) but they also mean that there are a couple of new things to think about when you whipstitch on it. That’s what I show you in this video.
Now here are a few examples so you can see it in use. . .
See that teddy bear that Bean is snuggling? He’s made entirely by hand with whipstitch – including the applique for his belly and nose.
That’s Freddie the tiny teddy bear and you can get his pattern here. It’s super simple – really easy for beginners to make and a great first felt project.
Want a fancier bear? This guy is also made almost entirely with whipstitch.
The only place I used different stitches are the flowers on his hat and the grid on his coat.
His name is Benedict and you can get his pattern here. He looks really complicated, but he’s also really easy to make. Once you’ve made Freddie, you can easily move on to Benedict.
You can see lots more felt patterns here – all hand sewing and almost all made with easy peasy whipstitch.
Happy stitching!
Play with some felt! Try the Oddballs – a fun pattern for silly monsters.
Want to learn the basics of hand embroidery with an easy online workshop – totally free?
Sign up for Embroidery 101 here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, the four most basic stitches, how to transfer your pattern and how to display your work.
If you already know the basics – sign up for Embroidery 201. It’s also free! You’ll learn how to stitch on specialty fabrics like felt and stretchy T-shirts. Plus you’ll learn lots and lots and LOTS more stitches – all my favorites!
You all liked this adorable little Oddball with his bunny slippers, his teddy bear, and his blankie. But you have to blanket stitch around the edge of the blankie and several of you reminded me that I haven’t done a video for that yet (even though you’ve been asking very nicely).
Done!
Not only do I show you how to blanket stitch – I show you how to do it without any knots. No knots! So it looks perfectly perfect everywhere! And for those who are really obsessed with perfection, I show you how to mark the fabric before stitching so all your stitches are perfectly spaced.
Here’s the video. . .
I show this on felt because I’m currently obsessed with felt, but you can use the same technique on fleece if you like.
Ready? Go blanket stitch something! Here’s the Floyd pattern if you want to start with his blankie. 🙂 And here’s some felt if you have a different project in mind.
Happy stitching!
Best, Wendi
Play with some felt! Try the Oddballs – a fun pattern for silly monsters.
I love working with wool blend felt – and I’m going to be doing more of it this year so I finally started carrying it in the shop. Lovely, luscious wool blend felt in 48 gorgeous colors! It feels so nice in the hands, it embroiders beautifully, and it’s so nice for hand sewing small softies. And wool felt wears so much better than the icky acrylic felt that you find in the big box craft stores. It’s just lovely!
Not so lovely is the trick of transferring an embroidery pattern to it and cutting out fussy small pieces. There are a couple of tricks and products that make these things so easy – and that’s what I’m sharing with you today.
Let’s take embroidery first. You can’t trace the pattern – the felt is too thick to see through. You don’t want to simply draw on it – that lifts the fibers on the surface. But there is a magical solution!
For all stitching on felt I use Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy. Yes – it works beautifully on felt too! Just make sure to soak it off in COLD water. Hot (or even very warm) water will pebble the surface of the felt and shrink it a bit. I don’t use ice cold water, but I definitely stick to tepid or cold. Just let it sit in the bowl for a good bit and it will dissolve away nicely – then rinse off the clingy bits under running water. DON’T wring it out. DON’T twist it. Just take it out of the water, set it on a towel and walk away. It will dry – I promise. The Magical Embroidery Stuff also works great on darker colors. You can see it in action in this video.
What about cutting small felt pieces for patterns? Pinning little pieces distorts the felt, making it hard to cut out small shapes nicely. You can’t use pattern weights – they’re too big for small pieces. I use freezer paper. Trace the pattern pieces to freezer paper, iron to the felt so they stick in place with no shifting, cut them out and peel off the paper. Magic! Except for the tracing bit. I’ve been known to print out my pattern pieces and then glue the pages to freezer paper so I don’t have to trace. I hate it that much. The last time I was doing that I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could print the pattern directly onto freezer paper? I wonder if anyone makes printable freezer paper?” Well, guess what? THEY DO! I’m in love! And I bought some for my shop so you can fall in love too. 🙂 You can find it here.
What if you’re embroidering and cutting out pattern pieces? For that I go back to The Magical Embroidery Stuff. Man – that stuff really is magical. 🙂
I show you how to use both the printable freezer paper and Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy with felt in this video – including talking a bit about which product is better in different situations. (That monster pattern is Byron the Oddball. I love him.)
So – enjoy the felt! Enjoy the new I’ll-never-trace-again product! And happy stitching!
Make a sweet little softie with this free felt chicken pattern.
These simple little hens can be so many things!
Fill them with heavy aquarium gravel and you have some pretty dang fancy pattern weights.
Fill them with lightweight Poly-fil Stuffing and add a loop to the back and you have a pretty ornament for your tree.
Fill them with plastic pellets and you have a pocket-sized softie that sits in the palm of your hand.
These felt chickens are hand-sewn from scraps and a bit of embroidery thread and take about an hour to make. Want a little quiet handwork for couch-potato time? This is the perfect project. And it’s FREE!
Cut out all the pieces. I don’t like to trace onto felt, because I don’t want even a tiny bit of that marking line to show on the finished piece. I trace or print my pattern pieces onto freezer paper, cut them out roughly, fuse them to the felt, and then cut around the edge.
It’s a nice way to cut clean, precise shapes.
Step 2
You’ll need two body pieces, one gusset, one beak, and one comb.
Step 3
Transfer the dots you’ll use as guidelines for stitching the wings.
I don’t like to draw the whole wing shape because the thread of my Ustitches might not sit right on that line, so I just mark the dots where each stitch will start, stop, and be tacked down.
Step 4
Stitch the wings in a contrasting color (I like to match the beak and comb color) using the U-stitchand four strands of embroidery thread.
If you want really precise lines you can use backstitch, split stitch, or stem stitch, but the tight curves at the tips of the wings won’t be loads of fun in any of those stitches.
Step 5
Lay the gusset along the bottom edge of one of the body pieces and stitch the two layers together using a running stitch and four strands of thread. If you use 36 inches of thread you’ll have enough to sew the whole hen without having to knot off and start a new thread. Sneaky. :)
I would normally use thread that matches
the chicken body. I used contrasting here
just so you could see it better.
You could use whipstitch instead of running stitch - choose the look you like.
Step 6
When you get to the end of the gusset piece, layer the second body piece with the first one.
Pin the beak between the two layers and start stitching your way up the front of the hen’s face.
Step 7
Stitch up to the top of the hen’s head.
Step 8
Slip the comb in between the two layers at the back of the head and stitch the rest of the way across the top of the body.
A little felt chicken – all finished. Right? It looks like it’s done, doesn’t it?
Step 9
Not quite. Turn it around and you can see that you still need to sew the bottom part of the other side of the body.
Line up the body edge with the gusset edge and keep stitching.
Step 10
Sew most of the way along the bottom edge.
When the opening is just big enough to slip your thumb inside, stop stitching but leave your thread tail there. I even leave it threaded on my needle.
Step 11
Tuck a tiny pinch of Polyfil stuffing in the head and another in the tail. Work it right up into the points.
If you’re making a tree ornament, fill the
whole body with Polyfil stuffing.
If you’re making a pattern weight, add two
tablespoons of aquarium gravel.
If you’re making a softie, add two
tablespoons of plastic pellets.
Step 12
Pick the needle and thread back up and finish stitching across the bottom of the chicken. Tie a knot and bury the tail inside the hen.
You’re done! Better make another - chickens don’t like to live alone. Now even felt chickens!
Happy stitching!
Play with some felt! Try the Oddballs – a fun pattern for silly monsters.
Crafting for Valentine’s Day is so much fun – especially since you don’t have to put the decorations away after the holiday’s over. Hearts never go out of season!
