Make a simple ornament with this free felt matroyshka pattern, or use it to applique onto a phone case or anything else.
The links take you to a tutorial for any skill you’ll need.
What you’ll need. . .
- wool felt (I used scraps of lavender, blue bayou, banana cream, fuchsia, Tahitian sunset and blushing bride)
- embroidery thread (I used DMC #601, 726, 3846, 958, 3858 and 3371)
- Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy
You might also want. . .
- Thread Magic
- size #8 embroidery needle
You can find sources for all my favorite supplies here.
Trace or print the pattern onto Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy. Cut the pieces apart and stick them to the felt color indicated on the pattern piece.
Stitch right through the stabilizer.
Cut the pieces out right on the solid lines. Where there’s a dotted line, leave a little extra seam allowance. You can see that around the face, and at the top of the hair, apron and dress pieces in the photo.
Soak the stabilizer away in cold water. Let the pieces soak for a good long time, then rinse the softened stabilizer off under cold running water. Hit any stubborn bits with the kitchen sprayer, but don’t rub the surface of the felt.
Set them to dry on a towel. Don’t wring, twist or even smoosh them. Just let them dry.
Use two strands of thread for all stitching. You can, of course, use any colors and stitches you like, but here’s what I used on each piece. . .
For the dress, backstitch the vines and stripes with DMC #601 and #958. The leaves are lazy daisy stitches with DMC #958 and the dots are French knots with DMC #726.
Backstitch the mouth with DMC #3371. The eyes use this stitch.
For the apron, the French knots are DMC #601. The drops are lazy daisy stitches in DMC #726.
The dots on the scarf are French knots in DMC #958. The flowers are lazy daisy with DMC #601. The little stars and the centers of the flowers are DMC #726.
That’s all the pieces. Time to applique! I use this simple whipstitch and two strands of matching thread for all applique.
Applique the flower to the apron. Then applique the center of the flower and the yellow drop.
Lay the apron over the dress and applique the edges down.
Applique the hair to the top of the face.
Then applique the scarf over the face. Depending on how much extra seam allowance you cut around the face, it may hang out past the edges of the sides of the scarf. That’s ok.
Flip the piece over so you can see your stitching line – the circle of purple stitches here. Trim away the excess felt as close to the stitching as possible so that nothing sticks out past the edge of the scarf.
It should look like this when you’re done.
Finally, lay the back piece down on a flat surface and use that as a guide to line up the face and scarf over the bottom half of the doll. Applique the last layers together.
You can applique this finished front to anything else, or you can sew it to the matroyshka back piece using whipstitch all around. Leave a small opening and add a tiny bit of stuffing – just enough to puff it out a bit. Finish sewing it closed and attach a hanging loop to the top if you like.
Finished!
You could make a set of these in lots of different colors and string them together into a garland. That would be so pretty!
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Happy stitching!
