How To: Felt Snowman Ornament

As I mentioned earlier this month, I've been working on a whole bunch of Christmas craft tutorials and it's time for the first one - felt snowmen ornaments!

These ornaments are quick and easy to sew, they make a great beginner sewing project and more experienced sitchers will be able to whip up a whole batch in no time. The snowmen would also make cute brooches, just add a brooch clasp to the back instead of adding the ribbon in step 5.

To make the snowmen you will need:

- the template sheet at the bottom of this post
- scissors to cut out the templates
- sharp sewing scissors or embroidery scissors
- white felt
- black felt
- orange felt
- white, black and orange sewing thread
- round black sequins (approx 1/4 inch / 5mm in diameter)
- a needle and pins
- narrow white ribbon

1) Use the templates provided to cut out 2 white snowman shapes, 2 black hats and 1 orange carrot (you can use the template provided for the carrot or just cut a small triangle freehand). 

2) Sew one hat onto each snowman shapes, so that when you put the two snowman pieces together the hats will match up. Use a line of running stitch in black thread to sew each hat in place.

3) Use orange thread to sew the carrot in position to be the snowman's nose.
 

4) Then use black thread to sew 5 sequins to form the eyes and "buttons". Use two or three stitches to hold each sequin in place.

5) Cut a 5inch (12.5cm) length of ribbon, fold it over to form a loop and sew the ends in place at the back of one of the snowman pieces. Use whip stitch and sew into the felt instead of through it, so your stitches don't come through to what will be the outside of the ornament. If you're worried about your stitches showing, use black thread and sew the ribbon loop to the back snowman piece so if any stitches come through they'll be lost against the black of the hat.

6) Place the two snowman pieces together, so all the workings are hidden. Hold them together and use black thread to whip stitch the outside edges of the hat together. (It's a bit hard to show this in a photo as black stitching on black felt doesn't show up too well, sorry!)

7) Use white thread to sew the rest of the snowman together - sew around the edge with running stitch, and finish your sewing neatly at the back.

Hey presto, one cute snowman ornament ready for hanging on the tree!
 

To print the templates - right click on the image and select to view it in another window or tab, then click again (if necessary) to view full size and print at 100%. I've added a scale so you can check if your templates have printed out correctly, but you can make them larger or smaller than mine if you prefer (remember that you'll need larger or smaller sequins!)

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it for as many ornaments as you like for yourself or as gifts for friends but please don't make any for sale. Please feel free to borrow photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my tutorial on your site. Thanks!

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