Sew a 2020 Christmas Ornament: Santa in a Facemask Tutorial

Sew a silly felt ornament to commemorate this deeply weird year!

I made my masked Father Christmas decorations using my Santa Bauble pattern, but you could easily adapt other festive felt ornament tutorials to make 2020 versions!

To make the masked Santa, follow steps one and two to cut out and assemble all the felt pieces.

Then cut a face mask shape from pale blue felt. You can use the template included at the bottom of the post or just measure a rectangle of felt large enough to cover where Santa's nose and mouth would be, then cut the top and bottom edges to be curved to give a 3D effect.

Position the mask and sew along the straight edges with backstitch and matching pale blue sewing thread.

Then sew along the curved edges with more backstitch.

Add two more curved lines of backstitch to represent the folds of the mask - aim for curves similar to those pictured but don't worry if you end up with uneven spacing or unbalanced curves, the mask will still look like a mask!

For the elastic straps of the mask, sew one stitch with white embroidery thread (floss) coming from each of the four corners. 

I used the whole thickness of my embroidery thread but it's easier to sew with fewer strands! I positioned my stitches so it looks like Santas has the elastic loops tucked behind his ears. 

If the character you're adding a felt mask to doesn't have ears (or, in the case of an animal, maybe has ears on the top of its head) positon your stitches so it looks like the elastic is stretching around the back of the head.

Then give your Santa some eyes! I used black seed beads for my 2020 baubles but you could use black embroidery thread instead (sew a large French knot or just sew a few very small stitches on top of each other to create the eye). 

For the background you could sew on some seed beads (see step four of the original tutorial), or add embroidery. I've been making baubles that say XMAS 2020 or 2020 2020 but you could add any short text you fancy! You'll find the templates I used at the bottom of this post.

When I'm adding a bit of embroidery to felt, I like to use a bit of tissue paper. Write the text you want to stitch onto the tissue paper, tack the paper to the felt with a few stitches of sewing thread, embroider the design with backstitch (I used half the strands of my white embroidery thread), then remove the tacking stitches and carefully tear away the paper to reveal the stitching. 

You can see photos of this technique in my pocket hugs tutorial. 

Finish your bauble by following steps five, six, and seven in the Santa bauble tutorial (I skipped the stuffing for my 2020 baubles to make them easier to post!).

Want to buy one of these ornaments instead of making one? You'll find them in my Etsy shop. 

After I'd sewn some Santas, I couldn't resist making a masked gingerbread man as well! Come back tomorrow for the templates and how to...

 

 

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to stitch as many ornaments as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire  post on your site. Thanks!

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Click here to open the template sheet in a new window, make sure you're viewing it full size then print it at 100%.