New Colour Trends & Lots of Bargains

One of the bundles of felt squares I sell in my shops is called "Colour Trends" as it includes shades I've selected to reflect current colour trends in fashion. The pack previously contained colours based on 2012's fashionable colours but - obviously - 2012 will be over soon!

So, I've updated the pack to include colours for spring/summer 2013...

.... mmm... lots of lovely bright colours...

Each bundle includes 20 wool blend felt squares, and comes neatly tied with ribbon. They're available from my main shop, or from my Etsy or Folksy shops.

I've also added some bargain "not quite perfect" items over in my Etsy shop...

... some packs of giant buttons, which are still awesome big buttons but which don't meet my normal quality standards when selecting stock for sale...

... and a few copies of my book, Super-Cute Felt which have small flaws (e.g. a bit of damage to the cover) so I'm selling them at £8 instead of the usual £12.99.

And I've added a whole bunch of older designs from my range (felt brooches, animal masks, flower headbands, etc) to the clearance SALE sections in all my shops...

I've got a whole bunch of new projects planned for 2013 and I need to make some space!

You can find lots of sale bargains in my Big Cartel shop, my Folksy shop and my Etsy shop - available stock varies slightly between the shops but Etsy currently has the widest selection, including lots of items under £5 (hurrah!). 

Some Cross Stitch in Progress

You may remember that way back at the start of October I did some sketching, working on ideas for some new designs. Most of them are going to have to wait until 2013 now to get acted upon as I'm busy getting my shop orders packed and posted, but I have made a start on stitching one of them...

... I don't think I will ever be one of those people whose stitching looks nice and neat at the back, haha.

I'm quite new to cross stitch so there's been a lot of trial and error involved as I'm working out my ideas for this design - and as you may have guessed from that photo, I've already done quite a bit of unpicking! The yellow got unpicked and replaced by another colour (though those yellow threads at the back are firmly entangled and are going nowhere) and I got about a third of the way through stitching the blue section and then decided it really needed to be a shade darker. Sigh. 

I did think about starting over, but it took so long to stitch the section that involved metallic thread that there's no way I'm re-doing that bit! Honestly, that stuff looks great but it can be such a faff to work with. 

I am enjoying the actual process of the stitching though, it's very relaxing, and although it's taking a while to translate the image in my head into a finished design it's getting there slowly!

How To: Felt Owl Ornaments

Look! I made some owl ornaments!

This is a slightly lazy how-to as it's not a new tutorial, but instead a suggestion for adapting my felt owl pattern to make some cute ornaments for your Christmas tree. 

Use the templates from this post, but print them at 50% instead of 100% and don't cut out any of the feather shapes. I did think about just making a mini version of my original owl in some festive colours but the feathers are pretty fiddly to cut out at half size and I wanted to add a bit of sparkle instead. 

To give you an idea of how they both work out, size wise, here's one of the owl ornaments...

... and here's the original plush felt owl I stitched last year:

You could use shades of brown felt for your owls as I have or pick your favourite colours or shades that tie in with your festive decorating scheme. 

A) Follow steps 1 & 2 as described in the original tutorial (just leaving out the feather shapes). 

B) Skip steps 3 & 4.

C) Follow steps 5 & 6 as described.

D) Then decorate your owls! 

I added gold sequins to one owl,  laying out the sequins first to work out the best arrangement and then stitching them in place one by one with orange sewing thread. I used two stitches per sequin, which I think helps the sequins look a little like feathers, maybe? I love how sparkly the finished owl is. 

I then embroidered the other owls with rows of single stitches, sewn with gold metallic embroidery thread (floss). I used half the number of strands, and took care not to pull my stitches too tight and distort the shape of the felt. Metallic thread can be quite fiddly to work with so if you're a beginner I'd recommend choosing a nice shade of standard thread instead. 

E) Add a loop of narrow ribbon about 15cms (6 inches) long. You can see how to do this over in my felt Christmas Tree ornaments tutorial. I used some super cute mini ricrac from my stash, but any narrow ribbon that matches your owls will do nicely. 

F) Follow steps 7 & 8 to sew up and stuff your owls... and you're done!

Your finished ornament will look something like this:

I think the owl ornaments would make adorable Christmas gifts - if you know someone who is a big owl fan, you could even sew them a whole parliament of owls for their tree. 

You could also make a garland by hanging the ornaments onto a length of matching ribbon, with colourful felt beads/balls strung in between and maybe add some felt oak leaves too for a woodland theme... or use an owl ornament as a gift topper on a larger Christmas gift decorated with oak leaves and faux bois paper.

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 a couple of 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 entire tutorial or any pattern pieces on your site. Thanks!

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LOTS of Felt Christmas Decorations!

To kick off December, I thought it'd be fun to share a photo of my mum's felt Christmas ornament collection... all lovingly sewn by me, of course!

Some of these are designs I used to sell, or currently sell in my shop, like the British garden birds...

...some of them are designs I've made for craft books - the mitten and the gingerbread cookies are from my book, Super-Cute Felt (you can see all the Christmas projects from my book at the bottom of THIS blog post) and the gingerbread house is from Fa La La La Felt (it's also available as a free download over at Sew Mama Sew, yay!) ...

... and some of them are from free Christmas ornament tutorials I've shared here on this blog, including the angel ornament, the snowflakes, the star and heart, the simple baubles, the candy canes, and the Christmas pudding. My mum's collection also includes the prototypes I stitched when designing the Christmas tree ornaments and the snowmen.

Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links. 

UPDATE: Lots of my old designs are now available as sewing patterns, with more coming soon! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns