Felt Ornament How-To #3: Christmas Puddings

Today, a guide to making yummy felt Christmas Puddings!

You will need...

A sewing needle
Some pins
Brown, white, dark green and red felt + matching sewing thread
Ribbon of your choice (I used a narrow black ribbon)
Sewing/fabric scissors

1. First cut out your pattern shapes and use them to cut out one white icing shape, one red berry shape, two green holly shapes and two brown pudding shapes. Then cut a length of ribbon at least 5 inches (12 cms) long.

 

2. Fold the ribbon over to form a loop and sew it securely to one of the brown pudding pieces like this:

 

This piece will be the front of your ornament. There's no need to use brown thread to match the felt as all your stitches will be hidden.

3. Next, pin the white "icing" piece to the front of the ornament (so the ribbon ends will be on the inside) and sew it in place using white thread:

 

4. Now you need to position your holly and berries - lay them out on the ornament and rearrange them until you are happy with their position. The holly leaves should overlap slightly and meet under where the ribbon emerges from the top of the ornament. When you are happy, put the red berry to one side and stitch the holly leaves in place using dark green thread. Most of your stitches should be where the leaves overlap - these will be hidden by your berry - but you also need to sew one long stitch along each leaf to hold it in place:

 

Remember not to sew this stitch right up to the edge of the pudding as you will need to be able to fold the leaves back slightly to sew the ornament together in a moment.

5. All that remains now is to sew the pudding together and add the red berry. You can either sew the berry on and then sew the front and back pieces of the ornament together... or do it the other way round, leaving the berry until last. The latter option will leave a few red stitches showing on the back of the ornament but it makes sewing the ornament together a bit less fiddly.

Whichever way you choose, sew the berry on with a large X shape of red thread to make a nice decorative touch (make sure you place it over all your holly stitching!).

 

To sew the front and back pieces of your pudding together, first use white thread to sew around the iced section - fold the holly leaves back carefully and take care to sew over your earlier stitches to keep it neat.

 

Then finish the ornament by sewing the brown edge with matching brown thread.

 

VARIATIONS: Try adding black sequins, seed beads or maybe tiny circles of black felt to the brown pudding to represent fruit! You could also use a small red button instead of red felt as a quirky holly berry. This design would also make a fun Christmas brooch - skip the ribbon and instead sew a brooch back or safety pin to the backing piece of felt to make a sweet gift.

 

Please note: this tutorial is NOT for commercial use. You can make as many of these ornaments as you like (they make great gifts!) but please don't sell them or reproduce my tutorial anywhere without my permission. If you give it a mention, please do link back to the original page & if you make the ornaments please let me know - I'd love to hear how it went & would adore to see pictures!

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