Today I'm sharing a tutorial for sewing a felt angel ornament:
This angel bauble is part of a set of cute felt Christmas ornaments I designed for docrafts Creativity magazine last year.
So far I've shared tutorials for making a snowman bauble, a stripey stocking, a reindeer bauble, and a sparkly star. The final few projects will be shared here on my blog in the next few weeks.
To make the angel bauble, you will need:
- templates (see the bottom of this post)
- red felt
- white felt
- dark brown (or other hair colour) felt
- light brown (or other skin colour) felt
- light blue felt
- matching sewing threads
- silver and white embroidery thread (floss)
- light brown embroidery thread (or other colour to match your chosen skin tone)
- white narrow ribbon
- silver seed beads
- toy stuffing
- sewing scissors (I recommend using embroidery scissors to cut out the small felt shapes)
- sewing needles and pins
To make the angel bauble:
1. Use the templates provided to cut out the following felt pieces: two red bauble shapes, one pair of white wings, one white halo, one light brown face, one dark brown hair shape and one light blue body.
2. Gradually build up the angel picture on one of the bauble shapes, sewing the pieces in position one by one and using the photos as a guide.
Start with the angel's wings, then add the body, head, hair then halo. Use whip stitch and matching sewing thread, holding or pinning the pieces in place as you sew.
Tip: you'll be sewing around the bauble later on so you can leave the bottom edge of the angel's wings and body (where they follow the curve of the bauble) unstitched until then.
3. Add the embroidered details using half strands of embroidery thread (i.e. for six stranded thread use three strands), switching to a larger needle if needed.
Use black thread to backstitch the angel's smile and her nose, and to sew a few small stitches close together for each eye. Use light brown thread to backstitch a curved line to mark the outline of the angel's face
Tip: if you prefer, you could stitch a French knot for each eye or use black seed beads.
4. Decorate the wings with half strands of silver embroidery thread. Backstitch a line inside the halo and little 'V's (made of two small stitches) on the wings to represent feathers.
Tip: metallic embroidery thread can be tricky to work with. Cut shorter pieces of thread than usual and take your time with your stitches.
5. Fill in the background space around the angel with sparkly silver seed beads, sewing each bead in place with a double thickness of red sewing thread.
6. Cut a 15cm (6 inch) length of narrow white ribbon. Fold the ribbon into a loop and sew the ends to the top of the undecorated bauble shape. Use whip stitch and red sewing thread, sewing into the felt not through it.
7. Place the front and back bauble pieces together so the ends of the ribbon are sandwiched between the two layers and the loop sticks out the top above the angel.
Hold or pin the two bauble pieces together and blanket stitch around the edge, using half strands of white embroidery thread. Start at the top (where the ribbon loop sticks out), stitch most of the way round and leave a gap for stuffing..
8. Add small pieces of stuffing to gradually fill the bauble, stuffing it lightly so it's evenly filled but still very squishy. Then sew up the gap with more blanket stitches and finish your stitching neatly at the back.
This tutorial is for personal use only: you can use it to stitch as many felt ornaments as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a photo or two 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 post or share the pattern itself on your site. Thanks!
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