DIY Embroidered Christmas Star

December 19, 2018 · 2 Comments

DIY Embroidered Christmas Star

When I was younger, I did a lot of Christmas crafting. I used to make cards and decorations and bake stuff.

Then I had kids and everything changed! I’d plan to make lots of things, then feel frustrated and annoyed that I hadn’t managed to get them done.

One year I tried to get round the fact that I had several tiny children by starting early. I was making stuff from August onwards. But because I’d been thinking about Christmas for so long, by the time it eventually came round I was sick of it!

So a couple of years ago, I made the decision to not worry too much. I’d do a bit if I had time and if I felt like it, and not attempt anything too ambitious. There is a limit to how many decorations I can hang off the tree anyway and I don’t send that many Christmas cards.

This year has been different again. Home educating my younger three means that I have boys at home in the day again. As they were showing signs of needing a break from the academic stuff, we spent most of last week doing Christmas crafts while listening to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It was lovely!

One “grown up” thing that I’ve been working on recently is an diy embroidered Christmas star.

It’s made from felt with a snowflake design embroidered in the centre. The stars are sewn together using blanket stitch.

It’s a perfect project for a busy person who’s left things a bit late! It doesn’t take long to make. You can do a bit when you have a minute. You can make one, or a few and string them together. And to make things easier, you can download a template with the snowflake design at the bottom of the post.

How To Make a DIY Embroidered Star

You Will Need

Felt
Embroidery thread
Ribbon for hanging
Star shape
Snowflake design

Making the Star

1.Cut 2 stars from felt.

2. Embroider the snowflake design onto one of the stars.

3. Sew the 2 stars together. I used blanket stitch, but you could use back stitch or running stitch if you prefer.

4. Attach some ribbon or twine for hanging.

If you would like the template I used, please enter your email address in the form below. Please note that by doing this, you will be added to the Tea and a Sewing Machine email list. I never send spam, only a weekly email containing updates, links, and other things that you might like. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time. For more information about why I do this, please click here.

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Christmas Embroidery Project With a Free Pattern!

September 28, 2018 · 5 Comments

Christmas Embroidery Project

Although I love Christmas and making things for Christmas, over the last few years I’ve given up on the idea of making masses of stuff specifically for Christmas.

It’s just too busy! And it has a habit of sneaking up on me. I know the date never changes, but by the time the Season of Birthdays is over (my boys’ birthdays are all in the autumn, in the space of 2 months!), we’re halfway through November. By the time I’ve got my act together, it’s December, there’s Nativity plays, shopping, present wrapping, baking and everybody’s tired!

Having a little Christmas embroidery project is a nice thing. It’s something you can pick up when you have a few minutes. You can work on it in the evenings without people complaining that they can’t hear the telly over the sewing machine! And if it’s a little thing, it’s going to be achievable and you’ll feel pleased when you’ve finished it. With a longer project, if you don’t finish it by Christmas it’s just going to end up in the UFO pile and you’ll feel annoyed with yourself (I do!).

So I’ve got a little Christmas embroidery project for you!

You can download the pattern here.

And here are the instructions!

Christmas Embroidery Project Instructions

1. Transfer the design to your fabric. There are a number of ways of doing this. The easiest way is to use dressmakers’ carbon paper (affiliate link). You could also use a light box (you can make one yourself using your phone and a plastic box), or you could try printing directly onto the fabric using your printer. If you do this, it’s best to tape the fabric to a piece of card first.

2. Embroider the letters. Start off by sewing them all in backstitch. To get the calligraphy effect, identify the bits of the letters that would be downstrokes if you’d written them. Add an extra line of backstitch to those bits.

3. Now sew the tree. Work each line in backstitch. Then go back and add the leaves.

4. It’s up to you how you’d like to do the star! I sewed around the edge in backstitch then added some French knots to the centre. You might like to try leaf stitch or satin stitch.

To finish it off, wash it in warm water and washing up liquid. Rinse it, then let it dry flat. Iron it on the reverse. Then decide what you’d like to do with it. You could put it in a frame or you might prefer to display it in an embroidery hoop.

Christmas Embroidery Hoop

September 22, 2018 · 4 Comments

Christmas Embroidery Hoop

Last month I was invited to contribute to a series of posts on All Free Sewing for National Sewing Month.

One of the suggestions was sewing for Christmas and, as it had been a long time since I’d made anything Christmassy, I decided to hatch some Christmas themed embroidery.

I’ve recently jumped on the handlettering band wagon. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a lot of fun! It doesn’t matter if you’re not arty or if your handwriting is normally not very nice. Mine’s dreadful and I did not do well in my Art GCSE.

I was given this book as a birthday present, and I’d recommend it if you want to give handlettering a try (this is an affiliate link)! There are step by step instructions and space in the book to try them out. Even if your handwriting normally looks like a spider rolled in ink then ran across the page, with a little bit of practice you’ll be handlettering everything beautifully. The lady who wrote the book also has a blog here, which I discovered before the book.

Anyway, fuelling my love for my new hobby, I had an idea for making a little Christmas embroidery hoop with the word joy embroidered inside a garland.

I was very pleased with the results! Actually I was so happy with how it turned out I made 2 more with the words love and peace.

The Christmas embroidery hoop was easy to do and it came together quite quickly. Most of the embroidery is worked in back stitch The leaves are lazy daisies and the berries are seed beads. If you didn’t have any beads, you could sew French knots instead.

The back of the hoop is finished with a piece of felt.

You can find the tutorial here. There’s a free pattern for the embroidery if you want it, but the tutorial includes instructions for drawing the designs yourself if you prefer.

They’re small enough to hang on your Christmas tree, but you could hang them wherever you like! I’ve got plans to hang mine in the window of the front room.

If you want to make one but you don’t want to faff about finding the stuff to make it, or if you know somebody who would like one, I have some kits for sale on Etsy.

If you like free embroidery projects, I have another Christmas one here!

Christmas Lantern Arrangement

November 24, 2017 · 2 Comments

Christmas Lantern Arrangement

I’m always so happy that Christmas is at the darkest time of the year.

I love the winter anyway, and one of my favourite things is putting the lamps on and lighting the fire. You can’t do that in the summer when it’s warm and still light at 9.30 pm!

Since visiting Oslo last year, we now eat breakfast by candlelight on dark mornings. And with Christingles, carols by candlelight and remembering that Jesus came as the light of the world all coming up, Christmas is the perfect excuse for more candles!

If you’re not big on flower arrangements, don’t worry. This is easy :).

I’d actually planned to use one fat candle, but they didn’t have any at the weird little shop in my village, so I used 3 standard candles instead.

You could also use tealights, or even fairy lights in a tangle in the centre if you didn’t want to use candles at all.

For the greenery and berries, I raided the hedgerows on my way home from taking my boys to school! You could try the garden or even a bunch of Christmas flowers from the supermarket. For the actual greenery, an out of control leyland cypress hedge is ideal!

Here are the instructions for making a Christmas lantern arrangement.

Instructions For Making a Christmas Lantern Arrangement

You Will Need

A lantern (I was sent this one by Oasis Home and Hobby), some oasis, ribbon (I used this, again from Oasis Home and Hobby), candles, berries, greenery, pinecones, florists’ wire.

Making the Christmas Lantern Arrangement

1. Cut the oasis to size. You only need a smallish piece as it needs to fit through the neck of the lantern. About 6-7 cm high and about the same across is a good size. If you’re using the ribbon on the roll, this is actually the perfect size, so you can just cut the oasis down to the same size as the roll of ribbon.

When you’ve cut the oasis down to the right size, pop it in the sink to soak. Being a small piece, it won’t need very long, so if you do this first, it should be ready to use by the time you’ve sorted out the other bits.

2. Cut a length of ribbon about 150 cm long. To tie it around the top of the lantern, you’ll need to take the handle off by unscrewing it at the neck.

On the ribbon, mark where the screws are and make 2 little holes. You could cut it if you’re using a ribbon with a close weave. As the ribbon I used was loosely woven, I just poked the blades of the scissors into it and wiggled them about to make a hole.

Wrap the ribbon around the neck of the lantern, poking the screws through the holes you made. Tie the ribbon in a bow and reattach the handle.

3. Cut the greenery into pieces 10-15 cm long. Cut the berries into smaller bunches. Wrap florist’s wire around the bottom of the pine cones.

4. If you’re using 3 candles, you might like to cut a bit off the bottom of 2 of them so that they are different heights. This is what I did :).

5. Now retrieve the oasis from the sink. Push the candles into the middle.

6. Start arranging the greenery around the candles. I started at the edge, then filled in the centre. Remember to leave some space for the berries and pine cones!

Don’t put any into the sides or you won’t be able to get it into the lantern!

7. Push the berries into the oasis around the candles, then add the pine cones. You won’t need many berries and probably only 3-5 pine cones.

8. Drop some greenery into the bottom of the lantern and push it to the edges. This is to cover the sides of the oasis.

9. Carefully drop the arrangement into the lantern. If you’ve pushed the candles in quite far, you might be able to use them as a handle.

I found that I needed to remove the pine cones first, then I put them back in once the arrangement was inside the lantern.Just one word of warning: use a taper or another candle to light it or you will burn your fingers! Not only does this hurt, but burnt fingernail smells bad!

Scandi Style Felt Birds Craft Kit Giveaway

November 7, 2017 · 2 Comments

Scandi Style Felt Birds Craft Kit Giveaway

It’s giveaway time again!

My Scandi style felt birds have proved to be quite popular, and I’m giving you a chance to win a kit for yourself and an extra one for a friend.

I was inspired to design these 2 years ago by some pretty Scandinavian style Christmas fabric I’d bought. It was one of those impluse buys where I like the fabirc but didn’t have a clear plan of what I was going to make with it!

In the end, I did make a couple of things and I also designed these little birds.

One of the reasons I like them is because although they look at home as part of the general decorating for Christmas, they’re not too Christmassy! If you like them, you could probably get away with leaving them up all year round!

The kit contains everything you need to make 2 birds, a red one and a white one. There’s felt, the templates, buttons for the eyes, little heart buttons to go on the wings, thread, templates and printed instructions with plenty of step photos.

The kit comes a little box to keep all the bits safe while you’re working on it.

It’s actually a project to sew by hand, not on the sewing machine, so perfect for long gloomy evenings at home!

I’m running the giveaway on Facebook. To enter, you will need to make sure that you’ve liked the Tea and a Sewing Machine page, like the post, and also tell me who you would give the 2nd kit to.

You haven’t got long, only until 11.59 pm GMT on Friday 10th November 2017! The winner and their friend will be chosen by random name selector on Saturday 11th November 2017.

If you want to enter the giveaway, all the details are here on Facebook.

You can see the original tutorial for the felt birds here.

If you’d like to have a look at the kit, you can find them on Etsy here.

Happy crafting!