Monday, November 30, 2009

Here's one I prepared earlier

Here is the process I follow to make a felted Christmas ornament.

1. Knit
1.knit it
I knit these ornaments using exactly the same concept as my pod pattern. I vary the number of stitches cast on, the needle size, and the number and spacing of increase and decrease rows to suit the wool, and to get what seems like a nice spherical shape - allowing for a little more vertical than horizontal shrinkage.

2. Crochet a circle for the top.
2.crochet top

3. Felt both pieces.
3.felt in bucket

4. While it's wet, stuff with a plastic bag and spend some time rolling it into a nice spherical shape.
4.stuff to dry

5. Once it's dry, pull out the plastic bag and then apply decoration.
5.embroidery_2

5.embroidery
The embroidery technique in both of these pictures is couching. I use intermittent stitches in grey sewing thread to hold down the silver thread. You can only see the sewing thread if you look pretty closely. I decided to try couching because I knew from trying to cross stitch with metallic thread years ago that it can be a massive pain with all the fraying and kinking. I can put up with it to directly stitch simple shapes like the stars/asterisks in the picture below, though.
armytage pair

6. Fill with polyester stuffing. As planned earlier, I've also been keeping all my wool ends in a jar and using them as stuffing as well.
6.stuff

7. Poke a large jump ring through the top piece.
7.attach jump ring

Then I stitch the top piece inside the rim of the main piece, and use a few stitches to make sure the jump ring is held securely. Sewing felt pieces together is so satisfying because you can virtually make the stitches disappear into the felt.

8. Thread onto a silver ribbon. Done.
8.end

9 comments:

Donna Lee said...

I've been embroidering for years and have never heard the term couching. I've used it for decorative pieces but I've always just thought of it as "sewing down a decorative thread".

I love the balls!

AMCSviatko said...

All that work and yet you charge so little for the end result...

Thanks for sharing the process!

2paw said...

Thank you for sharing this, it is very kind of you!!

Michelle said...

Pure genius!

Anonymous said...

I'm the Dad. Proud Dad. Not only talented, but a generous spirit too. Proud Dad.

Kate said...

I love those ornaments! Maybe if I feel brave this month I'll try to make one or two? I'm not sure if I'll have a tree yet, so they might have to wait for next Christmas.

Alwen said...

Cool, a tutorial, thanks!

They look so squooshy and satisfying in a tactile way.

Anonymous said...

They're so beautiful! Thanks for sharing the process. It's lovely to see such (as Alwen says) tactile and colourful baubles.

Denise said...

Gorgeous! What a great tutorial too, thank you!