Playing with Wool

 

     Marcus Fabrics sent me some beautiful wool to play with and I sure have been having fun. I have dabbled in wool applique in the past. I enjoy it very much and have decided to use the wool to make some beautiful ornaments. I'll be sharing these designs with you over the next month and releasing new patterns to go with them. I'm very excited to expand my applique designs to wool. Many of us enjoy doing handwork while traveling or watching out favorite shows. These projects are very portable which is awesome! Let me show you how I made this adorable deer that is sure to be part of Santa's team. This is a good project if you are new to wool applique. 

To start out, download the pattern and trace the deer pieces onto the paper side of fusible web. I like to use Flexifuse, but heat n bond will also work. I also traced the circle shape for the ornament.

I made copies of the ornament out shape, the circle and the petal circle to use as a template to cut those shapes out.

Here are the ornament base pieces. Do not fuse or sew them together yet! Set them aside until you are ready to use them.

Rough cut your fusible shapes out and pair them with the different wool colors.

Iron the fusible shapes onto the wool using the manufacturer's directions. and then cut them out using a pair of applique scissors.

Following the instructions, place the shapes onto the wool circle base and press in place following the manufacturer's instructions. Now your piece is ready to be appliqued! You can stitch this by hand using 3 strands of DMC floss, or a single strand of perle cotton. I am going to cheat a little bit and sew it by machine. Let me show you....

I am using a larger eyed machine needle...

I'm using a 35 weight variegated cotton thread from Valdani

I'm using a blanket stitch on my machine and I played around with it to get a sizing that I thought would work nicely with the design.

I'm starting out using a brown thread to stitch around the deer.

Then I switched over to a white thread to stitch around the antlers.

Here you can see my stitching by machine, I still need to stitch around the deer's collar with some red thread.

I then am ready to do some hand stitching. Using a dark brown/black perle cotton I stitch the deer's eye using a french knot.

I then switch over to some white thread and stitch the snowflakes using french knots.

It's time to add some more embellishments...

I stitched on some tiny yellow/gold buttons onto the collar for some jingle bells. I then stitch the pine boughs following the pattern for placement. I'm using a green perle cotton and stitch using a straight stitch.

I then sewed three little red buttons onto the pine boughs for holly berries.

With your fusible circle you cut out earlier, iron that onto the back of your blue stitched ornament piece, peel off the paper and then fuse onto the green scalloped piece. Be careful ironing around the buttons. I did most of my pressing from the backside of the ornament.

Then stitch around the edge of the circle. I used my machine and a buttonhole stitch. This can also be handstitched too! If desired, you can also hand stitch around the scalloped edge. To finish your ornament, attach a piece of baker's twine for the hanger.

~ Woodland Deer ~

I'm just tickled with how the ornament turned out. I'm looking forward to making some more! Working with wool was very satisfying, a delight to work with. Even though I did most of ornament with machine stitching, these would be beautiful handstitched too. You can use a blanket stitch or a whip stitch to stitch the edges. The finished size is 5 1/2" x 5 1/2". I'm hanging mine as ornaments, but the size is perfect for a coaster! 

The pattern is available as a PDF download or as a packaged pattern. Both versions can be found in the Etsy shop or in the Quilt Doodle Designs website.

The weather is dreadful here, damp, cold.... it's raining. A perfect day to go do some sewing or stitching. I'm heading down to my sewing room and plan on making some more wool ornaments. I can't wait to show you my next one! 

Happy stitching!

Cindy and Josephine