Handmade Holidays Part 1

Are you making any gifts for the people on your list this year? Or, are you like me and love handmade holiday home decor? Simple to make, these cute heart shaped ornaments make wonderful gifts or gift wrap accents. Hearts are one of my favorite shapes, and I love crafting with recycled felted wool sweaters. So I combined the two to make this version of my Heart Felt Ornaments. Heart shapes are cut from a felted wool sweater, then embroidered and accented with beads and buttons. Sew two layers together and fill them with stuffing.

Here's a quick tutorial to show you how I made these ornaments.

Don’t worry if you can’t find a wool sweater to felt. Wool felt fabric will also work just as well and can be purchased at your local fabric store, craft store or ordered online.

Tools and materials needed:
Felted wool sweater or wool felt
Embroidery thread and needle
Cotton or wool thread
Assorted beads and buttons
Stuffing
Scissors, pins and tracing paper

For my Heart Felt Ornaments I used red and white as my colors.

What to do:
Step 1. Cut out hearts. To make a heart shaped paper pattern, fold a piece of paper and starting at the fold, cut out one side of the heart so that the fold is the center of the heart. This way when you open the paper you have a perfectly proportioned heart. Try several shapes and sizes until you have the desired heart shape. Then pin the paper to the wool and cut out two hearts for each ornament you want to make. I also cut out some smaller hearts to make contrasting centers for some of my ornaments.


Step 2. Embroider and embellish the hearts. I used a contrasting color embroidery thread to sew simple stitches in star and swirl patterns on some of my hearts. Then I stitched on seed beads as embellishments. On other hearts I used a blanket stitch, or buttonhole stitch, to appliqué smaller hearts to the center, then added a button for embellishment. You will be using two pieces of wool for each heart ornament. You can decorate one or both sides of the ornament.

Step 3. Sew the hearts together. With wrong sides together, use a blanket stitch to sew around the outside edge of each heart. When about a one inch opening remains, fill the heart with stuffing, then finish stitching to close the opening.


Step 4. Hang the heart. Thread a short length of wool or cotton thread through the top edge of each heart to hang on your tree or tie to a package.

If you don't have time to make ornaments this year, check my Etsy shop next week. I'll have a shop update with some of these listed for sale.

And This Week's Winner Is. . .

Thank you to everyone who entered my FeltSewGood giveaway last week. I really enjoyed reading all your comments about your favorite Christmas traditions! The winner of the gift certificate is AlteredBeauty. Congratulations!

I'm working hard to restock my shop after my Christmas Open House and should have some new upcycled wool goodies listed in the next few days.

HOLIDAY WEEKEND *S*A*L*E*

I hope Everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

And now it's time for some shopping!

Black Friday through Cyber Monday, everything in my shop is 10% OFF!

Prices are already reduced - no waiting for a refund through PayPal! Just shop and save. And I'll be adding new items all weekend. Visit FeltSewGood and save!

And don't forget to enter my giveaway, at this blog post, for a chance to win a FeltSewGood gift certificate! You have until midnight EST, Sunday, November 29 to enter.

And the Winner Is. . . and More!

The winner of last week's FeltSewGood blog giveaway is Ashley! Congratulations to Ashley and thank you so much to everyone who participated!

And now for this week's giveaway. . . one winner will receive a FeltSewGood gift certificate for $20 to spend on anything in my shop!

Will you choose a felted flower brooch?

or a zippered pouch?

or maybe a plush animal for you, or a niece or nephew?


or will you choose a handbag as a gift or a special treat for yourself?

Here are the details. The giveaway will run from Monday, November 23 through Sunday, November 29. The gift certicate is only good to spend on any item at FeltSewGood on Etsy and is non-transferable.
There are four ways to enter. 1.) Leave a comment on this post telling me a favorite holiday tradition. 2.) Become a FeltSewGood blog follower and leave me a comment telling me you became a follower. 3.) Become a fan of FeltSewGood on Facebook and leave a comment here to tell me you became a fan. 4.) Leave a comment on my fan page wall mentioning the gift certificate giveaway. The winner will be choosen at random and I will post the winner here and on my fan page on Monday, November 30. Good luck to all and thanks for participating!

New Warm and Cozy in the Shop

For some of us, it's the time of year when we have to start wearing a coat to go outside. And to go with the coat, we often need gloves, mittens, hats and scarves to keep us warm and cozy. And I have just the thing in my shop, FeltSewGood!

There are warm and cozy mittens in kids sizes. I love these cute argyle mittens.

Red snowflakes on the cream and gray background of these adult size mittens will keep grown-up hands warm.

And this pretty scarf made from felted wool sweaters will keep away the winter chill.

Stop by the shop for these and other warm cozy gift ideas.

And don't forget to leave me a comment at this post to be entered to win this week's FeltSewGood giveaway, the winner's choice of a felted wool zippered pouch!