Felt Fishes and a Heart

I have enjoyed making and swapping felt badges on Craftster, so I was thrilled when Sophie of Threadhead agreed to a personal swap with me.  She is such an amazing stitcher!  We each made two felt badges, based on the other person's Pinterest. 

Sophie has a lot of things on her Pinterest, so it was hard to choose just two themes for her badges, but I finally decided to go with interests that we have in common.  She has a category just for fish, so I made this one first:

I cut the fish from felt free-hand; then I used a chain stitch to embroider them.  I thought it would look like scales, and it does!  Three shades of embroidery floss give the fish gradations of color.

For the second badge, I found a heart on Sophie's Pinterest, and I made almost an exact copy of it.  I made a template to cut the heart shape, then cut the leaves and circles free-hand.

Both badges are made of wool felt and embroidery floss, and are just under 3" at their widest points.  The heart has glass beads accents.

I love hearts and I think this one is gorgeous, but it is the fish badge that got all the comments when I posted pictures on Craftster!

I mailed these (from the U.S.) to Sophie in England on Friday and she received them on Wednesday--that's fast!  I hope hers come to me just as quickly.  I think I'll go check the mailbox right now!

Master Craftster Badge

I really love working with wool felt and embroidery floss to create tiny treasures like the badges I've been swapping on Craftster.  I will have to wait until next week to show you the four I've made recently (two for an organized swap and two for a personal swap--they haven't reached my partners in England yet), but today I can show you one I made for myself.

I made this to look similar to a scouting merit badge, although it is bigger--about 1 3/4" in diameter.  This is to commemorate my participation in the Bernina Master Craftsters campaign that was revealed on Craftster last month.  That project was a lot of fun, but also a ton of work, with no remuneration other than the "glory" of basking in the Master Craftster spotlight for a while.  Because I am proud of my involvement with it,  I am using the Master Craftster logo as my avatar on Craftster now, and I made this badge to add to my collection.

The sewing machine was much easier to create than I expected it to be:  I just drew a quick sketch on paper, then held the paper against the light-blue felt and cut along the outline.  The details are bits of felt sewn on with embroidery floss. 

The words were the hard part...I decided to do block letters and started sewing without any kind of a guide.  I wish they were a little better.  I will keep my eyes and ears open to find good methods for transfering lettering to felt.  If you happen to know of one, please tell me!

Felt Heart Keychain Tutorial

On my other blog, 365 Sewn Hearts, I recently posted some of these heart keychains that I made.  One of my readers, Kay, was interested in them because they are all hand-sewing, so I thought I would show her, and you, exactly how to make them.

You will need:
--cotton fabric with a small print (choose this carefully as it will be the center of attention!)
--wool felt
--embroidery thread
--Heat n Bond Lite, or other two-sided, fusible interfacing that you can sew through
--heavy sew-in interfacing
--key ring
--sewing thread and needle
--heart templates (at the end of this post)--they work best if you trace them onto plastic and cut them out.  You may need to/want to resize the templates when you print them out.  The large one is 2 5/8" wide and 2 3/4" tall.  The smaller one is 2 1/2" wide and 2 3/8" tall.

Start by tracing the smaller heart onto the smooth side of the Heat n Bond. Cut it out, just outside the line, and iron it onto the cotton fabric.  When it is cool, cut out the heart on the drawn line (this cut doesn't have to look perfect because the edge will be hidden under the felt). 
Still using the small template, trace and cut out 2 hearts from the heavy interfacing.  (I used two interfacing hearts for added firmness in my finished keychain.)

Next, cut a strip of your cotton fabric  2" x 3 1/2" for the key fob.

Iron the strip in half lengthwise, then fold each side in to the center crease, and press.

Sew the open side shut.  Don't bother to sew the ends, because they will be covered.

Slip the keyring onto the fabric and fold the strip in half.  Baste the ends together.  Set aside.

Next, using the larger heart template, trace three hearts onto the felt.  A ballpoint pen works great for this.  Only one of the hearts needs to have the center heart drawn onto it.

Cut out the three felt hearts.  Now all your pieces are ready to assemble into a beautiful keychain!

Remove the paper from the back of the fabric heart, and iron it onto one of the solid wool hearts.  Then position the keyring fob behind this heart, leaving about 1/2"-3/4" of the fob exposed, and sew firmly into place.  Remember to only sew in the area that will be covered by the heart with the "window" cut out of it.

Here's the back.  You can trim the cotton fabric to within 1/4" of where you sewed it to the felt heart, if you wish.

Next, layer the two interfacing hearts under the wool heart, and lay the cut-out wool heart over the fabric heart.

Baste the layers together.  The red basting stitches will be removed, so they can be big and sloppy!

This is what the back looks like.  (The heart on the left is the piece that will cover the interfacing after a few more steps.)

Using a blanket stitch, sew around the inner heart with the embroidery thread.

This is what the back looks like.  Now, remove these basting stitches.

Here's the last step:  with the third felt heart layered onto the back, baste all the layers together, then embroider around the outside edge with a blanket stitch.  (There are lots of places online that explain the blanket stitch, like this one at Stitch School.)

Remove the basting stitches, and you are done.  Looks great!!

The back looks great too!