Felt Bird Pillows...and More

I made these bird pillows for my sister for this last Christmas. I like them alot. And most importantly, she likes them, too!

I make them using felt appliques and loads of freestyle sewing machine embroidery stitching on cotton canvas.

I've been making felt applique pillows for a while now as gifts for new brides, housewarmings and birthdays.

Once I decide on a design and the shapes I cut the pieces from brightly colored felt and sew them on the cotton canvas pillow tops.

 I've also made a few for my own living room, since I LOVE bright colors in my house.

These are the first pillows I've made with bird shapes and the design and execution were challenging but also fun!

This fat chickadee is made of white, cream, grey and black felt with loads of machine stitching in shades of yellow, gold, a little orange, white, grey, black and cream. His bright eye is a glossy black metal snap.

The leaves and tree branches are all sewn with black thread.

This handsome goldfinch is made of layered felt in yellow and black with machine stitching in yellow, gold and white. His eye is also a black metal snap. I've embroidered the leaves and branches with black thread.

I was so pleased with the bird designs that I tried out a brand new fox pillow. I LOVE the way he came out!

So with the bird pillows, fox pillow, wreath pillows and tree pillows I completed gifts for my parents, sisters and niece and I had fun doing them.

Now the fam insists I list some of these designs in my Etsy shop and you know what? I guess I will.

Have an idea for a design with felt? Try it out yourself or even message me. I'd love to see if I could make a new design in felt appliques!

Neat machine embroidered rose vines

You never know when an idea will strike, and when it does sometimes you have to just go with it! After I sewed rosettes to this black tote, I turned it inside out to clip all the threads and I saw this pattern made by the stitches and it got me to thinking......


What if I used contrasting thread and sewed this pattern directly onto the tote? I pulled a lime green tote from my stash and went to work with black thread. Unfortunately, this was one of those times (you know how it is) when I just went full speed ahead and didn't take process pics. But one thing I DID do was draw a light design in pencil where I wanted the rose vine to go as one continuous line of stitching.


I started slow and steady, and made sure that at each sharp curve, corner or turn that the needle was DOWN to anchor the stitch in place; such as the points of the leaves, the centers of the roses, etc.


I went over some parts twice or even three times, but as you can see, the design is very forgiving of multiple stitch lines. An abstract continuous rose design like this is surprisingly easy to do. If you do not like how it looks you can pick out the stitches. When you restart, be sure to go forward and backwards a few times at your restart point to keep the new stitches from unraveling.




For the veins in the leaves I started out by stopping and turning the whole tote and stitching them in but then I figured out I could just hit the reverse button and carefully stitch the veins in place. Going slowly and carefully I could see how the design was coming out. And you know, doing this made me grin like an idiot, because this was one of those times when it was working out better than I'd hoped!

I added the black pocket trimmed with real rosettes and contrasting fabric and some pretty black lace. I stitched one bit of leafy twig across the corner of the pocket.


Oooh! I like it, I like it alot! I could see using this technique on all sorts of things and even using it to quilt layers of muslin, batting and backing for a stylish and chic coverlet. Or how about at the bottom hem and up the side seams of blue jeans? And I wonder if it would be possible to stitch in some words or phrases, since handwriting is just one long line, isn't it? I've got to try it and I'll let you all know how it turns out!

I'll be joining up to the parties in my sidebar, come check out the neat ideas.