Easy Christmas Decoration Tutorial and 1st ever FREE GIVEAWAY!!! Yay!

Hey there, how's everyone doing? I hope you are all keeping warm. Here's an easy project that'll help get you into the Christmas spirit - it makes a great gift, too, which is why I'm having a giveaway for it! The rules are pretty simple:

• Leave a comment below (suggestions for future tutorials you'd like to see are welcome, too)
• I'll be using a random number generator to choose the winner.
• Giveaway winner will be announced on 15 December - the fastest, easiest way to find out if you're a winner is to follow the blog in a reader, etc, as hunting down email addresses can sometimes be tricky - though I WILL try (Yoda's in my head right now...Do or do not, there is no try...)
• Not limited to the UK - it's only a little thing, so I'll post it worldwide if necessary.

That's it! Happy Giveaways! And now for the tutorial:

I started with 2 hearts - just freehand drawing the pattern onto pattern paper.  My fabric was kinda thin so I beefed it up with woven interfacing, but that's optional.
I used Bond-a-web for the squares of silver fabric for the 'star' and the brown and green 'trunk'
I folded over a long rectangle of red cotton so it was a bit thicker, and that was enough stabilisation for all the freehand embroidery I did to make the tree.
Thread: Green for the tree, Silver for the star, brown for the trunk, black for the heart
Stuffing
Ribbon for the hanger and bow

I just made a triangle on my red fabric and loaded up the freehand embroidery foot:

I just went back and forth, working from the outside inwards, till I was happy:

Then I used red thread and hand appliqued it to my heart. I trimmed the squares until I was happy with the placement and size, then ironed them on. Then I simply went over them with freehand embroidery.

the 'star'

the trunk

done!

I put the hearts RST, plugged the green ribbon in (although I did it inside out first and had to fix it - duh), sewed it leaving a 2 inch opening, then clipped the curves:

I turned it RSO, stuffed it with a bit of stuffing, hand sewed the opening shut, and voila! Add a pretty bow to the ribbon handle, and you're done!

Notes:

• make sure you sew the tree onto the heart, don't just rely on some bond-a-web to attach it. It just peels off.
• If you want to you can skip the interfacing and stuff it with lavender or some other smelly thing.

 So leave a comment and win one for yourself!


Jenna
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