Embroidered Christmas Ornaments

I have been quite busy the last couple months sewing Christmas ornaments.  The pattern I used is by Sara Hardwig for Blueberry Backroads, and I found it at Bear Patch Quilting Company in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

There, now I have all the legal business behind me!

Here you can see photos of several of the many that I made.  Silly me!  I didn't take a photo with anything to show you the scale.  They finished at 2 3/4 inches by 3 1/4 inches.

These tiny ornaments don't take very much time to finish up.  I ended up making 25 of them for my guild to sell at our annual Festival of the Trees, which is our major fundraiser.

When I was done with all of them, I started in on some more to put in with Christmas cards to give to some of my family.  It was suggested to me that they could also be used for gift tags.  Easily done by writing the name on the back with a fine point indelible marker.  Then the recipient also has a nice ornament, too!

I set up a sort of assembly line to make the embroidery bases.  I first cut out 1 1/4 in strips from various green and red fabrics.  Then I cut out the small muslin rectangles (2 by 2 1/2" pieces).  I randomly chose a red and a green fabric to sew around the muslin.  Next came cutting up the batting scraps to put behind the "frames."  And finally, I cut pieces for the backing for each one.  

I used my "light box" (paper and fabric taped to a window) to trace all the patterns with my Frixion pen.  Then I proceeded to stitch away.  I embroidered quite a few, maybe a dozen, then sewed them to the backing fabric (adding the gold braid for a hanger), turned them right side out, and stitched closed the opening.  All that was left to do then was sew the simple little quilting line around each "frame."

I encourage you to go to Blueberry Backroads and look at their selection of nice patterns.  Or shop for them at your local quilt shop, which is what we all really like to do.  I know that I want to try some more of her patterns in the future!