Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts

Merry Christmas! I bought the Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts just for the fox, but I wound up stitching them all....all the animals and the fungus (the mushroom) too.  :)  If you follow me on Instagram, you saw I started the fox right before Thanksgiving and finished the last ornament this week.

The kit came with the felt, twine, beads, pins, a needle, floss, and pre-cut flowers and 2 circles for the owl's eyes (you have to cut out the rest of the felt pieces yourself, using a separate PDF pattern).  I did wind up switching up some of the background colors for felt I bought at Stitch Lab in Austin earlier this month.   And there's not enough felt with the kit if you want to cut a second background layer to hide your stitching--which the perfectionist in me totally wants.

I got into a rhythm with them--cut out the pieces, arrange and stitch.  By the fourth ornament, I decided to stitch directly onto a rough cut piece of felt, and then cut around it, instead of cutting the background out before stitching.  That way if my animal shifted, I could cut it to still have a nice border around the animal.


stitch onto rough cut felt

Cut around it with pinking shears (I hadn't used pinking shears in forever!)

Layer it on a second layer of felt.
I used tape to temporarily join the two layers so they wouldn't shift too much as I cut the second layer, trying to get the pinking to be in exactly the same location as the front.

Then I removed the tape and used the running stitch to stitch the two layers together along the perimeter, stitching the twine hanger to the ornament at the appropriate position. This second layer hides the stitching on the first layer (except for the running stitches of course!)

Close-up pic of the 7 ornaments in the kit, but the sewing machine is from a Betz White PDF (stitched/glued this year), a handstitched Mollie Makes "deer head on bauble" from last year, and an A. Paulson red coat ornament, also handstitched this year.

The full effect, after I opened presents this morning...should have taken this long range view before opening presents!

The Betz White Christmas cactus ornament, stitched/glued this weekend, hanging from my Christmas cactus. My note to self is that craft glue only dries clear in the places where it wasn't overly used. If I used a lot of it, it dried white and then I spent a lot of time trying to peel it off, ultimately taking part of the felt with it.

Red berries

Holly!
Merry Christmas y'all!
And a reminder, if you'd like to win a Vacuuming the Lawn 2017 bag calendar, enter here.  You have until Tuesday morning at 7am EST to enter.

Be well!

Handstitched Heidi Boyd Fox Whimsy Stitches Kit

Soooo.....back on August 2, I was checking out at the City Quilter in NYC before sprinting to get the bus home, and saw this kit, all stitched up, on the wall.

As I was already forking over my credit card, I decided I would buy the kit online. I was disappointed to find that CQ didn't sell it online, and couldn't remember the name of the company. I did a google image search for fox embroidery kit to find it is by Heidi Boyd. There was free shipping that day on her etsy site, and when it arrived it was wrapped like a present, with a turquoise bow, felt flower and little fox pin, and even a handwritten note with a little fox drawn on the note. Sooooo cute.

I stitched this up one afternoon during my week-long vacation waaaay back in early September, the day after I stitched up the Mollie Makes foxes.  Remember these cuties???

Unlike the MM kit, this kit came with a high quality needle, yay!

It was awesome to be in my sewing room on a weekday afternoon, just stitching in a sunbeam.

I had never done anything like this before, but it has some parallels to garment sewing:

• Iron your fabric (the embroidery cloth)!  
• Cut out your pattern pieces!  
• Cut your fabric pieces (the felt)!

Pop the fabric into the hoop, and start arranging the pieces.   Pin some of them on. bI was dying to use Wonder Tape, but I restrained myself.

Start hand stitching.

And stitching

And then, a few (was it 4?) hours later, it's done!  I didn't give my fox whiskers; somehow I didn't like how they looked.  I added my initials and the year.

I really liked the clever way to finish off the cloth.  The directions say to cut the fabric about an inch away from the hoop.  I went the extra mile and serged that part off (if you do that, take extra care around the metal part of the hoop, as far as its "interaction" with your metal presser foot!)

Then I made a running stitch by hand to pull it together, as per the instructions.  How neat and tidy is that??  I cross stitched as a teenager and had no idea that's how you're supposed to finish the back!

YAY!  I bought this kit again as I'd like to have a fox with me at work and a fox at home too.  Why not???  I may have bought a few other kits as well, uhmmmmm.....

Overall I enjoyed the slow, meditative stitching and the lack of fitting.  I did rip out here and there and started again, but that is par for the course for me.  And since I didn't know what I was doing, I really appreciated the clear instructions.    It is very straightforward.    Foxy!


Here's a lineup of 5 of the 9 pumpkinettes I grew this year.  The printer ran out of ink....(silly joke I borrowed from the internet....you know, where they line up kittens...)

Be well!!!  (After having norovirus this weekend, I feel that takes on special significance!  Tonight was the first time I really felt like eating again, hurrah!)