Simple Felt Ornaments are a Great Way to Practice Stitching

The other day I came across this pin on Pinterest, which is an image uploaded by a user of a simple embroidered felt Christmas ornament made all the more lovely with the addition of quite a lot of seed beads.

On further browsing I also found this one, also a user upload, but it made me think of stitch samplers and how this would be a super cute thing of a kid (or someone of any age learning embroidery or cross stitch) to make for the tree.

To do it, just cut out two rounds of felt, probably a few inches across. Embroider or cross stitch random stitches, or make a design like a tree, heart or star. You might want to stitch your name and the year on the felt piece that will be the back.

Add embellishments such as buttons or beads as you like.

Hand sew the two pieces together, adding a little stuffing as you go, and a ribbon at the top for hanging.

These would be so fun to make with a group, it could even be an activity you work on at your holiday celebrations!

[Photo via Pinterest.]

Looking for more Christmas Cross Stitch patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

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20+ Chirstmas Snowman To Cross Stitch

I love little cross stitch patterns, but it’s especially fun when a small cross stitch design has a lot of detail going on. That’s the case with this collection of national parks cross stitch patterns from Stitchin Madness.

This isn’t really a pattern, it’s a full-on book with designs for all 63 of the national parks in the United States (which includes the Virgin Islands). Each design is unique and shows a distinctive feature or the park or what the landscape there looks like.

The book includes a full table of contents and numbered pages to make it easy to find the design you want to make.

Each design is 40 by 40 stitches without the park name included, and 40 by 50 stitches if you add the name. They’re designed for 14 count fabric and if you make all of them you’ll use 72 colors, though each individual pattern uses a lot fewer colors than that.

These would be so fun to make as you visit different parks, or make the whole set to frame together if you’re a big travel person who loves the national parks. They’d also be fun as greeting cards or even ornaments for your tree with the year you visited added to it somewhere.

The photo above shows a nice collection of some of the patterns in hoops, but I could see them done in little frames as well. This should give you a taste for what the designs look like and might even include your favorite park (mine is Acadia because I went there on my honeymoon; it isn’t on here but you can see it on the product page.

If you’re ready to stitch the national parks, or even just a handful of them, check out this pattern book from Stitchin Madness on Etsy. I’d love to know which national park is your favorite or what you would stitch up first!

[Photo: Stitchin Madness]

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