2011 Felt Ornaments Part 2

Here are this season's final two felt ornaments - a gingerbread candy house and a cardinal (you can find the first two ornaments here).  The cardinal seemed a good choice this year for those of you baseball fans still celebrating in St. Louis - and for those of us often suffering Cardinal football fans, we'll just call it a Christmas Cardinal!

Materials:
*red, dark red, black, tan, white, sparkling white, yellow, orange, green, purple, and brown felt
*red, black, white, yellow, orange, green, purple, and brown embroidery floss
*1/8 inch white ribbon
*assorted beads
*large hole bead
*patterns found here

Cardinal:
1.  Cut two each of large silhouette and large wing from red felt, two each of small silhouette and small wing from dark red felt, and two masks from black felt.

2.  Use a blanket stitch to attach all pieces together.  I used three strands of floss for everything except for attaching the mask, where I used two strands.  Attach small silhouette to large silhouette.

3.  Attach large wing and then small wing.  Repeat with the remaining pieces, making sure to the two sides  face opposite ways.

4.  Attach mask.  Using beads, add an eye.  I used a small flat shell bead and hooked it on with a red bead - to do this, come up through the first bead, add second bead to your needle, and go down through the first bead.

5.  Cut 12 inches of ribbon.  Pin front to back with the ribbon in between the layers - putting about an inch of the ribbon in between the front and back.

6.  Attach front to back, again using a blanket stitch.  Thread a large holed bead onto the ribbon and tie a knot above it.

Gingerbread House:
1.  Cut two house shapes from tan felt, one roof and one snow ledge from sparkly white felt, two large candy canes and one small candy cane from white felt, one door from chocolate brown felt, assorted gumdrops from different colors of felt, and a long 1/4 inch wide strip of red felt.

2.  Use a blanket stitch to attach all the pieces.  I used two strands for everything except attaching the front to the back.  I used three strands for this.  When attaching pieces, don't sew on the outside edge - you'll only sew on this edge when attaching the front to the back.  Attach the snow roof and snow ledge.

3.  Attach the two large candy canes to the front corners of the house and the small candy cane to the back corner.

4.  Lay one end of the red felt strip across the top of one candy cane.  Sew in place.

5.  Trim along the outer edge and repeat to make the next stripe.

6.  Repeat to make stripes on all the candy canes.

7.  Add gumdrops.

8.  Attach beads around the door - I used frosty white beads to secure the larger beads on.

9.  Cut 8 inches of ribbon.  Pin front to back with the ribbon in between the layers - putting about an inch of the ribbon in between the front and back.

10.  Attach front to back, again using a blanket stitch.

Happy Creating and Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!  Deborah