Tutorial Tuesday #12 - Frosted Felt Conversation Heart Cookies

I love making frosted sugar cookies for Valentines Day, but after all the sugar overload from the holidays I really didn't want the temptation of more sweets around. So this year I decided to make my cookies from wool felt. 

(My darling chippy metal cake stand was purchased here.)

 

You can make these fun cookies from wool, felt or my favorite, wool felt. You'll just need a fabric that doesn't fray since all the raw edges are left exposed.

I know many of you will have what you need to make this project but for those who may need some supplies, here's where I buy my wool felt. Many of you know Barri from Bareroots and her adorable original stitchery patterns and kits. Barri not only carries complete kits, but also has a great selection of wool felt and all the general necessities for stitching on wool felt. 

I need to tell you that I am not an expert on stitching on wool. Lots of you have more experience so please be gentle.

I'm just going to share with you what I found to work best for me. Do share with us any additional tips that work for you in the comment section below.

First off, I want you to know that I always prewash my wool felt. Since it's a blend of wool and rayon (percentages will vary with colors) it will fluff up just slightly when washed. I personally like the look of washed wool felt - it's no so flat and perfect looking. To wash I just run it under warm water then lay it flat to dry.

The biggest challenge when working with wool felt is that you can't see though it like you can with most regular fabrics. Getting your stitchery design onto the felt can be a challenge. I've tried several methods; tracing the design onto tissue paper and waxed paper, both with less than the desired results. Because you stitch through the traced lines the paper wants to tear as you stitch and makes it difficult to see what you're doing.

I ended up going over all the stitches a second time and that was just too time consuming. I settled on tracing the words onto lightweight tearway stabilizer. The stabilizer stayed in one piece until my stitches were complete then I gently tore the stabilizer away and picked the residue out from under the stitches.

This took no time at all and I liked the results when I was done. If you have done any machine  embroidery or applique, you probably already have non fusible tearway stabilizer on hand.

You can also just draw your letters free hand onto the small felt heart with a chalk or washout pen if you like your handwriting. I needed the help of a pattern so typed up some letters using a font that I liked and included it here: Download Conversation hearts here

Although you can just cut a heart from folded paper I've also included the heart pattern here mostly for size :Download Hearts pattern here

You'll want your smaller heart to be about 1/4" to 3/8" smaller than the larger heart all the way around. Less than perfect is perfect!

I used either three strands of embroidery floss or #8 perle cotton for this project, depending on the colors that I had.

I've also inserted a YouTube video here for those who need a refresher on how to do a backstitch for the words. (This is not my voice or video).

After stitching the words onto the small heart I used a blanket stitch to attach the small heart to the larger heart then connected the two large hearts using a blanket stitch. I stuffed the heart lightly before closing. Here's a refresher on the blanket Stitch: 

If you're still with me, know that typing this tutorial took way more time than actually making the hearts. I hope you found it helpful and that it encourages you to try some hand embroidery. It's a great cozy up to the fire project for the cold winter months ahead.

Encourage one another,