OMG It’s Christmas!

Christmas seems to have crept up on me this year.

So many planned projects will remain just images on my Christmas Pinterest board.

I have, however, made these lovely Christmas baubles!

Made up from this gorgeous cotton lawn sent to me by the lovely people of Minerva crafts, along with some medium weight fusible fleece.

1/2m each of two contrasting fabrics will make 4 baubles.
Here’s how I did it.
Drawing around a cardboard disc measuring 5cm in diameter, I cut out 20 circles of fusible fleece.
I then adhered them to the wrong side of one of the pieces of fabric, using a clean tea towel over the top to press through. Fleece and hot irons do not mix!

Next, with right sides of both fabric pieces faced together, I sewed around each fleece disc. Sew all the way round and then continue onto the next one without lifting the needle.
I found it useful to sew all the around the edge and across the centre of the fabric panels first (sewing between the discs!) as this stabilised the fabric and made it quicker to steer the fabric around to sew around the discs faster without ‘needle down, lift foot, move fabric, drop foot’, too many times. You get quite good at it by the time you have done your twentieth!

Here I have cut out each disc using my shearing scissors.
But how do you turn them the right side out?

You cut a small slit in the middle and push them through. You’ll not see the slit as it’ll be on the inside of the bauble. Then iron them flat. You can see my first lot of discs were not quite circular but this did not affect the end result.

Next, draw an equilateral triangle onto your 5cm cardboard disc. I just fudged this until I got all the sides the same length and cut it out. I’m sure there is a mathematical way of marking this precisely. Then with a pen, transfer the triangle shape onto the front face of your disc. These marks will be hidden once you’ve sewn them together.
All that remains is an hour or so of hand sewing in front of the TV.
Yes, I forgot to take a photo of this stage but you just match up the triangle lines and use a small running stitch to sew the discs together. You need 5 discs to come together at each ‘flower’ centre. Just look at the finished bauble.
You will use all 20 discs. Before you sew your bauble closed, stuff firmly and knot and insert a ribbon for hanging. Then using your iron and a little steam (cover up the hand you are holding the bauble with, with a towel to protect yourself from the iron) press open the ‘petals’ to expose the contrasting fabric.
Voila!

I’ve still materials left for another two in the alternative colourway.

They are a little large for my tree but look gorgeous hanging from a door knob.

My daughter asked, ‘how on earth did you makes these?’
Easy when you know how!

Love, Lucie xx