How to make a Burlap, Lace and Muslin Wreath

This is the third grapevine wreath I have made so far. I really love these. They're so rustic, yet elegant once they've been decorated. This one made of burlap, muslin and lace is going to be my summer wreath.  These are not only beautiful, but they're rather cheap to make. The wreath cost about $5, the fabric was another $4, and the lace and pearls were scraps from other projects.

Materials:
Grapevine Wreath
Twine or Sisal Rope
1/2 yard Muslin
1/2 yard Burlap
1/2 yard Lace
Pearl Beads
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Sticks
Scissors
Pins





Start by cutting the fabrics into strips about 1" wide, going in the direction of the shorter side of the fabric. You can vary the widths to vary the sizes of the flowers. Save a few inches at the end to make the leaves.

Start by making the muslin flowers, since it's easier and it will give you practice to be able to make the burlap ones. Grab one corner of the strip of fabric and pinch it with your finger and thumb.

Start winding it around the center twist it as you go.

Try to twist it once about every third of the way around the flower, increasing the number of twists as you move outward.

Once you finish a flower stick a pin through it to hold it together.

For the burlap flowers, do the same thing but twist it less often. For the burlap and lace flowers, hold the strip of lace on top of the burlap. As you twist it, try to keep the lace on the top of the burlap.

Once you're done twisting all the strips into flowers, heat up your glue gun and cut circles of muslin and burlap the size of your flowers. Add hot glue in the spiral of the flower on the bottom side to hold it all together.

Stick the circle on the bottom of the flower while the glue is hot.

Once they've cooled a little, remove the pin and add a drop of hot glue in to the end of the strip of fabric to hold it in place.

Arrange the flowers the way you want them on the wreath. At this point, you can cut out leaves from the burlap to mix in with the flowers.

I ended up wrapping twine around the area where I wanted my flowers to go so that they had more to hold on to.

Pickup each flower and add a spiral of hot glue around the back of it. Then put in in place and hold it very for a few seconds.

Glue the pearls into the center of the flowers. Try to match the sizes; larger pearls on larger flower, smaller pearls on smaller flowers. You can also do clusters of pearls if you wish.

Hang and enjoy!

Little Bird Felt Embroidery Throw Pillow

This past week, I made a embroidered felt throw pillow to match my bed set. I was lucky enough to get a Lenox Chirp bedding set from my mother in law for my bridal shower, but I didn't want to spend $60 on little throw pillow to match. I did however, want a pillow with a bird on it that matches at least a little bit. So I set out to create my own. I'm not going to lie, sewing is definitely one of the most time consuming projects, but this one wasn't particularly difficult.

Materials:

1/2 yard of the main fabric

Several sheets of felt in the colors you want to use

(light blue, dark brown, olive green and yellow in my case)

Thread or Embroidery Floss (Embroidery Floss will make the stitches more noticeable if you want that look)

Stuffing - enough to fill the size pillow you want to make.

Also Needed:

Scissors

Needles

Pins

Iron and Ironing Board

Paper and Pencil or Pattern

I started a little backwards because I wasn't sure what I wanted at first. But this is how should start.

Iron down the fabric.

Fold your fabric in half so you cut two pieces at once. Cut your pillow out at the size you want. Mine was about 14"x14"

After cutting the piece of the pillow, this is what you should do next.

I started by drawing my pattern and then cutting out the pieces of paper into separate pieces.

I then took each of the piece of paper and held it on the felt and cut out each piece of felt. Then I laid it all out to see where each piece should go and pinned it down. I made some creative changes along the way and decided not to use the wing, eye and beak made of felt.

Once each piece was pinned in place, I started sewing them down. I used large stitches that went around the edges of each piece of felt. The stitch should be perpendicular to the edge. Start you stitch by coming up 1/4" from the edge and then go down just past the edge, angling so that you come back up about 1/"4 from the start of your previous stitch.

This took a while.

Once all the felt was sewn down, I used a backstitch to add details. I added the wing, lines in the tail and leaves, an eye and a beak.

This is how I backstitch.

Next, I made the flowers. Start with a square or rectangle about 4"x4" or 4"x3" in size. Start cutting on the middle of one side in a spiral. If you can cut in an up and down motion, you can make it look more like petals.

This is how it should end up looking

Start by pinching the center of the circle and twirling the felt around at a slight angle. Turn it so that the back of the flower stays relatively flat. If this it too difficult, start by using a spiral of felt without the petal pattern.

This is the back of the flower. Put pins through the edges to the other side to hold in in place.

Then stitch through the side to hold it together permanently.

It might not look pretty, but no one is going to see it...

Next, stitch the flower to the pillow. I stitched through the center a couple times and then through the bottom edges of the flower to the pillow.

 Pin the right (front/outward facing) sides of both sides of the pillow together on all four sides. Sew the edges together about 1/2" from the edge. Leave the last 2"-3" open so you can turn the pillow, right side out. It's helpful to leave the last pin sideways to remind you to stop before sewing the whole thing closed. I can't even remember how many times I've had to rip out seams because I sewed too far.

Turn the pillow right side out, flowers first.  

You should end up with a hole that looks like this. 

Fold the edges under and iron it flat. This will make it easier to sew closed.

Stuff the pillow full with stuffing. Fluff up the stuffing before you put it in the pillow. Use your fingers to push it through a little at a time

Push the stuffing into all the corners and fill it until it feels like a good throw pillow. Used a chopstick like thing that came with my bag of stuffing to push it into the corners. You'll probably need to fill it a little more than you think you should so it doesn't sag in the last corner that you're about to sew up.

Next, stitch up the hole. This is a little tricky, because you'll need to make the stitches invisible. For this, you'll need to use a ladder stitch. 

It should look something like this. Sew up the hole and tie it off.

The finished product!