16 December 2009

Swedish Woven Heart Ornament Tutorial


As some of you may know, my Papa Soderberg passed away in September. It's been a difficult thing for me. So, to honor him and his Swedish heritage, and to fulfill our tradition of giving our children Christmas ornaments each year, I made these Swedish Heart Christmas Ornaments. Usually, these lovely items are made with sturdy paper.  I decided to try making them with fabric, and the result is this tutorial.  For those of you new to sewing/crafting, these require no sewing!

So here we go:

You'll need Heat N Bond Lite...I prefer buying it in bulk.
Two contrasting woven fabrics.  Felt does not work for this project. 
Scissors.
Iron.
Pattern, found here.  It comes in two sizes.  I am showing you how to make these with the smaller size. 
Also,

Measuring Tape.
Skinny grosgrain ribbon.
Low temp hot glue gun and glue.

Let's begin.
Step 8, pin your pattern piece to the folded fabric.  The straight portion should lie on the fold.

Now comes the FUN part!



Now, for the final phase...hot gluing the ribbon hanger.

This project lends itself to many different variations.  The traditional colors are red and white, but the possibilities are limitless.

I am planning on embroidering the date and each child's initials for their individual ornaments.  You could also embellish with additional ribbon.

This is what the larger size looks like:

If you make the larger ones, be sure to iron the heart really well after you finish weaving.

I hope you make lots of beautiful ornaments.  Once you make one or two to get the hang of things, you can put together an assembly line-type of operation and make several in one afternoon.  It took me about an hour to make six today.

Please be sure to email me your creations.  I love to see them! 






Featured on One Pretty Thing.
Linked to Just Another Day in Paradise.

8 happy thoughts:

marta said...

so super cute. this design reminds me of my grandma.. what a sweet tutorial. thank you!

Aiming4Simple said...

This is a wonderful project, especially for those of us with a Swedish heritage. Thanks for sharing it!

Ty and Em said...

This is also a Danish tradition! My family makes these EVERY year and love them. We make ours out of wool felt and sometimes embellish them with buttons. LOTS of fun.

Steph @ somewhatsimple said...

so simple and cute, I love it!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

I really like how they look done in fabric. I'm editing my post, to add a link to this too - if you don't mind. :)

CraftCrave said...

Thank you! This blog post will be advertised on CraftCrave in the Handcraft category today (look for timestamp: [10 Feb 01:00pm GMT]).

Clara in Paradise said...

My husband is Danish, and his mom makes this every year. Thanks for teaching me how to do them, I'll try them next Xmas.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing this. The pictures were terrific! I'm such a visual learner, but sometimes videos go too fast for me. Your tutorial was perfect!

Post a Comment

How sweet of you to stop by. Kind words are always welcome.

Print
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...