Matryoshka Doll Ornament

There is something so nice and comforting about Holiday Traditions isn't there? A thread tying memories together from year to year. It seems most of our traditions tend to revolve around food in our family, but I thought it would be fun to start making each child a Christmas ornament every year (am I setting myself up for failure here? Probably.) and then someday when they leave our little nest (sniff) they will have something to start their own Christmas decoration stash with--and take a little piece of their childhood home with them too.

I had a little down time last week (has the cold bug hit your house too?) so I pulled out my stash of felt and got to work.

I am sort of in love with little Matryoshka Dolls (have been seeing so many cute ones around lately) and thought it would be the perfect thing for my own little dolly this year, so I drew up a pattern.


To make your own, you will need:
Several pieces of wool felt in whatever colors you fancy
Several colors of embroidery floss + needle
cotton or polyester stuffing (like fiberfill)
fabric glue
disappearing fabric marker with a fine tip
sharp scissors (this will make all the difference in cutting out precise shapes)
ribbon (or ric-rac, string, floss...whatever) to hang


To get the pattern, just right click on it and save it to your computer. Then print out as many copies as you need. You might want to size it down a bit...I printed mine at 70%. (or print it at full size and give it to your busy little helper if you have one, to color on while you are working.)

Cut out all of your felt pieces using the pattern as a template (cut 2 of the large background body pieces and as and many of the other shapes as you'd like). For the bigger pieces I pin the pattern to the felt and cut, and for the smaller ones I either trace directly onto the felt with a disappearing fabric marker, or I just free-hand them. Obviously this pattern is meant to be a guideline...you could easily play around and make your own design on the front!

Stitch the eyes and mouth onto the face piece using a back stitch (mark with disappearing fabric marker as a guide first if you prefer). I don't bother with using an embroidery hoop for these kinds of projects. For the eyes and mouth I used a regular piece of black thread, doubled.

Glue your design pieces (using fabric glue) onto the face and body as you see fit. (I tend to not glue quite all the way to the edge of the piece I am gluing as it makes it more difficult to pull your needle through when doing your embroidery.) Helpful chubby toddler hands optional.

Now add some embroidery wherever you'd like. (You could easily skip this step and just glue your pieces on and call it a day...but I think the embroidery makes it special.) For all embroidery on this project I used 3 strands of embroidery floss (it has 6 threads as it comes...to separate, just cut the length you need and pull apart as many threads as you want to use), and an embroidery needle.

For my doll, I used a:
split stitch for the hair, flower petals, and (2 side by side rows) stem
running stitch for the cheeks and flower petals
french knot for the center of the flower and around the outside of petals
back stitch to embroider name and year on the back piece

For fun...this is what the back looks like.

When you're happy with your embroidery, glue the face and body pieces to your front background piece.

At this point I added some more embroidery (split stitching) around the face and body.

Secure whatever sort of string or ribbon you are using as a hanger on the inside center of the back piece with a glob of fabric glue. Once it has dried, place front piece on top of back piece and blanket stitch around the whole thing leaving a space big enough to put stuffing through.

Stuff to desired plumpness

And then finish blanket stitching her up.

Done.

Now hang her in a place of honor and send me a picture so I can see her too please;)

Happy crafting!

love Danielle