Once again felt saves the day! This is a wonderful project for beginner level stitchers during the holiday season. It uses a simple run stitch and the blanket stitch and kids can manage to finish it in one or two sessions.
You need to prepare:
Needles
Thread
Felt trees x 2
Felt star
Brown cotton in strips for trunk
Thin ribbon for hanging
Sequins, bobbles and buttons, etc.
Scissors
Glue
Stuffing of your choice
Before class, I prepared two pieces of green felt cut from a triangle (use an old cereal box folded in half to make one) pattern for each student
Next, I cut small yellow circles and turned them into stars by cutting little slits into them...it worked.
Each child also received a ribbon and a long piece of brown fabric which is folded in half to attach as the trunk of the tree. The kit was complete.
Each child sews their star into place first and then it's time to decorate.
I put small sequins and buttons, etc. into dishes so that the kids could all browse through the goods and share while sewing decorations onto the front of their trees. I suggested that children put a smidge of glue down first to make it easier to hold things in place while they stitched them on securely.
Next we folded the trunk and stitched that onto the front with the running stitch - careful to make sure it is in the center. Once in place we blanket stitched around the tree with the two layers together at last. Leave a small bit at the bottom to stuff with poly-fill or old cloth scraps. This is when an assistant could come in handy to help with knots and needles that fall off...
Some of the children decided to stitch the two sides of the trunk and stuff that too, although that wasn't the original plan. A nice innovation.
They all wrote their names and we decided to send them to our penpals in Germany as gifts!
The girls in our afterschool class made wreaths too.
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