Little forest

Here are all my trees, my little forest. I tried several different ways of making them. The original instructions (from Stephanie of Little Birds Handmade) tell you to stuff the trees, but I used Fast-to-Fuse/Peltex/Timtex or Heat and Bond.

For the green tree, I made a cone shape out of Timtex, and pulled the embroidered tree over the cone. I made a circle out of the same stiffener, ironing some unembellished gingham to it, and sewed that to the bottom of the tree. For the other trees, I used Heat and Bond, fusing a piece of plain white fabric to the inside, and left the bottoms open (trimming the fabric to the edge, but not turning it under). I used a feather stitch on the two of the small white trees and the green gingham tree, herringbone on one, and a blanket stitch on the large tree. The large tree also has two pieces of rickrack intertwined and sewn to the bottom.

And p.s., the ornaments on the green tree are a &%$@! to keep on! They’re attached with little tiny S-hooks that have a just-large-enough opening to slip onto the feather stitching and fall off as soon as you tip the tree. I’ll have to take the S-hooks off and attach the ornaments with thread.

I found it difficult to sew the very top of the tree closed; it’s much easier to turn the tree inside out, sew the top for a couple of inches, then turn the tree right side out and finish sewing the seam. I think stuffing the tree would be much easier, but I was curious to try this other method. And the trees are stackable, easier to store if their insides are open (as opposed to being full of stuffing).

I found a number of ideas, using this conical shape:

• Victorian cone, made by Pat Winter, at CQMagOnline
• Santa Claus, at SoulMama
• An elf, at Rubycrownedkinglette
• An adorable angel, at PatternBee (also lots of other embroidery patterns-cute!)
• A bunny from the Pixiegirl Shop (update 12/2007 – now changed to Shana Logic, search for “bunny”)
• I’ve also seen an adorable mouse, which of course I can’t find now!
• update 12/07 A cone Santa, purchased at Fred Meyer’s for a friend, which I don’t have a picture of, dang it!
• update 1/08 A cone hat tree ornament in a Japanese craft book, via Molly Chicken

And just in case, I wrote about the little trees here, here, and here. So enough trees already!