BLOG: Felt Patterns

You all know how much I love my felt craft projects. 🙂 My latest are these sweet bear coasters – easy, fun and portable hand stitching.

Download the bear templates here. (One sheet has all the pieces needed for six bear coasters.)

If you want to make something besides bears, you can use any of my applique patterns. Just print the pieces at 40% size. You’ll find more info about resizing a pattern here.

Here’s how to make them.

Cut two 4-inch squares of wool felt for each coaster.

If you live in a humid place where one beverage will soak through two layers of wool felt in no time, cut a 3 1/2 inch square from something waterproof for each coaster. It doesn’t matter what it looks like – it will be hidden inside the coaster. I use a shower curtain liner. 🙂

Download the pattern and print (or trace) the pieces onto freezer paper. The sheet has enough pieces for 6 coasters.

Rough cut around the pieces and fuse the freezer paper to wool felt. Cut out all the pieces. Cut right through the felt and the freezer paper – it helps you get neat cuts on all those tiny pieces.

Leave a little extra seam allowance past the dotted lines at the base of the ears – that bit will tuck under the head for a neat finish.

Peel off the freezer paper backs and assemble all the pieces (tucking the ears under the head) on one of your coaster squares. I like to swipe the backs with a little dab of fabric glue stick, but you can use pins if you don’t mind your thread snagging on them every other stitch. 🙂

Appliqué all the parts in place using whipstitch and two strands of matching thread.

Layer a plain back with the bear front, slipping a waterproof square between the layers if desired.

Whipstitch the layers together around the edge and you’re finished!

Here are the colors I used for my set. I used black for all the eyes and noses. I recommend shopping Benzie Design for felt. they have a HUGE selection of colors! One sheet of felt will make three coasters.

• background – denim
• bear – Tahitian sunset
• muzzle and belly – copper

• background – enchanted forest
• bear – coffee
• muzzle and belly – Tahitian sunset

• background – vineyard
• bear – copper
• muzzle and belly – cobblestone

• background – loden
• bear – Tahitian sunset
• muzzle and belly – cobblestone

• background – blue snow
• bear – white
• muzzle – smoky marble

• background – babbling brook
• bear – licorice
• muzzle – Tahitian sunset

My favorite is the one with the purple background. Jo’s favorite is the polar bear. Alan is still at San Diego Comic Con so he hasn’t claimed one yet. Which is your favorite?

Here are several free patterns that work with my basic 10-inch applique squares – no resizing needed!

• Make a Wall Hanging with a Wonky Churn Dash Frame
• Trick or Treat Bag (medium tote bag)
• Quilted Tablet Cover
• How to Turn Any Quilt Block into a Pillow
• Fast and Easy Placemats
• Fancy Felt Frame
• Receiving Blanket

Here are several free patterns that work with just some simple resizing. This post about making coasters has info about resizing an applique pattern that can be applied to any of these projects.

• Free Bib Pattern
• Simple Christmas Stocking
• Mini Bunny Tote Bag
• Turn Any Quilt Block Patterns into Cute Coasters
• Cozy Bear Coasters
• The Big Bag (applique on the pocket)
• Cloth Book for Babies

Return to the main Let’s Make a Quilt Table of Contents.

Happy stitching!

Make a simple ornament with this free felt matroyshka pattern, or use it to applique onto a phone case or anything else.

The links take you to a tutorial for any skill you’ll need.

What you’ll need. . .

• wool felt (I used scraps of lavender, blue bayou, banana cream, fuchsia, Tahitian sunset and blushing bride)
• embroidery thread (I used DMC #601, 726, 3846, 958, 3858 and 3371)
• Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy

You might also want. . .

• Thread Magic
• size #8 embroidery needle

You can find sources for all my favorite supplies here.

Download the pattern here.

Trace or print the pattern onto Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy. Cut the pieces apart and stick them to the felt color indicated on the pattern piece.

Stitch right through the stabilizer.

Cut the pieces out right on the solid lines. Where there’s a dotted line, leave a little extra seam allowance. You can see that around the face, and at the top of the hair, apron and dress pieces in the photo.

Soak the stabilizer away in cold water. Let the pieces soak for a good long time, then rinse the softened stabilizer off under cold running water. Hit any stubborn bits with the kitchen sprayer, but don’t rub the surface of the felt.

Set them to dry on a towel. Don’t wring, twist or even smoosh them. Just let them dry.

Use two strands of thread for all stitching. You can, of course, use any colors and stitches you like, but here’s what I used on each piece. . .

For the dress, backstitch the vines and stripes with DMC #601 and #958. The leaves are lazy daisy stitches with DMC #958 and the dots are French knots with DMC #726.

Backstitch the mouth with DMC #3371. The eyes use this stitch.

For the apron, the French knots are DMC #601. The drops are lazy daisy stitches in DMC #726.

The dots on the scarf are French knots in DMC #958. The flowers are lazy daisy with DMC #601. The little stars and the centers of the flowers are DMC #726.

That’s all the pieces. Time to applique! I use this simple whipstitch and two strands of matching thread for all applique.

Applique the flower to the apron. Then applique the center of the flower and the yellow drop.

Lay the apron over the dress and applique the edges down.

Applique the hair to the top of the face.

Then applique the scarf over the face. Depending on how much extra seam allowance you cut around the face, it may hang out past the edges of the sides of the scarf. That’s ok.

Flip the piece over so you can see your stitching line – the circle of purple stitches here. Trim away the excess felt as close to the stitching as possible so that nothing sticks out past the edge of the scarf.

It should look like this when you’re done.

Finally, lay the back piece down on a flat surface and use that as a guide to line up the face and scarf over the bottom half of the doll. Applique the last layers together.

You can applique this finished front to anything else, or you can sew it to the matroyshka back piece using whipstitch all around. Leave a small opening and add a tiny bit of stuffing – just enough to puff it out a bit. Finish sewing it closed and attach a hanging loop to the top if you like.

Finished!

You could make a set of these in lots of different colors and string them together into a garland. That would be so pretty!

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Happy stitching!