Free Motion Embroidery Christmas Decorations

After my free motion embroidery workshop a couple of weeks ago, I have been thinking about ways of applying this new skill. As it is coming up to Christmas, I decided that one perfect way would be to make some lovely free motion embroidery Christmas decorations. These are a great gift, and as they use small pieces of fabric to make the appliqué they can be another great scrap busting idea to use up every last scrap!

Free Motion Embroidery Christmas Decorations

this Idea!

You will need:

• scraps of fabric in various colours
• some bondaweb or other double sided fusing tape
• a hot iron and pressing cloth
• design templates – see below
• a sewing machine
• some ribbon to hang the resulting decoration from your tree

I love to use Christmas specific fabrics. These often have gold and silver design elements, so give a lovely Christmas finish.

My Templates

One of my favourite Christmas decorations are nutcrackers. So I decided to make a template of the face of a nutcracker figure as my own design. I drew the face that I wanted, then broke it down into component pieces that would be needed in each fabric for the appliqué

I had done a Christmas pudding at the workshop, and so I drafted a pudding and tree template. These are slightly simpler ideas.

My Nutcracker Template – with Christmas Pudding and Christmas Tree

Making the Decorations

I bonded my different fabrics to the sheet of bondaweb using a hot steam-free iron and a pressing cloth.

Taking the template, I cut out the small pieces needed to make up the face design. And drew around these templates onto my bondaweb/fabric pieces. I then cut out these pieces carefully, and removed the backing from the bondaweb. You should be able to see the webbing of the bondaweb on the back of each piece.

Then, I arranged the face design onto my backing fabric, a plain cream linen fabric. I carefully covered the whole design with a pressing cloth. And again with a steam free iron I bonded the whole design to the backing cloth.

The same was done with the Christmas Pudding and Tree templates.

Time to do the free motion embroidery.

Lower the feed dogs on your machine, and fit a darning foot or free motion embroidery foot. I worked around the template, outlining each of the template pieces in turn. It actually doesn’t matter if it looks a bit messy, it ends up as part of the design.

I took the finished panel, and placed it wrong sides together with a backing piece. I used a Christmassy fabric, but you could use felt. Sewing them together using free motion stitching, I left a gap in the top just small enough to pad them slightly. ( I like to use the stuffing from old pillows)

I then trimmed around the whole decoration. And popped a piece of ribbon in the top gap before stitching it shut.

The Finished Decorations

You could make more of these and thread or stitch onto a garland. Or they make the perfect homemade gift for the holiday season!

Slightly Easier Version

And, do you fancy a simpler way to make an easy Free Motion Embroidery Christmas Decoration? Using the similar technique to my padded heart garland, I used my Sissix to cut out some heart shapes.

I simply sewed around the edge of both wrong sides together using free motion stitching, leaving a gap at the top. Again I slightly stuffed the decoration, added a piece of ribbon, and sewed the decoration shut.

Easy peasy Scandi decor in minutes!

Finally, if you have liked this idea, why not try my padded fabric Christmas trees? This post has a free template!

Do you think you could make these Free Motion Embroidery Christmas Decorations? Which is your favourite? Do tag me, I would love to see your makes.

And – Why not pin this post for later?