quick & easy sewing ornament
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Quick and Easy Sewing Ornament to Make & Give

Sewing Ornament with Fabric Scraps

sewing ornament

Dive into your scrap bin and make a fun sewing ornament to gift to friends and fill up your tree! The free Tomato Pincushion appliqué pattern is easily adaptable for a number of projects, and they look great sewn in Sulky 30 wt. Cotton Thread.

sewing ornament supplies

SUPPLIES

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SEWING ORNAMENT APPLIQUÉ

Grab the Tomato Pincushion Appliqué pattern. From the red fabric, cut one tomato. From the green fabric, cut one tomato stem.

Fuse a square of Sulky Totally Stable to the wrong side of one base fabric square.

Totally Stable for appliqué

Center the appliqués onto the right side of that square, overlapping the stem lower edge with the tomato upper edge. Use KK 2000 Temporary Spray Adhesive to adhere the pieces to the fabric square.

adhere applique pieces to sewing ornament

Transfer the tomato markings and pin designs to the ornament front, using chalk or a removable marking pen.

Choose an appliqué stitch from the available built-in stitches on your machine. The featured stitch is a 2mm wide, 2mm long blanket stitch.

built-in stitch for sewing ornament applique

DECORATIVE STITCHING

Stitch along the tomato stem using the Christmas Green Cotton Thread in the needle and Sulky Bobbin thread in the bobbin. Carefully watch the needle to place the horizontal stitch along the stem body and the vertical stitch along the stem edge. (You may find it useful to practice a few decorative stitches on scrap fabric until you find the one you like for the project elements.) Then, pull the thread tails through to the wrong side of the work and either weave through the stitching on the wrong side or tie off and trim.

applique along tomato stem

Repeat to appliqué the tomato onto the sewing ornament base fabric, using True Red 30 wt. Cotton Thread.

sewing ornament pincushion

Then, trim any frayed fabric edges, being careful to not cut through the stitching.

Choose a straight stitch or triple straight stitch on the sewing machine. Stitch the tomato details, following the marked lines.

Thread the needle with 30 wt. Silver Gray thread. Then, stitch along each pin straight line using a triple straight stitch. At the end, for the “ball” of each pin, select a circle-shaped stitch, if available. Stitch only one circle, and then tie off the thread along the backside of the work.

finished appliqué stitching on ornament

Leave the stabilizer intact, but trim it to match the fabric square.

ADDING FRINGE

Then, place the trim right side down over the appliquéd fabric square. Next, set the machine to a basting stitch and install a zipper foot.

Lastly, baste the trim edge to the fabric edge.

baste trim edge

At each corner, curve the trim to bypass the point. At the trim ends, overlap one or two pom-poms and place the ends beyond the fabric edge so they form a “v”.

stitch pom-pom trim to sewing ornament

Place the ribbon ends along the fabric square upper edge to form a hanger.

Then, place the remaining fabric square right side down over the embellished fabric square. To help secure the trim without snagging it, use Clover Wonder Clips in lieu of pins.

add handing ribbon

Set the machine for a 3mm stitch length. Then, stitch the fabric squares together, leaving an opening for turning along the ornament lower edge. Next, turn the sewing ornament right side out through the opening.

sewing ornament with opening

FINISHING

Gently press the ornament to get rid of the wrinkles.

finished flat ornament

Lastly, stuff the ornament with the fiberfill to the desired plumpness.

stuff the sewing ornament

To finish, turn the opening seam allowance toward the wrong side and hand sew closed using a slipstitch or ladder stitch.

hand sewing ornament opening closed

Then, hang the ornament where desired.

After the holidays, the little pillow can become a pincushion. Simply hang it near the sewing machine or place it on the sewing table.

ornament as a pincushion

hang the sewing ornament

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I am the Director of Content for Sulky of America. The former Editor in Chief of Sew News and Creative Machine Embroidery magazines, I hosted Sew it All TV on PBS for nine seasons. I've appeared on It's Sew Easy on PBS, DIY Network's Uncommon Threads, Hallmark's Marie Osmond Show, MacPhee Workshop and more! Come sew with me!