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Hi Everyone,

I've been really busy meeting deadlines for the February issue of Stitches, it promises to be a great one!  I have opened a ColourSpun community page on facebook and would like to invite you to join and use it to ask questions, leave comments, post your photos of anything fibre related. Join the community here and/or join me here

Since it's nearly Christmas, I thought it would be nice to share a last minute idea for some personalised baubles.

Father and Mother Christmas
© Dana Biddle

These baubles represent Santa and his wife but you may prefer to make them to look like members of your own family.

You will need:
A4 piece of cardboard
HB pencil, Compass, Ruler – a school math set comes in handy here
Scissors
Calico fabric – 15cm x 30cm for each bauble
Cream quilting thread
Polyester stuffing
Micron pens
Pastel pencils
Curly Mohair for hair (available from ColourSpun)
Elle felting needles and a square of foam rubber about 30cm x 30cm x 10cm
Red Perlé cotton.

Instructions
Draw a circle with a 14cm diameter on the cardboard. Cut out. This is your pattern.

For each bauble:
Draw 2 circles onto the calico and cut out.
Thread a needle with a fairly long piece of quilting thread and knot the ends together securely to make it double.
Work a row of running stitch all the way around 1 circle of fabric about 5mm from the edge.
Place some stuffing in the centre of the circle and pull the threads to start gathering the circle.
Continue stuffing and gathering until it is firmly stuffed and the gathering has closed the circle at the back.
End off securely, making sure that the front of the stuffed circle is smooth and has no puckers and is a nice round shape.

Repeat with the 2nd circle of fabric.

Place the 2 stuffed circles together with the gathered edges inside and using another doubled quilting thread and an invisible stitch, attach them to each other.

Now’s where the fun starts!

Very lightly using an HB pencil, draw a face onto the bauble -use the photos as a guide. When you are satisfied, outline with the micron pens and colour the face in using the pastel pencils.

You can leave the face as is or if you would like to add some contouring stitches do so now.

With a single quilting thread and using tiny stitches, insert the needle through the back of the head and bring out on the outside corner of one of the eyes. Making a tiny stitch take the needle out at the back of the head and pull the thread tight to make an indentation, repeat on the inside corner of the eye and then on the other eye. Do the same with the mouth.

For the nose, start on the side of the head and bring the needle out on the opposite side of the nose in the middle. Making a tiny stitch, push the needle straight through to the other side of the nose and tighten thread to lift nose. Then bring the needle out at the top of the nose on the opposite side and pull thread tight (be careful not to tighten too much here). Making a tiny stitch, push the needle straight through to the other side of the nose and tighten thread to lift nose.

For the nostrils, start at the top of the head and bring the needle out in the 1st nostril, making a tiny stitch take the needle back out at the top of the head and pull tight. Repeat for the 2nd nostril and end off securely.
Use the curly mohair for the hair. Arrange it on the head and very gently needle to attach it. (Remember to work on the foam rubber to protect your needle and keep your fingers out of the way!)

Roll 2 tiny bits of mohair between your fingers to form a sausage shape. Place these on the eyebrows and carefully needle into place.

For Santa, roll another small bit of mohair into a sausage shape and needle the middle of it just under the nose to form his moustache. Needle some mohair to his chin for his beard.
Cut a piece of perlé cotton about 30cm long. Leaving a 15cm long tail, attach it to the top of the head with a tiny double stitch, which should leave you with another tail of about 15cm. Tie the ends of the tails together to form a loop for hanging.

ENJOY!