Summer is here and so is strawberry season in New England. We will be picking strawberries this afternoon when we visit Land's Sake Farm in Weston to pick up our weekly CSA share.
I'm looking forward to strawberry shortcake, strawberries with whipped cream and a bowl of juicy, tart strawberries at breakfast.
I made some felt strawberries this morning, embellished with some sparkly seed beads, and I thought you might like to make them, too!
You'll need:
-paper and pencil (I like to use freezer paper for patterns)
-scraps of felt in red and green
-about two dozen seed beads
-craft glue
-extra-strong thread and regular sewing thread
-small wad of stuffing
Instructions:
To make a pattern for the strawberry, draw a half circle with a 4" diameter on a piece of paper and cut it out. Draw a free-form strawberry leaf on paper and cut that out too.
Pin the half-circle to a scrap of red felt and the leaf to a scrap of green felt (or iron if you are using freezer paper). Cut out the felt.
Fold the half-circle in half and stitch along the straight side.
Turn right side out and stuff.
Using the extra-strong thread, make a running stitch along the top edge and pull the stitches to gather. Push a bit more stuffing inside, then tie off the thread to hold the gathers in place.
Now it is time to attach the beads.
Thread a needle with a small eye with regular sewing thread. Insert it through the top of the strawberry, coming out on the side. Thread a seed bead onto the needle, then insert it back down into the strawberry right next to where it came out.
Continue adding seed beads, one at a time, coming out about an 1/8" away from the last bead, until the entire strawberry is covered. Tie off the thread hiding the knot near the top of the strawberry.
Squeeze a ring of craft glue along the top of the strawberry.
Place the leaf on top of the glue. Use pins to hold the leaf in place until the glue dries.
Admire your strawberry!
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And check out my Etsy shop for lots of easy-to-sew softie patterns!
