First of all let me say that this is my first tutorial so if it is a little disjointed forgive me! Second of all this tutorial is for a project but more than that it is for a design process, if you take the steps of this process and make something completely different than the project featured here than I have done my job well! Of course if you make an owl pin than I will feel successful as well.
Lastly this tutorial includes pictures of my original pattern, which I don't care if you make an exact copy of what I make, but I will not give you a printable version because the whole point is to go through the entire design process meaning drawing your own pattern, also please do not copy this pattern and sell it.
So let's get started first of all you will need the following tools and materials:
-Paper to plan and draft your pattern on (graph paper is best)
-Pencil
-tracing paper
-straight pins
-scissors
-embroidery floss 2 colors
-a few sheets of felt in the colors of your choice (I used 5 different colors of felt but you could use as little as two, also the pieces of the project I made are very small so 5 sheets of felt makes many owls making it a very affordable craft)
-a tiny bit of polyfill (optional, will explain later)
-pinback, barrette, anywhere clip, headband or any other finding you choose, in the project I made I used a pinback.
-reference material, this project includes embroidery stitches, very easy to follow directions for embroidery stitches are readily available through a simple google image search for embroidery stitch instructions. you may also want to have a few images of the type of thing you want to design, if you want yours to be a cat or another bird besides an owl, go and fins a few pictures to use as references for your own design.
Step one:
The first step of any design project whether it be a small one like this or something as complicated as a Broadway theatrical set is making some decisions and writing your decisions down. As a creative person notes are your best friend! So make your decisions:
-What kind of project do you want to make? I chose to make a pin or brooch, The type of project you choose makes a good header for your notes.
-What material do you want to use? I chose felt and embroidery floss
-What theme and color scheme do you want for your project? I chose to make an owl in purple and pink with blue and lavender accent thread
-some other things to include in your notes would be the reference material previously mentioned, any ideas for variations on your project, and any ideas on how many of them you want to make and what you plan on doing with them when you are finished.
Step two: now that we have made all the important decisions to define our project we want to make a rough sketch of what we want our project to look like. We will use this sketch to plan our pattern and identify the parts that need to be included in the pattern, as well as solidify a plan for the details. Here is my technical sketch along with my notes:
Step three: after you make some sketches, and notes, it's time to tighten up your drawing into a pattern. This step takes patience with yourself and you may want to use things like templates or a compass to make circles or ovals. Look at your sketches and identify the basic shapes of your design and draw just those basic shapes. When you draw each part of your design leave the shapes over lapping so that you can see the lines of the shapes underneath, you will need all the lines of the shapes available to trace in different parts even if there are other parts underneath the part you are drawing. Here is a picture of my pattern:
Now that you have your pattern drawn, Identify the separate parts of your project. For the owl I identified the following parts:
-The body, (the background of the owl, I will need two of these one for the front and one for the back)
-The Tummy (I only need to cut this shape once because it is a layer that only appears on the front of the owl.)
-The eyes (cut 2)
-The beak (cut 1)
-The wings (cut 2 of each wing, because I plan to embellish the wings with embroidery stitches I am going to want a felt piece for the front and the back of the wings so that I can hide the back of my stitchery)
Step Four: It's time to trace the pieces of your pattern onto the tracing paper, make sure to follow your list of parts so that you get what you need.
after you trace your pieces pin the tracing paper pieces to your felt and cut your felt pattern pieces out:
