How To: Make a Horseshoe Ornament

At long last, I've put together a little tutorial for my March ornament challenge creation, the horseshoe.  (If you want to refresh your memory, my original post is here.)

You'll notice (perhaps) that this horseshoe is a little different than my first one.  The changes are not intentional -- I was just too lazy to run downstairs and get ornament #1 when making and photographing ornament #2, and I decided to wing it.  Lesson learned.

1. To start, you need a piece of felt, a scrap of print flannel (my scrap is much larger than you need), the horseshoe template, a button, embroidery floss, and something to serve as an ornament hanger (I used a piece of thin ribbon).
  ** To download and print the template, click on the link above, which opens the file in Google Docs. Use your mouse to click on File (top left of screen), and then choose Download and save the file to your desktop or wherever you'd like to keep it. Then print and cut out the horseshoe. (The whole page should print in the correct scale, although with this ornament you can adjust the size as you like.)

2. Pin the horseshoe template to the felt and cut out two shapes - one for the front and one for the back.  Or fold your felt and cut two shapes at once.

3. Cut a flower from the scrap of flannel. To add dimension, cut two flowers - one smaller than the other - to stack on the horseshoe.

4. Position the flower on one horseshoe (this will be the front), and sew the button in the center of it.

5. Pin the two horseshoe shapes together and blanket stitch the edge, starting at the bottom right (where the flower is on this ornament).  I used embroidery floss in a contrasting color for this pink horsehoe, but you could use a matching color to make the blanket stitch less visible.

I have a terrible memory for this sort of thing, so when I forgot how to do the blanket stitch, I re-learned it using this video.

6. When you get to the inside curve, stuff the side you've already stitched with a little polyester batting.  Before you stitch across the top of the horseshoe on the left side, tuck in the ends of a hanging loop (ribbon, in my case), and then continue stitching.

7. As you begin to stitch toward the bottom on the left side, pause and stuff more batting up where you've already stitched.  As your blanket stitch approaches your starting point, add the last bit of batting to fill out the shape, and then stitch closed.