St. Patrick’s Day is about a month away. If your anything like me then soon it will be time to find that “Kiss Me I’m Irish” tee that’s somewhere in the back of your closet. Oh… and we must not forget to add green food coloring to our grocery list. What is St. Patty’s Day without green beer? Of coarse my favorite way to celebrate any holiday is by making ornaments. Today’s post is one of my all time favorite ornaments. I really love how this one turned out!

Tools and Materials Needed:

• ball point pen
• paper
• measuring tape
• craft knife
• glue stick
• craft glue
• liquid white out
• tucking tool (I use a straight upholstery needle)
• 7 cm foam ball
• quilt batting
• solid bright green cotton fabric
• shamrock patterned cotton fabric
• green satin ribbon, in several shades of green
• 2 pearl headed pins
• 2 green beads
• bright green 5mm sequins
• 3/4 inch sequin pins*
• 5mm green shamrock sequins
• 0/15 seed beads*

*purchased at Cartwright’s

Click here to view the embedded video.

Instructions:

1. Divide your ball into 4 equal sections.
2. (Optional: Trace around the equator mold line.)
3. Cut out a paper heart about 3 to 4 centimeters tall.
4. On one of the dividing lines, at the point where the line and equator line meet, trace the heart 3 times to create a shamrock shape. You can center the shamrock north and south, or you can do it off center like I did.
5. White out the dividing lines inside each heart.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 on the opposite side of the ball.
7. Cut the shamrocks with your craft knife.
8. Using your paper heart as a cutting pattern, cut out 6 hearts of quilt batting.
9. Then cut out 6 hearts of solid green fabric. The fabric hearts should be about 1 cm larger all around than your paper heart.
10. With your glue stick glue a piece of batting over one of the heart shapes in the shamrock.
11. Lay a piece of solid green fabric over the top and tuck the edges into the foam. Repeat this for all heart shapes until your shamrocks are covered.
12. Cut remaining vertical lines on the ball.
13. Lay the patterned fabric over each of the remaining 4 sections and tuck into the foam. This is quite difficult since you must tuck around the shamrock. It’s best to tuck and cut as you go.
14. Once all of your fabric is in place, pin sequins around the shamrocks. Thread one seed bead onto a 3/4 inch sequin pin and then a green sequin. Dip in glue and pin to the seam.
15. Don’t forget to create a stem for your shamrocks with sequins.
16. With the shamrock sequins, pin them around the large shamrocks, over the patterned fabric at random.
17. Thread a bead onto a pearl headed pin, then the hanging ribbon, and then the bow, in that order. Create the bow using 2 loops of each shade of green ribbon you have. I made a 14 looped bow. Dip the pin in glue and pin to the top of the ball.
18. Last, add the bottom cap using a bead and a corsage pin.

Here’s a easy ornament for Valentine’s Day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In honor of the NFL Playoffs and my hometown, Houston Texas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Luckily the Texans logo is pretty simple and was easily replicated using the kimekomi technique. .

Tools and Materials Needed:

• ball point pens in 2 colors
• measuring tape
• craft knife
• glue stick
• craft glue
• tucking tool (I use a straight upholstery needle)
• foam ball (I use a 7cm ball)
• cotton fabric in red, white and navy blue
• white and silver cord
• red and navy satin ribbon
• 2 pearl headed pins
• 2 beads
• 5 white star sequins

Basic Instructions:

1. Print the logo off the internet. The logo can be easily found using a google image search.
2. Trace the logo by pinning it to the ball and punching little holes around the shape.
3. Connect the dots on the foam.
4. Draw a simple 6 division over the top of your logos using a different colored pen.
5. Cut the logos with your craft knife.
6. Cut the 6 division lines with you craft knife, but don’t cut the lines inside the logos.
7. Tuck the fabric inside the logos first and then on the outside. The hardest part of this ornament was getting the white fabric to fit smoothly around the logos.
8. Glue cord in the seams.
9. Pin a bead, hanging ribbon and a bow to the top.
10. Pin a bead to the bottom.

I’m pretty happy with the results and look forward to making similar ornaments for other teams in the future.
Leave your team recommendations in the comments.

Tools and Materials Needed:

• ball point pens or permanent markers in 3 different colors (I use black, red and green)
• measuring tape
• white out
• (optional)tracing paper
• (optional)card stock or heavy paper
• craft knife
• glue stick
• craft glue
• tucking tool (I use a straight upholstery needle)
• foam ball (I use a 7cm ball)
• 4 colors of satin fabric (I use white, yellow, pink, and blue)
• 3 colors of satin cord, should coordinate with your fabric colors (I use white, pink and blue)
• satin ribbon in the color of your choice (I use yellow and white)
• 6 pearl headed pins in the color of your choice (I use green)
• 6 large flower sequins in the color of your choice (I use silver hologram)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Instructions:

1. First thing you need to do is draw a Double Combination 8 Division on your ball. Visit the Combination Divisions page for a video tutorial on how to do this. You should start out with a true combo 8 drawn in black, and then continue with the double combo 8 division in red.
2. Once your Double Combination 8 Division is drawn, trace the pattern seen in the diagram below in green ink. This diagram is a view from the north and south poles of your ball.



3. Next, white out the black and red lines inside the green triangles.
4. Then, white out the black lines inside the red triangles. The red triangles look like they are behind the green ones.



5. Cut along all remaining lines. I cut the green lines first, then the red lines then the black lines.
6. (optional) Make a cutting pattern for the green triangles. Using your tracing paper and a pen, trace the green triangles and cut it out. Then paste it to some card stock or heavy paper and cut about 1cm around the traced triangle. Cut off the pointy ends. Use this pattern to cut out 8 triangles of blue satin fabric.
7. Place the blue fabric over the green triangles and tuck into the cuts on the foam. You will have 8 blue triangles mirroring each other over the equator line when finished.
8. (optional) Make cutting patterns for the top and bottom of the red triangles. Cut out 8 pieces of pink fabric for each pattern.
9. Next cover and tuck pink fabric over the red triangles, tops and bottoms covered separately.
10. (optional) Make cutting patterns for the north and south pole triangles. Cut out 8 pieces of yellow fabric and 8 of white using the patterns.
11. Cover and tuck fabric over the triangles at the north and south poles alternating yellow and white fabric.
12. (optional) Make cutting patterns for the equator triangles. Cut out 8 pieces of yellow and white fabric for each pattern.
13. Cover and tuck fabric over the triangles at the equator alternating the yellow and white fabric.

Once the ball is totally covered in fabric the color pattern should look like this from the north and south poles. Please note that the yellow and white fabric colors should oppose each other from the north and south pole.


14. Now it’s time to glue the cord to the seams. Using your tucking tool, scrape a small amount of glue from your glue stick and apply it to the seam. Place the cord over the top of the glue and pat it down gently. Only a small amount of glue is needed.

-Start with white cord around the equator.
-Next, glue pink cord in an X outlining the bottom half of the pink triangles.
-Then trace the blue triangles with blue cord. Rather than tracing each triangle individually, cut 4 pieces of cord that is a few centimeters longer than the circumference of your ball. Wrap each piece individually in a continuous line in the same pattern as when you were drawing your original combo 8.
-Once all your blue cord in place, do the white cord at the north and south poles. For this you only need 4 pieces for each pole, they will criss-cross at the pole.
-Glue the pink cord at the tops of the pink triangles in one continuous piece, as seen in the video.

15. Next, pin flower sequins at the south pole and on the equator at each point where 2 blue triangles touch.
16. Top off your ornament with a white hanging ribbon, flower sequin and yellow and white bow. Alternate 2 loops of yellow, then 2 of white, then 2 more yellow and 2 more white. 8 loops in total. For more information on making the bow and hanging ribbon please see the Bow Video on the Tutorials Page.

Here are a couple more variations on the “Jester” design.

Merry Christmas and Happy Ornament Making!

This week I’ve been playing around with the Double Combination 8 Division. It’s the latest in my series of combination division tutorials which can be found over on the Combination Divisions Page.

Over at temarikai.com they have printable diagrams of the various types of divisions. They are especially helpful in brainstorming new designs. For this ornament I printed out their double combo 8 diagram and started coloring in the sections. This is the result.

I used this pattern to create my latest kimekomi ornament “Kaleidoscope”. The diagram is the view from the north and south pole. Just repeat the pattern using 5 different colors of fabric using the kimekomi techinique.

Watch out for the orange diamonds. I combined 2 separate sections as one. It’s easiest to find that section and white out the dividing line before you start cutting the foam. Otherwise you might accidental cut where you don’t need to. Also, I didn’t use batting for this ornament because the sections are so small. You will need to white out those extra lines so they don’t show through the fabric.

Love this ornament but don’t have time to make it yourself. It’s now for sale over at my Etsy shop.