Tutorial Tuesday

Hello Everyone! Happy Tuesday!

We find ourselves close to celebrating the 4th of July in the States this week, and I thought it would be fun to create a tutorial for the commemoration of Independence Day. I think any color felt would look fun with this tutorial, but I stuck to red, white, and blue for this Garden Flag.

This is a good project for beginners, or perhaps young people on summer break who need something to keep their hands busy!

To make this 4th of July Garden Flag you will need:

- One rectangle of red felt (this was precut from the craft store and is 9.5 by 12 inches)

- Smaller squares of felt in white and blue

- One 12-inch long wooden dowel

- embroidery floss in accent colors, embroidery needle, and scissors

- Scissors for cutting felt

- 20-inch piece of embroidery floss or string for hanging

- Pinking shears or decorative scissors for cutting felt and fabric

- Optional: craft glue or a glue gun

As a star template, I used the largest star from the pattern for our Embroidery on Paper tutorial from a few weeks ago, which is available for you here.

Step One: Cut the largest star out of the template and use it to cut various stars out of the white and blue felt. 

Step Two: Keeping the felt rectangle with the long sides vertical, arrange the stars to your liking and pin in place. Try to keep them 2 inches away from the top. 

Step Three: Use different stitches to attach the stars to the felt rectangle. Feel free to play around here and practice your embroidery stitches. I stuck to french knots, running stitches, and split stitches, but you can use any stitch you want for this. 

Note: I didn't put my felt rectangle in a hoop, simply because felt holds its shape and has a stiffness to it that cotton fabrics don't have. If you prefer to put your felt in the hoop, I recommend removing some of the pins from the stars and working a section at a time. 

Step Four: Use the pinking shears to trim around the side and bottom edges of the felt rectangle. 

Step Five: Take a long piece of white embroidery floss and thread your needle. Start at the top of one long side and use a running stitch to create an accent along the three edges of the rectangle. The knots of this floss with be hidden once we fold the top edge over the dowel.

Step Six: Place the wooden dowel about 1.5 inches away from the top edge. Fold the felt over the dowel and pin in place. 

Step Seven: Thread your needle with red floss, and pull it through the middle of the fold of felt to hide your knot, bringing the needle up through to the front of your flag. Use a back stitch to seal this fold and encase the dowel in the felt. When you reach the other edge, hide the knotted end in the fold.

Optional: If you prefer not to backstitch this part, you can use craft glue or hot glue to seal the fold. Please account for drying time before finishing the flag.  

Step Eight: Take the 20-inch piece of floss or string, you can trim this to your liking or create a longer piece, and tie it to each end of the dowel. 

Step Nine: Your garden flag is ready for the sunshine!

Hang your flag on the garden gate or front door and get ready for the celebration!

Hope you enjoy and have a very wonderful Tuesday!