Stashbustin Ornaments Part 9: Happy Holiday Pets

Speaking for my family, our pets are like any other family member and I think they deserve to enjoy the Holidays just as much as we do. Here's my little ornament homage to our beloved fur children. These two happy little pets are guaranteed not to bat ornaments off of the tree that you so carefully decorated nor will they climb it! LOL

I also realized that my last tutorial was more than a bit embroidery heavy so I made this one with minimal stitching to be fair. ;)

Materials Needed:

• felt in various colors - I used brown, tan, grey, red, white and black.
• craft glue - Elmer's doesn't work well I've found.
• small amounts of polyfil or filling of your choosing
• scissors - Not your good fabric scissors!
• embroidery thread in black and complementary colors
• red ribbon for the hanger
• white pom poms 1/2" wide

Happy Holiday Pets Pattern (click to print!) 

Step 1
     Cut out pieces needed. (I'm doing the Dog first!)

Step 2
     Glue the ear and tongue pieces into place on the inside of one of the head pieces. Be sure to glue at least a 1/4" inch in from the edge so that you can stitch the ornament together. (It's no fun trying to push a needle through dried glue...speaking from experience here.)
      Fold the ribbon in half and tie an overhand knot in the end. Trim excess ribbon if you wish. Glue inside of the same head piece. Allow glue to dry.

Step 3
     Glue the white and black eye pieces and the nose into place on the front of the second head piece. Allow to dry.

Step 4
     Do the "freckles" in a simple seed stitch. (Seed stitch is like back/outline stitch only not done in a line. It's up through the felt, and back down no more than 1/16" from where the needle came out in a complete random pattern. Tiny, tiny, tiny...) I did 6-7 on either side of the nose.

 Step 5
     Pin the front head piece to the back head. Pin the ribbon hanger in place as desired. (It will move on you if you don't. :/)
Step 6
     Glue the brims to the hat pieces. Be sure to glue the hat pieces going in opposite directions so that you can use them as mirror images when you put the hat on our pooch.

Step 7
     Place the top hat piece at a nice jaunty angle and glue down. Flip this piece over carefully. Glue the other hat piece into place on the head and then pin it down to keep it from slipping. Now glue the entire hat together from brim to the pointed tip. Allow to dry.

Step 8
     Using the whip stitch and starting at one of the two points in which the hat brim meets the dog's head, begin stitching. When you get to a tongue or ear, stitch through them and continue around leaving a 1"-1 1/2" inch unstitched.

Step 9
     Lightly stuff the head. Don't put so much that your whip stitches start to strain or poof.

Step 10
     Finish the whip stitching and hide the knot between the layers of the head as instructed in the stitch tutorial.

To make the Cat:
The only difference between the construction of the dog and the cat is the face stitching. Use back/outline stitch to make the whiskers.

Now it's your turn! Make your own holiday pet and share a link here to win one of my ornaments in the Stashbustin' Ornament GIVEAWAY!