Hillary’s Craft Competition – Having Sew Much Fun!

Last year I took part in the Craft Competition organised by Hillary’s Blinds, and so when I received an invite to take part in this year’s I jumped at the chance! (Click on the banner to be taken to the site):

 

The lovely people at Hilary’s blinds offer a choice of four fabulous fabric designs to choose from, and then send a metre of your chosen fabric for you to create and blog a project.

This year I decided to follow one of the current trends in home decor and created a fabric stag’s head to hang in the hallway.

Materials:

1 metre fabric – Daisy Pistachio

Bag of polyester filling

Wooden embroidery hoop

Thread

First I cut my pattern pieces – 2 head pieces, 4 antler pieces, 4 ear pieces, 1 centre head panel, 1 back head panel.

I started with the ears, right sides facing I sewed them together, clipped the curves, turned right side out and finished with a top stitch.

 

Next, right sides facing,  I sewed an antler piece to each head piece, and one to each side of the centre head panel (making sure they were all facing in the right direction!)

 

I folded the ears and positioned in front of the antlers, and stitched in place.

Then, aligning the antler pieces, I pinned and sewed the head pieces to the centre head panel, clipped the curves and turned right side out.

Now on to the stuffing – first I stuffed the antlers firmly and continued to stuff the nose and upper head. Once this was done I sewed the back head panel into place leaving a gap to finish stuffing the head. Then I hand stitched the gap closed once it was fully stuffed.

I took a piece of the leftover fabric to stretch in my embroidery hoop and pleated and hand stitched the edges on the back to tidy it up and prevent fraying. Finally I aligned the head where I wanted it on the hoop and carefully hand stitched all around to attach it.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my project – I love the finished item and it will hang on my wall with pride!!