A Little Happy Tutorial ~ WoolFelt Little House Pincushion

Many moons ago, I decided to make a pin cushion out of WoolFelt® in the shape of a little house.  The sort of house that you imagine tucked away at the end of a country lane, with creamy white walls, a faded terracotta pan tiled roof and with roses, lavender and a wisteria growing up the walls...

I made a pinky promise that I would share the pattern... it's taken a while, but today is that day!

The pin cushion in entirely hand sewn...my favourite.... and I used gorgeous WoolFelt® in pretty pastel shades, with all the hand stitches made in Aurifil Lana Wool thread...a dream combination!

The construction is very simple.... the little house has, as you would expect... 4 four walls, a base and a roof...

Each of the walls is then decorated.  I first position and sew on the windows, door and chimney breast and then free hand add the flowers.  The only thing that you need to bare in mind is to allow and aprox 1/4" seam allowance from all the edges, when adding the decoration.  Obviously you could draw on to the felt using an erasable pen, but it goes without saying do a little test to make sure you can remove any unsightly pen marks once you've finished.  Another alternative, is to trace your embellishments on to tissue paper, pin on top of your felt and embroider.  Once the embroidery is completed, you can then carefully tear away the tissue.... a pair of tweezers come in very handy!

I used a mixed of stitches, Blanket Stitch (a little happy tutorial can be found HERE), Back Stitch  (a little happy tutorial can be found HERE), Cross Stitch,  Lazy Daisy Stitch and French Knots (a little happy tutorial can be found HERE).

The eagle eyed will have spotted on the second version of the Little House...the one with the purple door, I added a little fan window on the front door and ridge tiles on the roof (well... a rectangle of felt, but to me it's ridge tiles!!)  

Whilst making Little House number two, I then got thinking about other types of houses in particular a Gingerbread House.....well of course it had to be done.....

This one is made from just two colours of  WoolFelt® I was channelling 'grown up' gingerbread house thoughts...with the decoration being white royal icing...but just think of the fun you could have adding sweeties (buttons) to the roof and candy canes around the door..... I just know I will have to make one!!!  The embroidery was very similar to the original, I just switched the flowers for a mix of nordic inspired designs.

The roof on the Gingerbread house was very easy, I simply added some scallops, sewing them in position with a row of back stitches, hidden underneath the next layer and added little cross stitches to secure the scallop......

The construction of the cottage is the same regardless of the design.  First sew the four walls to the base using Blanket Stitch.  They are effectively stitched wrong side to wrong side so that that Blanket Stitch is on display.....

Then stitch the four walls together at each corner.  For stability pop a piece of card in to the base...I use cereal box cardboard and cut it a smidge smaller that the base template.  Then start to sew on the roof.  This is a bit fiddly, particularly with the Gingerbread House, but persevere..it's worth it.  Once you have sewn two of the walls to the roof, secure your thread and then add your choice of stuffing and maybe a little homemade sachet of dried lavender may be nice... or Christmas spices. Then sew up the remainder of the seam.

If you would like to make a Little House Pin Cushion you can download the pattern for the original cottage HERE.  (Make sure your paper orientation is set to landscape.)

That's it...I can not tell you how much fun they are to make.  I've had requests for a Halloween version also...sorry folks I ran out of time for this year, but who knows what seasonal variations I may come up with next year!

Don't forget if you decide to make a little house...please do remember to use the hashtags

#PrettyFabricsandTrims / #ALittleHappyTutorial / #littlehousepincushion

Happy Stitches!