Transcripts
1. Introduction: Ever wondered how
to add a touch of handmade warmth to
your festive season? Well, as we approach
the upcoming holidays, I invite you to join me
in a creative journey, a masterclass on crafting your very own Christmas
tree ornament. Hello, lovely creatives.
I'm Catherine, your guide through this
festive crafting journey. As a passionate
embroiderer and designer, I'm thrilled to share
my ideas with you. I noticed that handmade items not only enhance the
festive atmosphere, but also uplift the
creator's holiday spirit. In this master class, we'll delve into the art
of fabric embroidery, pushing the
boundaries further by exploring the enchanting
technique of working with Rapha. Get ready to unlock your
creativity, stitch by stitch. Learn something new and
get a special home decor. At the same time,
this Christmas tree ornament will not
only adorn your tree, but also become a cherished
symbol of the festive season. Let's make this time of
the year truly special.
2. About the project : Welcome to my master class. Lovely to have you here. Before we dive in,
let me give you a bit more insight
into our project. Let's talk about its
unique features, unconventional techniques, and the materials
we'll be working with. Together we'll be crafting a Christmas tree ornament
with a touch of embroidery. The concept is to create it
on a piece of dark fabric. The first thing we'll tackle is transferring our design onto this dark canvas while working with light fabric may be straightforward and commonly
used in embroidery. The approach changes when
dealing with darker materials. That's where our trusty
white carbon paper comes in, not just any carbon paper. I recommend a special
one from Borda. I'll delve into more details
about it in materials video. The second point,
beneath this video, you'll find two designs. These are templates you can use for crafting your ornament. The first design is a deer
and the second one is a bird. Throughout our
masterclass, we'll be crafting the ornament with the
deer from start to finish. As for the bird,
you'll be able to create it on your own using
the knowledge you gain here. Now here's the third nuance. We won't just be using
standard embroidery, we'll also incorporate
Rafa embroidery. Rafa is a natural material, essentially dried
straw made from palm leaves, to
embroider with it. We'll need to explore
its specific techniques. I'll be showing you not only the basic embroidery stitches, but also how to work with Rafa. In the end, we'll master five
types of stitches together. The fourth feature
will be using felt. Some elements on our
ornament like the three, the deer shape and the bird will be crafted
from this material. I'll guide you on how to
transfer the design to it, attach it to the main fabric, and add those finishing touches. Fifth, we're turning a
flat fabric image onto three dimensional ornament
that will adorn your home. We'll stuff it a touchy
little tail for hanging and walla a complete ornament
for your Christmas tree. We're diving into several
intriguing techniques. I hope you'll enjoy it. In the next video,
we'll go through all the materials you'll
need for our project.
3. Materials: Now let's delve into the details of the materials
we'll be using for our project. Right
in front of you. We'll got the whole
set and we'll break down each item one by
one. Let's get into it. First up, we need
a printed design below the video in the
resources section. You can download it and head a reference for
your embroidery journey. I recommend printing it in its original size
at 100% resolution. We've got here two
winter themed designs, a deer and a bird, in a winter forest by snow
berry bushes and fir trees. Next on the list, we'll
need an embroidery hoop. Whether you go for a 30 centimeters or five
inch diameter, or something a bit
larger, it's not crucial. Equal works for you, then the main fabric comes into play. I suggest opting for natural cotton without
that silk stent finish. It makes transferring
the design a breeze, It will hold onto
the fabric longer. We'll also need fabric for
the back of your ornament. I've got small squares
of white cotton here, each about 12
centimeters or 5 ". But if you fancy you can use the same fabric
on both sides, it's entirely up to you. Moving on down the list. White carbon paper. Here's a heads up. Regular
carbon paper tends to be dark. Unfortunately, it won't help us transfer the design
onto a dark fabric. What we need is a wide version. The marks from carbon paper
can fade pretty quickly, choose wisely based on reviews. Alternatively, you can opt
for a high quality one, like the one I have.
It's reusable. You can skip the carbon paper
altogether and transfer these designs on the fabric by printing them on
water soluble paper. I'll leave a link below where you can get
them ready, made. Next up, we'll need some felt. We'll be crafting
parts of the design. The deer three and bird from it. However, these elements
can also be embroidered. Felt can also come in
handy for making the back of the ornament embroidery
threads are must. I've got four shades here, red, blue, white,
and salmon pink. I'll jot down the
shade numbers below. Of course we'll need a
string to hang our ornament. I've got velvet ribbon here, but you can also use threads decorating them
with beds if you like. An intriguing material in
this project is Triphia. We'll be using it to embroider
a red around the deer. It adds a cousy charm and natural accents to
any embroidery. Moving on, we'll
need two needles, one for embroidery with a large eye to thread
multiple strengths at once. The other quite the
opposite, very thin, with a small eye for threading seed beds if
you choose to use them. Next on the list, pins for securing layers when
transferring the design. If you are getting them
for the first time, I recommend once with a
large tip, easy to handle. Don't harm your nails and
are gentle on your fingers. We'll also need
two threads polls, one to match the
color of the Rafa, and the technique involves securing it with
thread on the fabric. The other matches the
main fabric and will be used once stitching
the two parts of the ornament together. Consider white set beads
as an optional material. You can embroider the
edge of the ornament and some internal
details like snow. I'll also show you
how to replace them with embroidery
using the French knot, a technique will cover
in the next video. Scissors are essential, preferably separate ones
from paper and fabric. Fabric scissors tend to duk
quickly if used on paper. Another item is the
staffing for the ornament. You can buy special
filling at the store. I couldn't find it at
my local craft store. I opted for shredded paper. You can also fill
the ornament with fabric scraps or finally
torn paper towels. And of course, we'll need a heat erasable pen
that should cover it. Let's move on to the stitches.
4. Stitches: To carry out our project, we need to familiarize
ourselves with five stitches. Four of them will
be executed using embroidery flows and
one will involve Rafa. I've drawn five
practice straight lines on the fabric that
we'll be working on. Let's kick off with
the running stitch. I've threaded the needle with three strands and tied
the knot at the end, placing the needle
at the beginning of our line for better
visibility on camera. I'll be making slightly
larger stitches now. Typically they should be much smaller for a neater
embroidery look. I insert the needle back through the fabric
to the reverse side, a short distance away, then pass it under the fabric at the same distance bringing
it back up again. And I continue this process. As I mentioned earlier, the stitches can be
much smaller in size. We'll be using this
technique to attach felt to our main fabric and to saw both parts of our
Christmas tree ornament, the front and the back together. Once we finished on the
back side of the hoop, we secure the thread with several knots hooking onto
the stitches formed there. Now let's move onto
the back stitch. It's a more advanced
embroidery stitch and one of the most
commonly used. We place the needle at the
beginning of our line, just like with the
running stitch. After the first stitch, we bring the needle back through the same distance on
the reverse side. Instead of moving forward, we backtrack one step, inserting the needle exactly where the first stitch ended. Then we repeat the process, moving forward and then back, creating a continuous line. Let's practice by filling
in the entire line. Next up is the
French Not technique that allows us to create
beautiful accent details. We pierce the start of the line, wind the thread around
the needle three times, and then holding the thread with our hand inserted literally a millimeter from
the first puncture, pulling it gently to
the reverse side. Let's do it again
after three turns of the thread inserted
back into the fabric. To prevent the knot
from slipping inside, it's crucial to make
the second puncture in the same hole
but adjacent to it. I also wanted to bring
to your attention that the number of wraps around
the needle can be adjusted, affecting the size of
the resulting knot. With just one rap, it will be very small. Compare its size to
the first variation. This allows us to
play with volumes and enhance the embroidery with
numerous interesting details. What if I want to
make a larger knot? Let me wind the thread
around five times. Don't pull the tail too tight, otherwise it will be challenging to pass the thread through it, but also don't make it too
loose or the knot will be Mesa threads will stick
out in all directions. If the thread gets
tangled, no worries. It's possible
untangle it manually. This stitch is one of those techniques that if you
haven't tried it before, it's best to
practice separately. Let's finish this line and
move on to the fly stitch. The stitches are becoming
more complex and interesting. This stitch is perfect
for creating leaves, stems, or little flowers. As you can see, we start
not from the beginning of the line but slightly
to the right and above. Make the first puncture. The second will go directly
underneath bit lower. Only now do we bring the thread through the
start of the line, Hook on to our untighted loop of thread and secure it
with a small stitch. And continue. For convenience, put the thread loop to the left and catch it
again with the stitch. By adjusting the D
of the stitches, we can change the inclination and appearance of the stems. Let's move on to
rifle embroidery. Let's pull out one straw. The first thing to do when
working with it is to straighten it from the inside
because it's too twisted. By straightening it, we
make it more voluminous. Now, I'll cut off the split end. Rafa is a natural material. It's okay if it has
some framing inside. The main thing is
that the beginning and the end of the line are. Without it, it will
be easier to secure. After straightening
it, we twist it back, take a thread of the same color with which we'll be
securing this stem. There are several ways to secure the beginning
and end of the line. I suggest tying the
straw into a knot. Tighten it well, it's
not too protruding. Place it not at the beginning of the line but a bit further. Apply the straw in the opposite direction from the line's direction and
saw it to the fabric. When working with Rapha, I recommend securing
it not with one, but with a couple or
even three stitches to ensure a secure hold. Then return to the beginning of the line and secure the stem
with a couple of stitches, then turns a straw in the
direction of movement, covers a knot with it, and continue securing
it with thread. It results in continuous
embroidery with a single line. Now let's try
embroidering leaves. You can embroider
anything with it. Flowers, branches, and even
more complex patterns, secure the tail of the
leave with thread. I don't change the
securing thread, don't tie knots on it. On the reverse side, it almost mirrors what's happening
on the outer side. I turn and secure the
leaf on the stem. The thread remains enclosed and I can continue with
any pattern I want. Let's create a second leaf
while working with Rafa. I don't recommend
piercing it with a needle as it can easily tear. You can only pierce it with
the needle in two cases at the beginning and end of
the line, securing the knot. Even better to prevent
it from shifting. As I've demonstrated, I secure the straw
with two stitches, turn it and repeat the process. If I want to make
the stem thinner, I slightly twist the
Rafa and take a step forward securing it
forward along the design. Let's finish our
line completely. Now I'll show you how to secure the tail at
the end of the work. Essentially we do the
same as at the beginning. Secure the stem
with two stitches and another two a
short distance away. You can try to hide
the tail under the stem. Be a bit tricky. I plan to create a separate
master class on working with Rafa where I'll provide more details about
advanced techniques. We've completed our
study of stitches. Practice, in my opinion, makes the main embroidery ter. Now let's move on to
transferring the design.
5. Transferring the design: All right, to
transfer our design, we'll need our embroidery hoop, the printed design
scissors in carbon paper, our main fabric, and the
pen towards the end. We'll also be using
felt for sewing it on. We'll need some thread and the needle as the base
for our ornament. We're going with dark fabric. Of course, using light
fabric is also an option. However, I want to demonstrate the design transfer,
specifically dark cotton. Because this method
is less common, I'm cutting out the
necessary fabric piece to fit my embroidery hoop. Nothing gets in the way. I've already prepared a
piece of white carbon paper. I've used it before, it's
usable, that's its advantage. Even some traces of previous design are
still visible on it. One side of the
paper is smoother, the other is rougher. We need to place it with
a smooth side down, meaning the side with
the fax residue on top. We lay our design. All three layers need to
be secured with pins. Now we start transferring the pattern using
the pen my pen has, and it has an additional bonus. I can see which lines
I've already transferred. I'm using medium pressure to
avoid scratching the paper, but ensuring the design
prints well on the fabric. As I'll be making the
deer's body from felt, I won't be transferring
it onto the fabric now. I'll cut an
additional piece from felt and attach it later. Initially, I transferred the
tree design onto the fabric, but later I decided
to make it from Felt to it's quicker than
filling it with stitches. I also recommend
outlining the contours, make it easier to trim. I personally enjoy transferring
the design manually, though A faster method is using water soluble paper.
It saves time. You print the design, stick it onto the fabric, do the embroidery, and then
wet it and it dissolves. I don't get took it up in
transferring the design. I just need to mark the placement of the
main elements because I already have an idea of what and how I'll
be embroidering. In the resources section, you'll find an
image, a reference, with already embroidered
designs that you can refer to while
working on this project. I detach the layers, remove the design and carbon
paper. See what we've got. It seems like I forgot to transfer part of the
leaves on the right side, but that's okay because I'll be embroidering
graphy on top, and it will dictate how
the design comes together. However, if you
want to embroider these branches with
embroidery flows, it's better to transfer
the design more carefully. Keep in mind that the
design will still fade a bit during embroidery due
to the manual handling. Be gentle with the fabric.
Let's set aside this. I deliberately
separated the deer drawing to transfer it to Felt. We take the design, attach, and use the method
usually applied for transferring the
design to light fabric. Let's use some light source. For example, place the
design against the window, Then you can trace it with a pen through the
translucent fabric. Alternatively, you can use a
tablet for the same purpose, just make sure the
image sizes match. For transferring the design, it's better to use the pen
whose traces can be removed, dissolved in water or heat. I detach and cut out the design. At this point, it's better
to remove the pen marks. I forgot to do it here and
had to remove them later. I also cut out the tree trunk and now we saw these details. The running stitch,
stretch the fabric, well, it's like a drum membrane. We start with the deer, we use de thread. You can use a single
strength of embroidery, flaws or regular threads. And make small stitches. Make sure the design lies flat, outline it with a
thread along the edge. As you can see, the
deer figure has legs and we also need to highlight them
with the dark thread. Then add the tree. Here's what I've
got. The next lesson will be dedicated to embroidery.
6. Embroidery: Here's where we left off
in the previous video. We've completely
transferred our design and attached felt applications. Now we're moving go
to Fa embroidery. This border of branches and leaves can also be done
with embroidery threads. Let's separate one straw, unfurl it for added volume. Grab your threads. We'll start the embroidery right
from this point. Place the tip not in the
middle of the design, but slightly further
to secure the tail. Fasten it with several stitches to the same towards the
center of the design. Unfurl the straw and continue along the growth
direction of the stem. Remember it's better
not to pierce the rifa and avoid pressing the straw too
hard with the thread. Rafa is quite flexible, but it's preferable not
to damage its texture. I twist the stem slightly to make it look thinner
compared to the leaves, and continue attaching
each segment with a pair of stitches on top. I secure the last stitch, fasten the threads tail, and trim the aces with scissors. I repeat the same process for
the second part of the red. Now I finished embroidering
this border and I'd like to add more accents
using embroidery thread. I separate the embroidery flows. I need four strands. I'll use them to embroiderers
and the tree branches. This time, I'm not strictly
following the design. While precision is possible, I believe it's okay to
experiment each hand. It is unique. I try something new each time I've stitched the
right and left antlers, however, they seem too thin
compared to the Rafa straw. I added a few more
stitches on top. Next, I embroider
the three branches, making diagonal
stitches upwards, but you can also try making
them directed downwards. I'm curious about
what you'll create. It will undoubtedly
be something unique. Please share photos
of your work. Feel free to share. I'd
love to see your creations. Next I take blue
and red threads. I'll embroider the
deer's eye using French knot with
the blue thread, and then add more texture
to its body and rod. I take three strands, tighten the knot for the body. I create both larger
knots making three loops around the needle and smaller
ones with just one loop. I do the same with red knots. To add more interest, I've added accents on the
gear's body and round. Now I want to add a
central white flower. I have a blue node that I'll
use as a flower center. I embroider petals around it using regular
straight stitches. Next I want to add more branches and leaves
to the embroidery. For this, the fly stitch we
covered in the stitches video would be perfect or simply using straight
stitches at an angle. Now I take a thread
in pink shade. I want to add a couple of
flowers and a few pink berries. The embroidery will become more colorful and the design
will be more diverse. Here's the result. We
finished the embroidery. In our next lesson, we'll focus on
completing the ornament.
7. Finishing the ornament: So far we've reached the final stage together
where our embroidery is ready and all that's left to do is turn it into a
Christmas ornament. We need to cut out the
design, attach a ribbon, saw the back part, fill it with staffing, and we'll have a
finished decoration. My design got a
bit freight when I was removing the pen marks
from the deer's body. So, I'll attach it
now and outline the contour out the circle. I still have quite a
bit of fabric left. Instead of throwing it
away, I'd like to use it. I'm cutting it into small
pieces to fill the ornament. Although, of course, with
professional staffing, the ornament will look
much more voluminous. I'm taking the fabric
I plan to use for the back part of the
ornament and cutting it out. Next I take velvet ribbon, attach it to the front
side of the ornament, then cover it with the back half and secure everything together. I leave the tail of the ribbon hanging using a running stitch, I start sewing both
parts together. When I pass the area
with the ribbon, I secure it with
additional stitches. Since this area is more
prone to cheering, leave a gap between the start
and the end of the stitch. So you can turn the
ornament inside out through this opening, through this gap. Let's add staffing inside. Then I tuck in the fabric alon, and sew up this opening with red matching,
the main fabric. Now I'd like to make the edge of the ornament
more interesting. I have seed beads
and I'll stitch them around the circle
instead of beats. You can use the
French new technique for a similar effect. I finished and
here's the result. I've decided to make
one such ornament every year depicting something
related to that year. The next video will cover
some final thoughts.
8. Final thoughts: As we wrap up this
crafting adventure, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to each and
every one of you. We've journey together through the magical realm of
fabric, embroidery. And explore the intricate
technique of working with Rafa, adding layers of charm to our
Christmas tree ornaments. Remember, it's not just
about the stitches, it's about the joy we've
fallen into every detail. Each ornament created
in this class is not just a decoration but a
piece of your own story. I hope you enjoyed this
masterclass as much as I have. Discovering new techniques
in crafting and spending some good time as you hand your icily crafted
tournament on your dream. May it remind you of the creativity and worms
we shared together. I want to remind you that your feedback is
highly appreciated. You can follow me on Skillshare,
Youtube and Instagram. The links are provided below. Thank you for being a part of this fastive crafting community. Wishing you a season
filed of joy, laughter, and the delight
of handmade treasures. Until next time, happy crafting.
Catherine Never, Embroiderer, Artist & Designer
