Fob a Month - 8

This month's fob is fortunately only a day late, which is quite an improvement on last month.

With autumn on our doorstep my mind turned towards that as a theme, I chose a toadstool as that is really one of the more visible things you can see that herald autumn other than the falling of leaves. I used a lovely picture by ky-sta over on deviantArt which can be found here: Red Mushrooms 9 and did 2 things with it.

The first thing I did was do a direct pattern conversion and then reduce the colours from around 100 to a "mere" 43. I stitched this and then added small beads to create the dots of the toadstool.

The second thing I did was use the picture as an underlay over which I then placed the colours over the top to create a pattern with just 15 colours, which I also stitched.

The results are 2 different toadstools made from the same picture using mostly the same colours made into a fob. Because I chose to use brown 28ct jobelan the fob is again rather on the large side but it does make it about the right size to use as an ornament as well.

The fob is 3" round. The realistic toadstool is 29 x 28 stitches. The stylised toadstool is 29 x 25 stitches.

What you need to make the example above:

• 2 pieces of 5 1/2" square 28ct brown jobelan
• DMC in the colours on the patterns
• Mill Hill Magnifica colour: 10010
• Your stuffing of choice
• Bordeaux craft thread for the cord
• White rick rack: 11 1/2" long and about 5/16" wide
• Water soluble pen
• Matching thread to sew
• Contrasting thread to baste with

You can download the patterns here: Realistic toadstool - Stylised toadstool

 

Instructions: Stitch one or both of the toadstools onto the centre of the jobelan.

Randomly stitch the beads onto the realistic toadstool as the spots.

Use a 3" round biscuit/cookie cutter and a water soluble pen to mark a circle on the back each embroidery, making sure to keep the embroidery centred.

Use the contrasting thread to baste the rick rack onto the front of one of the embroideries, use the line on the back as your guide and make sure the rick rack is centred on the line (a bit fiddly but not too difficult) overlap the ends a little and make sure you tuck the endings into the seam line.

Cut the circle out making sure to leave a 1/4" seam allowance.

Pin the cord in the top centre of the embroidery making sure the have the loop placed on the embroidery and the ends sticking out, as you don't want the loop on the inside of your ornament when stitched *wink*

Place the two sides right sides together and pin into place making sure to line up the circles.

Starting at the bottom stitch the 2 sides together carefully making sure to sew through the rick rack and leaving about 1 1/2" to turn - don't remove the basting thread yet!

Snip the seam allowance making sure not to go too close to the sewing line and carefully turn your work the right way round.

Check to see if all is sewn down properly before removing the basting thread and sewing the fob closed.

I hope you enjoy this pattern, please do share a link to yours if you make it!