My Annual Tradition - Making Homemade Christmas Ornaments

I love making homemade Christmas ornaments to give to my family and friends each year.  The photo below shows just a few of the many ornaments I have made over the course of many years.

Over the years I have used a variety of craft techniques: knitting, felted knitting, cut out painted cardboard (using old gift boxes), cross stitch, and hand stitched felt (this was one of my favorite crafts for many years!).  The little owl ornament in the center of the photo above was made using my free pattern: Ole the Owl.

The first knitting pattern I published was my Mini Sweater Christmas Ornament.  It was only fitting that that one of my favorite traditions led me on a new path to share my knitting ideas.  Last month (November 2016)  I celebrated my third anniversary since publishing that first knitting pattern!

Mini Sweater Christmas Ornament - Knitting Pattern

Last year I made several of these mini sweaters to give to dear friends.  It was a great way to use up a lot of stash yarn!  My favorite yarn for these ornaments is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted.  I have used this yarn for many years.  It works up beautifully and lasts very well for heirloom quality gifts.  

Here's a few of the ornaments I made last year.  It was fun to stitch on felt applique decorations for a mixture of textures and a variety of designs!  

I made used my duplicate stitch sailboat design from my Mini Sweater Christmas Ornament pattern to make two more of these nautical themed ornaments.  These were made for dear friends who we have enjoyed sailing with for many years.

Mini Sweater Ornament with Sailboat Duplicate Stitch

I also love making Felt Applique Mitten Christmas Ornaments.  I updated this pattern in January 2016 to include even more ideas for personalizing ornaments with letters or numbers...in addition to hearts, stars, snowman and gingerbread house designs.

Felt Applique Mitten Ornament - Knitting Pattern

I love pulling these ornaments out of the box each year to hang on the tree.  It brings back memories of making special gifts for my family and friends over the years.  

A few of my favorite homemade ornaments.

Now it's just a couple weeks until Christmas 2016!  I need to open my box of ornaments I made last January...these are waiting to be wrapped up and given this year.  And...this weekend I may need to make a few more ornaments!

Thanks for reading!  Wishing you happy holidays! 

Felt Applique Mitten Christmas Ornament - Updated Pattern!

I've completely updated one of my first knitting patterns!  My Felt Applique Mitten Christmas Ornament knitting pattern has received a cosmetic update as well as new ideas.  I made some revisions to the pattern layout and updated some photos.  The best part is...the update includes new felt applique design ideas.  I've added patterns for felt uppercase letters in a cute font style, as well as numbers in two sizes.

My Felt Applique Mitten Christmas Ornament knitting pattern is available on Ravelry, LoveKnitting, Etsy and Craftsy.

Felt Applique Mitten Ornament - Updated Pattern!

Initially, I planned to make some minor updates to my pattern layout so it would more closely match the style of my newer published patterns.  As I was working on the updates and knitting lots of mittens with my stash worsted weight yarn, I came up with the idea to stitch felt letters and numbers on the mittens.

I love how the letters and numbers look stitched on the mittens!  There are so many ways to use the letters and numbers to make special personalized gifts.  Children love receiving gifts with the first letter of their name.  For a family gift I'll make custom mini mitten ornaments with the last name initial.  The number patterns can be used to celebrate a child's age or team number.

My pattern includes two sizes of number patterns.  The larger font size matches the letter patterns in scale and works well for one digit numbers (see #7 mitten above).  I've also included smaller, narrower numbers so you can fit two digit numbers on the front of the mitten (see the #24 mitten above).

Did I mention that all of the felt patterns are easy to print and cut out?  No resizing of patterns is necessary!

I've succeeded in using a good amount of stash yarn by knitting a bunch of mitten ornaments to give as Christmas gifts.  The #7 ornament will be for my nephew who will be seven years old by next Christmas.  The "R" ornament will be for my son.  The red mittens below were knit with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride in 'Red Hot Passion'.  The light blue gray #24 mitten is the first for a countdown to Christmas mitten garland!  I'm really excited about this project.  I'm going to use as much stash yarn as possible and have the mittens be a variety of colors.

Pattern includes full set of uppercase letter & two sizes of numbers.

It's fun to stitch on a felt letter to make a personalized gift!

This month I also made a few mitten ornaments with felt hearts and another mini mitten ornament with a felt house...which kind of matches our home!  The blue mitten below was knit with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in the color 'Brite Blue'.  I used aqua colored felt for the heart and light aqua DMC embroidery floss to stitch the heart on the mitten.

Mini Mitten with Felt Heart Applique Design

The white mitten below was knit with Berroco Vintage.  I purchased my felt for these projects from SweetEmmaJean on Etsy.  I love their selection of colors and they ship very quickly!

Mini Mitten Ornament with Little House Felt Decoration

My mitten ornament pattern still includes instructions for all of the original designs: heart, house, star and snowman.  These mini mittens can be made with just about any worsted weight yarn.  Each mitten requires about 25 yards of yarn.  You will also need felt in desired colors, DMC embroidery floss or #5 pearl cotton, US size 3 & 5 knitting needles, two stitch holders, two stitch markers, a tapestry needle and a sharp embroidery needle.  And, if you would like, an old button for the heart and star designs.

Pattern includes Heart, Star & House felt applique designs.

This pattern is available on Ravelry, Craftsy, Etsy and LoveKnitting.

Thank you so much for reading!

Mary Lee
Fifty Four Ten Studio