Fabric Easter Cross for Palm Sunday: a Quick Tutorial

If you would like to join in...please email either Linda at lindadawkins@mweb.co.za or myself at heidibearscreativeblog@gmail.com
We would love to have you share the love... :)

Palm Sunday Fabric Easter Cross

A Heidi Bears design (copyright)

Hiya folks!

A super quick tutorial for this special Sunday: Palm Sunday.

It's a simple fabric cross with a pocket in the front to put your palm leaf...

The crochet rose is optional, but the fabric whispered in my ear that it liked the bright rose, and wanted to be friends...in addition the rose is symbolic...

Requirements:

I bought the fabric at a small non-descript linen shop that had a special on loose pillow cases, so I bought a whole bus load :) I like it, it's kinda Cath Kidstonish... I used a pillow case piece of fabric with bits left over for some patchwork item...

Sewing machine

Iron on vilene

Sewing thread

Scissors

Pins

Merino fleece stuffing

Crocheted rose



Choose your fabric, and cut out your pattern from the paper it was printed on. Decide where you are going to lay your pattern, as you may want certain pattern elements to be at the cross junction. I wanted the rose to be in this area, so I laid the pattern on two bits of fabric that were mirror images of each other.

Iron your fabric so that you have a nice smooth surface to work with...


Pin the paper pattern to the fabric carefully, cut out. Since your fabric has been folded so that there are two layers, you will have cut out two crosses.

Two crosses cut out, mirror images...

Cut out a long piece of fabric (I cut out from the long edge of the pillow case), I would say about a metre long, and interface with the iron on Vilene for strength and hold.

Iron Vilene onto both cross pieces.

Cut out the pocket piece from the fabric. Fold over and sew up the top edge, to stop it from unravelling. Then sew the pocket to the front of the cross as shown above.

Then start sewing the long fabric piece to the edge of the back piece of the cross, all around, making sure that you strenghthen the corners. When you get to the area where you started sewing, cut off any excess fabric from the strip and sew the two ends together. You should now have a 2D cross shape. Sew up the front piece of the cross to the long strip/cross you just made. Make sure you leave a small area open for stuffing.

Turn the cross inside out. Push all the corners out so that they are nice and square. Stuff firmly with the fleece and then mattress stitch the opening closed. Sew on the crochet rose...and you are done!

This was just a quick mini-tutorial...hope it makes sense... :)

See you tomorrow,

Lots of Love,

Heidi :)