Showing posts with label wood spools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wood spools. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

1 of a Kind - Tree Scent Oranments - Set 3

Another set of these very cute Tree Scent Ornaments.  These can be used to give your artificial tree a scent.  Choose your favorite Christmas essential oil and apply 1 or 2 drops and enjoy.  

Here I have grey felted wool to which I have added royal blue blanket stitch on the top and bottom edge.

I had stitched white snowflakes around the middle.

The top features white felt circle and a grey button.

The hanger is the royal blue thread in 6 ply.




This felted wool makes me think of woodsy so I put small triangular trees on the middle panel of this ornament.

I chose black embroidery thread for the blanket stitch around the top and bottom edges.

The top features a black felt circle and a medium sized button.

The hanger is 6 ply embroidery thread in the same color as the tree on the wool panel.



A Bumble Bee colored ornament.

It features the ivory and black felted wool panel around the middle of the ornament. 

I use golden yellow embroidery thread for the embellishments.  The blanket stitch on the bottom and top edges.

I followed the fabric pattern with cross and dash stitches.

The top features a black felt circle with a golden yellow button.

Embroidery thread in 6 ply for the hanger.




I put white snowflakes on this woodsy felted wool panel.

I used chocolate brown thread for the blanket stitching along the top and bottom edges.

The top has an ivory felt circle cut the the SB Nestabilties smooth circle die - the smallest in the large set.

Topped with a brown button and brown embroidery thread hanger.






Another daisy on this grey houndstooth wool fabric panel.  

I did triple fold this fabric and stitched the ends to ensure no unraveling of the ends.

I chose pink thread for the daisy and the dashes in the middle.  Same for the blanket stitching along the top and bottom edges.

Charcoal grey felt circle at the top cut the the nestabilities die.

Topped with a pink medium sized button.

Pink 6 ply embroidery hanger.

This is the last set for this year.  I learned a lot in the process.  I got some feedback that they could be a popular item.  Let's hope so.

Friday, October 13, 2023

1 of a Kind - Tree Scent Ornaments - Set 2 and Stand

I made a few more 1 of a King Tree Scent Ornaments.  These ornaments can hold your favorite tree scent essential oil to give your artificial tree the right scent.

It could also be a favorite Christmas scent of your choice. The scent will dissipate and you can choose a different oil another day.

Love this bold black and white check felted wool.

I decided to pair it with red.

I put blanket stitch along both edges with black embroidery thead. 

I changed color to red and using the squares in the fabric I put X and dashes along to bottom half and just dashes long the top.

Red felt on top with a large black button on top of that.  Black embroidery hanger.

I had most of my buttons spread around my work area in separate bowls.  I found this cute small oval button which matched well with the thread I had selected so I decided to use it.

For this bright felted wool I chose bright green and blue.

I put blanket stitch in green along the top and bottom edges. 

I then stitched the button in the center front and then added dash stitches in blue above and below the button.

The top felt is green with a button button. 

True Blue embroidery floss hanger.

I decided to do one ornament in Oiler colors - blue and orange.

I used the wool denim colored felt.

I added a blanket stitch along the top and bottom edges in orange. 

The center pattern is a set of crossed dash stitches.

I cut the top felt circle from the same fabric with my smallest die from the Large Nestabilities smooth circle dies.  Fits perfectly.

Topped with orange buttons and the same orange embroidery thread for the hanger in all 6 plys.


Another Tree Scent ornament with bright colors.

The wool cuff is bright green and I chose purple embroidery thread.

I put a blanket stitch along the top and bottom edges.

I put stars patterns along the center of the wool layer.

The top has a purple felt circle and then a bright green medium sized button.

Purple 6ply embroidery thread hanger.



The fabric for this ornament was wool suiting so I folded it top to the back and bottom to the back so I had 3 layers to work with. 

I did have to stitch the ends which were stitched over with my connecting stitches.

White blanket stitches along the top and bottom edges.

I followed the plaid pattern with my white thread in dash stitches.

The top felt circle is red topped with a medium white button.

The hanger is white in 6 ply thread.




I needed another stand for Tree Scent Ornaments.  I went shopping this week and found this black folding stand. 

The Christmas stuff was out as well so I picked up a package of silver wire hangers.  I just squeezed them onto the wire frame.

I will put my sign on the back wire with the clothes pin.

I had the piece of wood in my stash which was perfect. It stabilizes the stand when there are ornaments on it. I will have to secure the legs into the slots.

Enough space on this stand for my 1 of a Kind Tree Scent Ornaments.


Monday, October 9, 2023

1 of a Kind - Tree Scent Ornaments - Wood Spools

Tree Scent Ornaments are ornaments on your artificial Christmas tree that are oil diffusers.  You place oil on the felt and it makes your tree smell like you want.  If you want it to smell like a real tree you can place essential oil that would give you that scent. I discovered last year that I no idea what kind of tree we had when we were kids.  I believe they were spruce trees.  You could also choose any scent that makes it Christmas for you.  I have made a variety of these ornaments last year and will continue this year with new styles this year.

I saw samples of these spools with embroidered wool on line over a year ago.  I really liked them.  
This was a project by Susan Lenz.  You can check out her blog post here.

Many of her wooden spools are older than mine and have the words embedded in the top and bottom ends of the spools.

She filled a small wooden bassinet of these.  It must have taken her a long time.
I had collected small pieces of wool at the ReUse center over the last 6 months.

These small spools come from Mom's stash.  She saved her spools and of course she sewed for many years when thread was sold on wooden spools instead of the plastic we have today. The wooden spool was eliminated in the 1970's.

I started with a 5 small wooden thread spools which I sealed with Modge Podge several days ago.  They measure about 1.25 inches tall and 1" around.

I gathered my bits of wool, my embroidery thread, a bucket of felt and a bucket of buttons and tackled this project.  Something good to listen to on the TV and a cup of tea.  I was there way longer than I expected. 

Raw wood works as a diffuser as well so any drops running down from the top will go down the center of the spool and be absorbed.

I am not sure that taking the time to seal the outside did much.  I was hoping to make the edges more warmed tone.  You don't see much of the spool at the end.

This wool was a left over from a sweater which may have shrunk.  I cut it 1" wide and 3" long.

There was a bit of pink on the edge which inspired me to  use pink thread on this one.

I split my embroidery thread into 3 strand lengths.  It is great to work with this material as there are not unravelling edges and it is quite thick.

I just made it up as I went which a rudimentary knowledge of some embroidery stitches.

Here I put different border stitches and daisies around the center.

The felt pieces on the top and bottom are cut about 1" across.

I chose medium sized pink buttons for this one.

On this ornament I used the pattern in the wool to guide my embroidery in the middle of the spool. 

The turquoise 100% cotton thread I used was not standard embroidery floss.  I split it as usual but I had a really hard time keeping it integral.  It would just come apart sometimes.  I will keep it in it's 2 strand version next time.

Turquoise felts on the top and bottom with tan buttons which matched well with the fabric I used.

I did not have any regular embroidery floss in the right color.  I am not sure where I collected this thread as it is packaged like the other stuff.  It was for sure at a Thrift store.

On this ornament, I embroidered white snowflakes on the navy blue portions of the fabric.

I managed to do the blanket stitch along the top and bottom edges.

White felt on top and bottoms with smallish navy button over the that layer.

I did not have any trouble when I used the regular embroidery thread, in this case white.

This fabric as other colors and patterns to it will make more spools and they will look different.


The wool on this ornament was very thick and the colors were quite mottled.  You can see that the fabric sticks out quite a bit from the wood edge.

I chose a denim blue embroidery thread and put blanket stitch along both edges.  I put diamond shapes around the middle.

The wool circles on the top were denim blue and here the buttons are a bit larger and I think it works better.

Again, I think this fabric was a shrunken wool garment and that is why it is to thick.

I think esthetically the fabric is a bit too thick as I just wanted to fill in the well on the spool.


On this last one, I chose the fabric for the color and it was cotton flannel instead of wool.  This comes with challenges. The edges are not integral.  On this one I folded the top and bottom edges to the inside and that worked well.

The biggest challenge was finishing the edges where the ends meet.  That had to be finished with a folded edge and I sewed that with regular thread.  Then when it came to connecting them at the back I used the red embroidery thread as I had been on the others.  The bigger buttons for sure look better.

I would not use flannel again, it was just too much work.  Three layers of layers fills in the space on the spool the nicest.

I do have some pieces of wool suiting which might be a better weight but may have the same edge problems as this flannel.

These are ones for now.  I have other styles I want to make.   I found the dimensional ones sold the best last year.  Stuffed hearts are easy and I can make snowmen and gingerbread men as well.