Free Standing Santa
Design can be found here: Applique Santa by A Design By Lyn
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Almost a year ago I got a darling Santa design file done by Lyn Christian of A Design By Lyn from The Stitchery Mall and I finally got around to stitching him up!
He is free-standing the way I did him up simply to make him more versatile for use throughout the holiday season. This way I can move him around a bit during the season.
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He can be on a tote bag when I do a little holiday shopping or even gift delivery, but then he can also stop by and visit my frig, and then he can go on the holiday card basket that collects all the holiday cards as they come in, or he can pop into my guest bathroom to greet visitors for the season by indicating where the guest toiletries are out on the counter, etc……and he can even go on a plain purchased Xmas stocking to jazz it up!
In this Santa Appliqué design, the beard appliqué portion is made from Silky Fleece, a type of “furry fleece”. Different fabric stores may call the product various names other than Silky Fleece–although usually Silky Fleece has the longest fleece tendrils of them all. Other names can include: “Poodle Fleece, “Curly Fleece”, “Shaggy White Furry Fleece”, or “Specialty Loop Fleece”. Of course, to get a different look, other fabrics could be used for the beard appliqué as desired.
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To make Santa free-standing, I used a different type of product to sew him out on. This version was done on a nice stamped type of very evenly laid composite white polyester felt unlike Eazy felt–this is different–has a nicer hand, and interesting body–it was at JoAnns as their “Signature Shell” product that is 17.75 inches wide–odd width and odd product in that the border is stamped and cut that way with shells all along both selvage areas. The top is smooth while the back is pebbly. Someone could use another type of slightly stiffened felt-like product up to perhaps even a product used for making fabric bowls. (Unstable felt should NOT be used as this design is too stitch intensive). For a stabilizer one could go with a medium weight tearaway which is what I did as the product I was stitching on was NOT going to distort easily during stitching. Other “fabric” choices would require other stabilizers matched to the medium being sewn on.
To keep Santa’s beard facing inward during the outline stitching around the Silky Fleece, I simply took a scrap of a nice weight wss (I happen to like Romeo from CraftMistress) and applied it over the fleece–the clear is perfect because you can be certain the fleecy tendrils are just where you want them before you stitch each section going around the entire beard–just carefully tuck the tendrils in using a stylus as you go around.
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The photo shows the wss (Romeo in this case) holding the beard Silky Fleece tendrils in place where they belong! I applied the wss just after I had carefully trimmed the excess Silky Fleece from Santa’s beard. The light reflects off of the Romeo wss and that is where that bit of shiny glare in the beard is from……to remove the wss, I use a seam ripper to just open up the wss casing over the Silky Fleece beard. I go slowly so I don’t cut any of the hairs accidentally. When I have an area of wss cut through, I can grab it and carefully remove the rest by properly tearing it off against the stitching line. I use a Q-tip dipped in water and go around to any spots where there is still any wss residue and just dissolve it away. Let the wet spots on the beard dry. Once the beard is all dry, simply fluff it out as desired.
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Other fleece names for this Silky or Curly fleece can include: Shaggy Furry Fleece, Waffle Furry Fleece, Long (or Short) Hair Poodle Fleece, Hairy Metallic Fleece, Sassy Furry Fleece, Shaggy Furry Fleece, Cuddle (or Ultra Cuddle) Furry Fleece, etc.
Stephanie from NY