Stitched strawberry tutorial!

Hi everybody,

Today I bring you a summery (even though it keeps on raining!) tutorial on how to make a stitched strawberry :0) 

As I mentioned I made them with my textiles club and they are very fun and easy to make, I made all of these in just over an hour:

I am going to show you how to make the traditional style choc dipped strawberry in the picture- but as you can see you can get creative and pretty much use any scraps of fabric you have to get make crazy coloured berries!

To 'get your fruit on!' :P you will need:

•  Any old off cuts/scraps of fabric (In red, green and brown if you want the choc-dipped strawberry)
• Embroidery threads/cottons in different colours- depending on your chosen design
• A small amount of toy stuffing
• Scissors
• A needle
• A ruler for measuring
• Craft glue- optional (you can choose to glue on the stalk/chocolate decoration if you wish)
• Pinking shears- (optional)

And here are the steps:

1. Take your main chosen fabric and cut a semicircle of diameter (measurement across the top) 4 inches (10cm). But also of radius (measurement down) 4 inches ( 10cm ). So a kind of elongated semicircle really.

2. I you are making a dipped strawberry cut out a piece of your chosen dip fabric similar to that shown in the picture (otherwise just skip this step and follow the rest as normal for a plain strawberry):

Then fasten this to the main strawberry piece either using a small amount of craft glue or little stitches along the top edge of the dip piece (don't worry about down the sides or along the bottom- these are fastened later when you sew up the side)

3. Take a few strands of embroidery thread or doubled up sewing thread in seed colour and sew little seeds all over the main strawberry piece (you can do this after making the strawberry if you wish but it can be easier for fastening the thread if you do it now as you can use a knot hidden on the back to fasten the stitching).

4. Now you should have something like this:

5. Fold in half with right sides facing inwards.

6. Now using a matching colour thread sew little running stitches all the way from the base of the strawberry all the way along the curved edge slightly in from the edge. Stop when you reach the top edge- don't sew along the top, just leave the needle and thread attached at the corner as you will be using this to fasten up the top later.

7. Turn your strawberry the right way out and stuff until it is nice and juicy! :oP

8. Next using small running stitches again sew all the way around the open top edge and then pull gently to gather up and then fasten off the thread so the top is closed securely.

9. Take your stalk fabric and cut about a 1 inch by 1 inch square using pinking shears (3.5cm x 3.5cm)

You can then cut out further little triangles from the edges of the square to create a realistic looking stalk:

Alternatively if you don't have pinking shears you can just experiment cutting out different star style shape pieces for stalks, or just cut a normal square and then cut extra triangles until you are happy with the effect

10. Finally sew your stalk to the top of your strawberry over the gathered area using a matching coloured thread and small stitches in the centre of the stalk piece (alternatively you can glue it on if you wish)

And Viola!

You have your own piece of fruity loveliness:

Each one you make is always slightly different- just like the real thing, which is part of the fun :P

And now you can keep going and make tons more if you want- they can be little gifts, decorations, made into accessories etc... I think I am going to try putting several in an old jam jar and putting a bit of ribbon round the top- I think that would look very pretty :)

I hope you like the tutorial :D

See you all soon,

Byeee xxxx

P.s. If anyone makes some of the strawberries and wants to send me a picture I would love to see them (iitki@hotmail.co.uk) and if anyone thinks of any more cool ideas on how to use them please do leave a comment- I have made quite a few so any more ideas on how to use them would be a help!

Bye :-P