For the giant felt diamond ring tutorial + pattern please visit this post.

HUGE thanks to our friends the Belzer family for sharing their adorable twins with us!

SUPPLIES:

• High quality wool felt, mine is from Benzie Design (exact amounts below)
• Embroidery floss to match the felt
• Embroidery needles
• Ribbon and two pearls for embellishment
• Stuffing (aka. polyester fiberfill – one 12oz bag will easily fill both the ring and basket)
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Sewing pins
• My free patterns at the end of the post!

Blanket Stitch – How To:

I’m going to start by sharing how to do the blanket stitch – which is the only stitch I use in this tutorial. I love the blanket stitch; it makes things look fancy and it’s easy to do:

1. Start with two pieces of felt (or any fabric) and your choice of thread. Here I’m using three strands of embroidery floss.
2. Start your stitch between the two pieces of fabric to hide the knot.
3. Then go back and make a real stitch across the top of that first hole.
4. Before you pull that stitch tight, put your needle through the loop – then tighten.
5. Do the same thing, over and over – just remember to keep looping the stitch.

This stitch makes a pretty little seam on the outside of any hand sewn project!

Cut Out Your Felt Pieces

Based on my patterns that you can print at the end of the post, you’ll need:

– Basket: 1/2 yard of felt (color: grapefruit)
– Flowers + Leaves: 9″ x 12″ piece of felt combined (colors: peach, blush, pink, fern)

Cut out the basket front, back, inside, handle 2x, and 8x basket weave rectangles. The back and front pieces are the same size square, but you’ll only cut the weave slits in one piece. Do not cut the slits all the way through!

This is exactly what all your cut pieces should look like.

How To Make The Basket Weave:

Layout the “basket front” piece, have your hot glue gun ready (I like to use mine on low heat to protect my fingers) and start to weave! Pull every other basket strip towards you and then lay one of the skinny rectangles across the top, then replace all the strips to their original position. We will repeat this 7-8 times.

To secure each weave, hot glue the corners to the basket top.

Now keep weaving, using alternating strips. I only ended up using 7 weave strips but your version might end up a little different which is totally fine. Remember to hot glue each strip in place.

Secure the Weave:

Once your weaving is complete, choose the backside. Then hot glue all across the backside and adhere the “inside of the basket” piece. This secures your weave design and also prevents the stuffing from pushing through the weave itself. The inside piece is slightly smaller than the weave, so center it as best you can.

Trim all the uneven edges off each side of the basket weave.

How to Make the Handle:

Embroidery floss comes with 6 strands, so you’ll need to separate 2 strands out for all sewing on this project. Start by pinning the handles together and blanket stitching the entire underside of the handle. Then stitch about 2 inches on the topside – then stuff. You need to sew and stuff as you go otherwise the handle will be too skinny and you won’t be able to stuff one end.

Attach the Handle:

With the handle complete, hot glue it to the top inside of the basket weave first. Then add a little hot glue to the top of the handles and add the “basket back square” on top. Don’t hot glue everything together – just the handles.

Now stick around the entire basket square and leave about 2″ open on one end to stuff.

Fill the Basket With Stuffing

Fill the basket with stuffing, the little stick came in my stuffing bag (the same one I linked to below) and then sew it closed.

How to Make the Flowers:

There are many different ways to make felt flowers; but here are 3 super easy and totally cute “wrap” style designs. Start by cutting out felt from the patterns I’ve provided.

For the rectangle design, fold it in half and cut slits from the fold side about every 1/4″ or so. Starting in the center wrap the flower together and secure with hot glue. Fluff the design to finish.

Next, cut one wavy spiral circle and one straight spiral circle.

Pinch the very center together, wrap around itself and hot glue to secure. Hot glue a pearl or sequin in the middle to finish.

Do the same thing with the last flower: pinch the very center together, wrap around itself and hot glue to secure. Hot glue a pearl or sequin in the middle to finish. Cut a few cute leaves as well.

Add the Flowers to the Basket:

Since we aren’t tossing these flowers – we are gluing them to the basket. Play around with your arrangement and then hot glue the flowers in place – leaves first.

Finish the basket design with a small bow!

Since my little flower girl was going to be keeping this pillow, I wrote her name on the back with permanent ink.

Since I’m always making project ideas to share here, and most of the time they aren’t for real events – it was such a treat to dress these two up and see them interact with the pillows. They loved them and were adorable while playing, I can only imagine similar at a real wedding!

Seriously, dying from the cuteness…