Scandinavian Christmas: Day 9

Day 9! Today you are all in for a treat, my best friend Jessica is sharing today! Jessica is actually the one who introduced me to the art of sewing! Not only can this girl sew, knit, bake, and cook, but she has even been known to do a metal art project or two! She is seriously talented and I'm so glad that we're friends. And I'm counting down the days until I can see her in real life again (only 5 more days!!). I'm thrilled she is participating this year and I know you'll enjoy her adorable, crafty tutorial!

Hello! My name is Jessica, and I am so pleased to be doing a guest post on The Pickled Herring! I love the Scandinavian Christmas series that Kathryn does, and am honored to be a part of it this year!

A little bit about myself: I am Kathryn's BFF!! We have been pals since our time in the womb! Our mothers are friends, and we have been besties since birth. We were even called Siamese twins by one of our grade school teachers. My family celebrates our Swedish heritage every Christmas by having a Smorgasbord at Christmastime. We bust out the herring, rice pudding, and korv. We even have one of the girls dress up as Lucia and serve cookies.

Kathryn is coming home to Michigan for Christmas (yay!!!) and we love to fika. So I decided to make Christmas Cozys! I'm so excited for her to see my new house and my new baby, and to catch up over a cozy cup of coffee! I have actually been working on one of those felt embroidered stockings, kind of like this, and it inspired me to add a little pizzazz with sequins.

Here's what you need: green, red and white felt, green, red and white floss, sequins, seed beads, a little bit of stuffing, and a button. (Ignore the velcro in this picture - I ended up not using it!)

So what I did first was make a template. Use a piece of paper for this. 

Once you have the template made, cut out 2 of those guys from the green felt. 

 Next, you are going to make the Scandinavian heart. To do this, you take a square and add a semicircle to one side. Then cut out a white one, and a red one of these. Then cut the square part into thirds.

Then you basically weave the strips of felt to make a cute little heart!

Embroider the heart onto one of the green felt pieces, adding some stuffing beneath the heart to give it some dimension. Then add some sequins by tacking them on with seed beads. 

Next, place the other green felt piece behind the one you've just embroidered, and use a running stitch and the white floss, embroider around the edges. After you've done this, you can clean up the edges by cutting away the excess (I suppose you could avoid this step by making sure the green pieces are exactly the same size, but I'm no perfectionist). 

Then all you have to do is add a cute little button and cut a buttonhole!

And here is your Christmas Cozy! Now, just make sure you have 2 for when your best friend comes home for Christmas!!

Oh, and here's my Christmas baby!

Thank you, Jessica!!! I can't wait to fika it up with you in just a few short days! Come back tomorrow to hear from another good friend, Kate!