Felt letters how-to...

"Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket."

-Charles Simic

My youngest nephew turns two next week. With his birthday so close to Christmas, I knew I wanted to make something special for him.

At first I was inspired by the many different ABC projects that I saw on Pinterest:

1. Fabric letters, 2. Applique beanbags, 3. Lettered beanbags, 4. Felt letters

Then I remembered I'm a commitment-phobe, and I could never commit to 26 individual letters. But, what about numbers? There's only ten of them!

Look how cute they turned out!

If you want to make a set of your own, you will need:

• Plenty of felt : I bought one mini-sheet of each color.
• Plenty of thick embroidery thread
• Needle
• Stuffing : I actually used quilt batting because I could cut it into strips.

Steps:

1. Print outlines of the big numbers on cardstock; I fit four to a page.
2. Trace each number on the felt with a sharpie.
3. Stack/fold your felt and cut two of each numbers.
4. Use the blanket stitch to sew around the exterior of each number. I had to reacquaint myself via a tutorial at Futuregirl Craft Blog.
5. Use a pencil/pen/chopstick/etc. to stuff the numbers as you go. Stitch up the final hole.
6. Throw the number to the side, and start the next one. Thank goodness that you have only 10 to do!

Find a small totebag or make a little drawstring bag to hold all of the numbers. And, of course don't forget to attach the cute tag!