I decided early on that I was going to have to get a little creative with the shape of the ornaments for this tree. If I made every single one in the shape of a sweater, then soon enough it would stop looking like a Christmas tree and more like a clothesline. (Although that might have been a whole lot easier.) So as I was brainstorming winter clothing, I wanted to come up with some ideas that would allude to tradition without being literal. This little argyle pillow ornament is an example of what I came up with. It’s just a square pillow so it doesn’t look like an item of clothing, but that argyle pattern is so traditional and iconic that you can’t look at it without imagining it stretched across a chest in a cozy knit.
I found this patterned polar fleece that came printed in blocks of color, and that’s what inspired the shape of this. I just cut the fleece apart and let the print make my decisions for me, but any polar fleece will work. Really, most fabrics will work for the pillow part, but I went with polar fleece because it was snugly, and because then I wouldn’t have to worry about hemming the diamond shape. My squares measured 3″ and you’ll need two of them. To get the diamond shape I just printed one off the computer and used it as a pattern to cut my pieces out.
Sew the pillow on the front of one of the squares. I just used my sewing machine and steered right up to the edge of the diamond, but if you could always zig zag over the edge. This will help if you have a fabric that would fray.
Using perle cotton and a running stitch, embroider an X over the top of the diamond. You could use your sewing machine for this part too, but you’d have to either use a thread that was in a sharply contrasting color or go over it a whole bunch of times to get it to show up.
Sandwich a loop of perle cotton between the front and back pieces of polar fleece and sew around the edges, leaving an inch or so open for turning. Turn right side out, stuff, and sew or glue closed.
As I was making the video for this ornament I was struck all over again by how sweet these little ornaments are and I decided that these needed a little more attention than they were going to get on the tree. So to wrap my packages this year I’m going to use some of my finger knit garland as ribbon, and then one of these little ornaments as a package decoration. They work up so fast that it’s no pain to share them and I think the combination will be so adorable people won’t want to open their presents.
So cute! My first thought was argyle socks.
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