Hope everyone had a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving! We did here, even if it was a wet day, snow to rain, to just cold. My sister and her wife just bought a new house and moved in the week before Thanksgiving. They hosted Thanksgiving dinner at their lovely new home, yes, just 1 wk after moving in! I wanted to give them a house-warming gift but wasn't sure what to give since this isn't their first house and they didn't need any kitchen items, lol. So I opted for my current addiction, these wonderful folded fabric star ball ornaments...

This is my first attempt at embroidery so I was a bit nervous doing it as a gift, but I wanted to personalize it as a remembrance of purchasing their new house. So I Googled monogramming letters, traced them off my computer screen onto a square of paper and than free hand drew the letters on my square of fabric with pencil. Than I attempted the embroidery, lol, I had a few false starts but thankfully it came together in the end. I had gotten this book awhile back and it was a great reference for learning the different stitches since I'm new to this =)

After embroidering the initials and numbers to the squares I just pinned the squares on the styrofoam balls as the tutorial tells you. Since the middle square is a color on color print, I kept all the rest of the prints I used the same, keeping white out of the mix and only using green and red solids as additional accents. I'm very happy with the results and they liked it, so yay!

Yea, I know...I'm nuts, but I can't stop myself, these are just too fun!!! The fish print above is the opposite side of the 'gnome' ball that I showed last time and is pictured below, this time it's finished, lol! The little fox on the bottom left is flannel and all of the other fabric on the ball are also flannel. All from Munki Munki flannel pjs, his opposite side is the little girl below.

Isn't she adorable?!? Some of those Munki prints are just too cute!! If you are looking for these fabrics or are just wondering what the heck I'm talking about Kerri carries them in her Etsy shop. The flannel ball has velvet rickrack instead of ribbon since it goes better with all the flannel. I love rickrack, why is NEVER on sale at Joanns? Am I the only one that notices that??

If you've read any of my previous posts you know I just HAD to make one with Garden Party fabrics! This is my favorite FAVORITE line of fabric, by the lovely Anna Maria Horner. So I got out my AMH scrap bin...what you don't have a scrap bin dedicated to you favorite line of fabric? no?, ok, moving on...and made this lovely ball, SO MUCH COLOR!!! =D

Here's the opposite side =) This ball is not finished as I didn't have any grosgrain ribbon wide enough to cover my center seam. So I could add more squares and shrink the center seam I suppose, but I'm loving using up my drawer full of assorted ribbon.

I had a few questions about the ones I've made so I wanted to add some notes about assembling. The directions in the tutorial say to 'press' each square prior to pinning. I'm usually obsessive with the iron but these are 2" squares, so I just 'finger pressed' them ALL as I went along. I believe her directions also mention not stretching the square in the center...um, I stretched and fudged every bit of these things to made them look like I wanted, lol. I also noticed that if the pin was showing at the center point to just take it out and move it back a bit from the folded edge and than fold down each corner and see if it's still showing. I used bias tape to cover my center seam. I had 1/2" bias tape on hand, so I used 2 pieces, one on each edge, which made it's own seam in the middle. Does this make sense? Than I put on whatever ribbon I liked and that covered it all up nicely. I pinned the bias tape in place, but just knotted the ribbon in place tightly. You can see this the most clearly in the photo of the 'fish' ball, the bottom vintage sheet ball has pink bias tape and white grosgrain ribbon.

Note added: I would suggest getting the smooth styrofoam balls if you're going to do a fussy cut center so it's not bumpy behind the fabric, like mine was. =)