March 2015 Project Of the Month Tutorial

Celtic Craft Felt Candle Mat

Sorry that this a couple days late but we had several medical appointments this week that shifted my schedule a bit. Anyways…

This month I wanted to make a candle mat to celebrate my Irish heritage.  If you didn’t know it, the national flag of the Republic of Ireland is a tricolor flag of green, white, and orange. The official Pantone color designations for the green and orange are PMS 347 and PMS 151, respectively. For me, it’s nice to know these things some times.  I tend to be ummmm… let’s see… OCD-ish on things like this.  And it will be handy when looking at the felts at your local craft store.

Anyways, I was gifted some craft felts from my librarian and my friend Donna.  Donna also gifted me a good many ribbon types to use in my project. 

This is what the supply pile looks like. I also had two plates to use to draw my circles.  One was the saucer plate and then the salad/dessert plate. That list is as follows:

1. One piece of Pirate Green rainbow classic felt
2. Two pieces of orange rainbow classic felt
3. 1/2 yard of cord or braid
4. Threads: Gütermann colors Orange #470, Green #760 and White # 20
5. Coats & Clarks metallic decorative thread  T10 scan number 073650 84903 9
6. A scrap piece of batting is optional

 So I did a search for free Celtic knot work images and  I found this one here. It is a simple design and it brought together two elements associated with Ireland.

So first thing we are doing is to trace your plates. The smaller one is done on the white and the dessert plate is on the orange felt.  The shamrock leaves are easy as they are just four little green hearts at 1”.  Refer to the photo below. My white circle is 6” and there are two orange circles that are 8” before I trimmed it down to 7-1/2” when I finished the piecing.

I then went to my window for a little tracing of the knot work onto the white felt like this…

       

For the sake of making it easier to see in the photo, I made it a bit darker on this piece of white felt in the second photo. Once you done that, set aside for a few minutes.

Now for a couple of helpful notes about making the know work.  After many attempts with the regular flat ribbons, I found that the gold coin like cording was the better choice.  The reasons why is:

1. Unless the ribbon has the same print on both sides, it didn’t work when doing the fold from the center to the half dome shape turns.
2. When doing the half dome turns, the ribbon wouldn’t lay flat on the curves. This could be work on pieces that are bigger than the 6” on the white circle.
3. The types of ribbon that are either cord or braid styles was able to address these two issues at this size I was working with for my mat.

The piece I used for the braid wasn’t much, less than a half yard I believe.  This particular one has an iridescent “thread” that gave it a beautiful glimmering effect and it had me thinking of rainbows and pots of gold.  Which is also associated with Ireland and leprechauns.

  

So now we got our white felt prepped & ready to go, we can start by pinning the gold cord down to the felt following the knot work pattern we traced earlier.

 

I used the gold thread that is shown in the supply picture above. I am using Coats & Clarks metallic decorative thread  T10 scan number 073650 84903 9 according to the label.  Then I just used my favorite needle which is a #7 embroidery needle because of the large eye makes it easier to thread the metallic thread.  I just stitched the cord down few centimeters working it in and out of the braiding so that it blended in.  You can erase any pencil marks that might be seen.

From there I moved on to the shamrock using the green Gütermann thread to hand stitch them down on top of the gold knot work. Refer to the picture below.

 

I decided to bring the green color out a little farther in the piece so instead of using floss I used the green thread for a  more delicate look when using the tiny blanket stitch to sew the white piece to the orange background. You can used the white thread if you don’t want that extra color pop.

At this point I trimmed by orange circles to 7-1/2” so that there is an even rim showing. So if you got your white just a little wonky… don’t worry we can fix that. Be sure to cut your optional batting in this step to match if you wanted to add a little cushioning to your candle mat.

Now once you finish stitch the blanket stitching you now can use that second orange circle by making a label and stitch the two pieces together to cover up the stitching on the back side making it all pretty with the orange thread listed in the supply list.

Now there it is.  A little piece of Ireland at your fingertips.  You can also place a pop can tab on the back a hang it up to display it.  This beauty is 7-1/2” in diameter and prefect for those little spaces.  I hope you enjoyed this month’s project. I have already gifted this one and will be making another with the little penny rug tabs added on.  Be sure to come back and see how that one comes out too.  Until next time.

Toodles,
Tricia