Felt Triceratops

My friend's little boy turned one (even though I have no idea where the time went!). When he was born I made him a dinosaur using a Melly and Me pattern so I decided that it would be quite nice to stick to this theme when it came to his card. Also my husband and little girl are quick to remind me that "dinosaurs are cool!". I was working on quite a time consuming gift (blog to follow at some point) so I needed a simple card.

I found a lovely, and quite simple, colouring pattern here. I traced the whole picture and then traced all of the parts/features separately. I tend to use baking paper to trace as it is cheap and quite hard wearing. I then cut templates from my tracing and pinned it to the felt that matched each part. This was a really simple design so I only had three colours to work with.

If I am doing a more complicated appliqué pattern I sometimes colour in the original to make sure I am happy with the combination. With all the parts in place I simply pinned them together and blanket stitched round the base piece to secure it to my plain backing fabric. I used calico for the backing as it is hard wearing and easy to work with. I then blanket stitched on the body, head and legs. The "toes" I added with satin stitch. The eyes and horns were quite small so I used a running stitch and the nostrils were French knots. I think it is important to keep an open mind about the stitches you use in this kind of piece. Although blanket stitch gives a great finish, especially on felt, it does not work as well if it is cramped together on a small detail like the eyes. The toes were too small to use felt so the satin stitch allowed great coverage. French knots were my nemesis for a long time but after a lot of practice I managed to get consistency. I now love French knots as by altering the number of strands of thread and the number of times it is wrapped around the needles you can create a lot of variation. I used an aperture card to mount my appliqué and in the end I was very happy with my cheeky looking Triceratops.

Felt appliqué Triceratops