“Bunnies In Spring!” New Design Tutorial (Part 1)

Last week, I gave a sneak peak of my newest design. 
Let’s get ready for Spring …. Here it is …..
“Bunnies in Spring”  will be ready next week as a pattern to purchase.
Until then, I’ll show you step-by-step how this is made so that you can see how easy and quick it can be done.
As always, keep in mind that this is not a free pattern.  Please don’t make this candle mat without purchasing the pattern first.  It’s stealing!
The candle mat shown above will look slightly different from the candle mat in the tutorial.  The one difference is that I used super thick wool for the ears and face.  I’ll be using regular weight wools in the tutorial.  There will be a few more differences too but it will still look basically the same.
I dyed my wools just for this design.  Colors needed: Camel brown, light brown, natural (white), pink, foam green and a little bit of black.
I traced the pattern pieces onto my freezer paper.  I needed to trace 16 ears so I made a plastic template for it.  The template makes it a whole lot quicker to trace.
With a dry iron, I ironed the freezer paper onto the wool.  Now it’s ready to cut out. 
Tip: the freezer paper pattern pieces can be used over again, several times, so save them all.  If you decide to make this candle mat again, much time will be saved because your pattern pieces are all ready to go.
I’ll start with the bunny face.  Pin the cheeks onto the wool.  The tooth is pinned on too.
Blanket stitch across the top of the bunny cheeks and along the bottom of the cheeks, making sure to catch the tooth wool in with the stitches.
I won’t stitch the sides of the cheeks or the bottom of the tooth since that will be done later when the backing is stitched on.
All 4 are stitched on now and it’s not looking like much of anything!
The cute little pink nose is centered and pinned.  It gets blanket stitched on now.

Now the eyes are pinned and blanket stitched.

The black pupils are whipped stitched on and it’s now starting to look a little like a bunny!
I gave each eye a highlight with one straight stitch using white thread/floss.
I made one straight stitch from the nose down to the tooth to define the bunny cheeks.
That’s all for this time.  I’ll be back with part 2 in the next day or so.
I still have to do the bunny whiskers to finish the face.  Then all that needs done are the bunny ears, the flowers and the backing.

Go to the Part 2 tutorial for "Bunnies In Spring" Candle Mat HERE

Happy Day everyone!