Embroidered Ornaments are a Cut Above With AccuQuilt GO! Dies

Cut some felt, add some embroidery and you have adorable, artisan-quality ornaments that are certain to become family heirlooms. I’ll show you how to use pre-cut shapes from three AccuQuilt GO! dies with six different embroidery designs. These projects combine the best of both worlds and will have you thinking about embroidery in a different way.

three snowflake starsPhotos via Debbie Henry

I love creating handmade ornaments that don’t look handmade. I especially like seeing how embroidery can be made to work with other media, like die-cut shapes. I have found some embroidery designs that fit beautifully within basic tree, heart and star shapes.

Let’s make some machine embroidery ornaments with AccuQuilt shapes.

AccuQuilt GO!

Step 1. Cut a pair of shapes

AccuQuilt GO! diagram

The AccuQuilt system cuts perfect shapes with very little effort. Place the die foam side up, top the desired shape with felt, cover everything with the cutting mat and turn the handle to take the stack through the rollers. When it comes out the other side, you have a perfectly cut shape.

AccuQuilt hearts dieFor each of the projects, I am cutting quality wool felt with AccuQuilt GO! dies in three shapes: tree, heart, and star. Cut two shapes for each ornament, one for the front and one for the back.

Get the 2”, 3” and 4” heart die here.

Step 2. Keep it stable

Star cutout

Use a medium-weight tear-away stabilizer in the hoop. An adhesive stabilizer is ideal as it will help to keep the felt from shifting while stitching. Otherwise, use temporary spray adhesive on the back of the felt shape and finger-press it in place.

Step 3. Line it up

Mark hoop

Use your hoop guides and template to draw horizontal and vertical centering lines on the stabilizer. Begin by centering the shape in the hoop and conduct a test stitch-out to see how everything lines up.

The star designs were digitized for a 100 x 100 hoop. Because the points extend into the hoop frame, it was easier to line them up in the larger 150 x 240 hoop. Be sure to tell your machine that you are using a larger hoop by overriding the smaller size.

Step 4. Stitch it out

Blue snowflake

Sometimes, everything stitches perfectly centered. Other times, a slight adjustment to the position of the felt shape is all that you need. Whether you use adhesive backed stabilizer or temporary spray adhesive, it is easy to reposition felt shapes in the hoop if necessary.

Get the Ornamental Snowflake designs here.

Get the Star Medley-6 Point by Sarah Vedeler die here.

Fixing the star

If the design stitches slightly off center, it is okay. Just use a clear acrylic ruler, measure out from the edge of the embroidery, and trim to straighten up the edges.

Get the Shining Stars designs here.

More designs to embroider:

Trim a tree

Very merry trees

With the Very Merry Christmas ornament (see the full tutorial here), I reduced the size of the design by 10 percent so it fit nicely within the Holiday Medley tree shape. Depending on the software, embroidery designs can be enlarged or reduced in size up to 20 percent without significant changes to the stitch density.

Get the Holiday Medley die here.

Get the Very Merry Christmas Tree design here.

Nervous about changing design proportions? Check out these Bluprint classes: Elements of Design Editing and Embroidery Software Essentials.

A work of heart

AccuQuilt hearts

The heart shape is so versatile you can use it in many ways. It is easy to stitch a monogram in the center or add a date to commemorate a birth, wedding, or other special occasion. You could also add sparkle with Angelina fibers and hot-fix crystals (see the full tutorial here).

Get the Appliqué Quilting Hearts designs here.

Folkloric table

When stitching is complete, remove everything from the hoop and carefully tear away the stabilizer. Glue the embroidered front piece to the back piece and insert a hanger. These ornaments also make great gift tags!

Get Folkloric designs here.

What kind of embroidered ornaments do you make?

Share tips, start a discussion or ask one of our experts or other students a question.

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