Building a Snowman - Part 2 Charlie's Snowman

Here in our area of Minnesota, there is not enough real snow to actually make a snowman. Making a snowman quilt is the next best thing! If you have made the pieced fabric base for this little snowman quilt, then it is time to build the snowman. Here's a close-up of the snowman on the original quilt I designed. You can see his long carrot nose made of clay and his coal eyes and raisin mouth. In part 3 of this tutorial, I'll share how you can make these features for your snowman.  

Right now, we need to "build" our snowman. You can use wool, woolfelt, acrylic felt, fake fur, flannel........anything that looks a bit fluffy and white for your snowman. Whatever you choose should measure about  8 1/"2 by 11".  You will also need a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper and some canned foods like those in the photo below...........

Choose three can in graduated sizes and position on the paper as shown below...........

Trace around the cans and remove them and you should see the "rough draft" of your snowman pattern..................

Take your pencil and sketch around the circles to add fullness as desired. :-) When your snowman is the proportion you desire, take a black marker and trace along the lines to create your pattern.

Cut out the pattern and pin it to your fabric, then cut it out. You may wish to adhere fusible product to your fabric and press in place. Or you may just want to pin and stitch. Here you can see my snowman is positioned and ready to be stitched..............

The snowman that is wearing a hat, is wool and was stitched by hand with embroidery floss. I cut two round black circles from woolfelt for his eyes and a long, odd-shaped triangle of woolfelt for his "carrot" nose.  The mouth is made with French knots and in each "coal" eye, I added a small white French knot for a twinkle in his eyes!  I freehand cut the hat and didn't care if it was perfect for no snowman's hat is perfect!  The hat, his arms and the tree were all hand-stitched with embroidery floss.

The snowman with clay features was machine stitched. The fabric I used was a very low-pile fur. The arms are left-over scraps of brown cotton backed with Heat 'n Bond and pressed in place. I cut a strip of wool plaid for the scarf. The piece was cut in half with one piece stitched to each side of the snowman's neck, then tied.

So.........start building your snowman and think about this.........maybe your snowman would like to visit Hawaii so perhaps he/she should wear a grass skirt. Or maybe your snowman wants to go skiing, so cut some strips and add skis. You could make two snowmen and one could be a Mr. and one could be a Mrs. :-)  Maybe they could have kids! Make a whole snowman family!!!!  Whatever you do, have fun! I'll be doing a couple more blogposts and then will post the tutorial for making the clay features on Tuesday, January 31. Come back then to learn how to work with polymer clay and that giveaway I mentioned .........well, I will end the month of January with a little "snow-themed" giveaway. Til then, have a great weekend!
Sandi