St. Brigid Gets a Makeover

Here is the highly fancy pattern you will need for this tutorial (for best results, save the image, and then open it in your computer’s image viewer, then print).

I was so sad when I put away our St. Brigid bendy doll. I just loved her, and each time I opened my fall/winter nature table bin, I felt a little guilty. Clearly the only course of action was to give her a spring fairy makeover.

My goal with this craft was to alter Brigid as little as possible, because I plan to use her every February 1 in her original form. I started by carefully snipping off her cape. I pinned the cape to the little hill I made for my St. Brigid’s Day centerpiece so it wouldn’t get lost. Next, I cut four leaves– two larger ones for wings and two smaller ones for an apron. I used a ladder stitch to connect the wings to each other, and then used a single stitch to tack the wings to the dress. I wasn’t too worried about any sewing on Brigid’s back since her cape will cover the holes I make.

Just a couple of stitches will give you leaf wings.

 

I used a fern stitch to decorate her apron. I embroidered one leaf and then, without cutting the thread, placed the second leaf over the first and connected them by making sure my needle went through both leaves as I did my second row of fern stitches (gosh, I hope that  makes sense!). I wrapped the thread around Brigid’s waist and then tied it to the knotted thread on the first leaf.

A leaf apron hides her old outfit’s simple belt.

 

Any spring fairy worth her wings has  a  cute flower hat. I started with the stem, wrapping a 3.5 inch pipe cleaner in the same colored floss I used for the leaf details, and bent it so it formed a spiral (a whimsical spiral, guys. It’s whimsical). Next, I cut out the hat itself, and sewed a running stitch about 1/8 of an inch from the top. After I stitched across the entire length of the felt, I pulled the thread taut to make my flower (like this). I stuck the pipe cleaner stem through the middle and hot glued it into place. Once the flower was complete (without cutting the thread I used in the running stitch and making sincere apologies to Brigid), I attached it to her head by sticking the needle through the pipe cleaner that holds her hair in place. I made a teeny stitch back through the hat and tied it off. I used my finger to make the petals flip up a little.

And with that, Brigid’s makeover was complete! She reports to me that she feels like a whole new woman, and while the ladies at Kildare Abbey might shake their heads at her frivolous flower hat, she is also the Irish goddess of birth, so spring fairy isn’t too much of a stretch. I plopped her in my four seasons tree on our nature shelf. She will be our annual sign that King Winter needs to think about packing his bags and Mother Nature should start to wake her root children.

See you later, King Winter!

 

She looks pretty comfortable there, doesn’t she?

 

Have you ordered your March envelope yet?  I think the felt birds will look great in our tree! Also, don’t forget you have until 2/17 to get 20% off nearly everything in the shop with the code SPRINGBLOWOUT (excludes monthly and mystery envelopes; please order those separately).