I am still working on pillow covers for my boxes to Afghanistan. This is for November’s box, something for Thanksgiving. I created the original out of craft foam and it has been around for a long time. Each year I think about throwing it away, yet somehow I don’t. This year I am glad it was still around because it made a great pattern. This is how I created a Felt Applique Turkey.

Step 1:

Supplies:
15” x15” square of 100% cotton muslin (preshrunk) (+/-$1.50 per yard)
Felt (colors, dk. brown, beige, orange. dk. red, and dk. green, yellow, @ $.25 each sheet)
DMC floss, #’s 608, 815,725, 3341, 3371 (+/-$.50 each skein)
Embroidery needles
Scissors
2- 10 mm wiggly eyes (not shown)
E-600 glue (not shown)

Stitches used:
Blanket stitch (https://www.instructables.com/id/sewing-how-to-blanket-stitch/)
Running stitch (https://www.instructables.com/id/sewing-how-to-running-stitch/)
Back stitch (https://www.instructables.com/id/sewing-how-to-backstitch/)
Satin stitch (https://www.instructables.com/id/embroidery-how-to-satin-stitch/)

Step 2:

This is a picture of my original craft foam turkey.

Step 3:

I color and black and white copied it using my printer. Then I cut out all the pieces I would need as pattern pieces to cut out the felt.

Step 4:

I cut the base and the feet out of the dark brown felt. I cut the body out of the beige felt. The word “thanks” and the bow tie were cut out of the dark green felt. Some of the feathers were cut out of the orange felt, and the rest of the feathers and the waddle out of the dark red felt. I cut the beak out of the yellow felt. I put them all together to make sure they fit.

Step 5:

I centered the dk. brown base on the muslin square. Using the dark brown floss and used the blanket stitch to attach the felt base to the cloth.
I ended up doing the word “thanks” twice. Both times I used the running stitch to outline each of the letters of the work, but the first time, I used dk. green floss that matched the felt. Big mistake, you couldn’t see the stitches and so wouldn’t read the word. So I redid it with a lighter color of the same kind of green. I used a satin stitch to fill in the whole in the capital letter A. Now you can read the word.

Step 6:

Next, I attached the beige body again using the blanket stitch, using a nice, light brown floss. This is the one color that I don’t have a number for. Sorry about that.

Step 7:

Then I attached each of the feathers, using dark red floss on the dark red feathers and orange floss on the orange feathers. I attached each feather with a blanket stitch and using a back stitch to draw the veins on the feathers.

Step 8:

The blanket stitch was used to attach the beak with yellow floss, the green tie with the green floss, and the waddle with the dark red floss. I used the banket stitch to attach the feet to the front of the body. Last but not least I glued the eyes to the face just above the beak. Those eyes make me smile!