Reindeer

Reindeer and Santa’s Sleigh are fun images of Christmas. Here we’ll construct the reindeer.

Christmas Traditions includes a project that consists of Santa’s nine reindeer, which you select in the dialog window:

You stitch the reindeer out in five components, each of which is its own stitch file. Of course, you can customize all the pieces into a single file if you have a large enough hoop.

The head can rotate to make the reindeer look up or down:

As you select each reindeer, you’ll see that they are all in slightly different poses and antler combinations. So each one is actually different.

Once you have the pieces embroidered, you’ll have to attach them. We recommend doing this while the reindeer are slightly damp (not wet!) and still pliable.

What you’ll need:
• A sewing machine
• Hot glue gun
• Pipe cleaners (or similar)
• Something to cut the pipe cleaner

Steps to assemble your reindeer:

1.) Stitch the body panels together. We recommend using a narrow triple zig-zag stitch. Start at the front, where the shoulders come together. As you get toward the rear end, you will notice that you are ‘easing’ the sides together, gathering the body up into a bowl shape. Keep sewing until your stitching catches the tail. This easing is what makes the nice 3 dimension rounded shape on the back of the reindeer.

2.) Glue or sew the head sides together. If you get a nice tight joint behind the nose, it stands out better. The head is created in two sides for a couple purposes:

a.) It gives the reindeer two ears.
b.) It add stability needed to hold the antlers.

3.) Slide the assembled head in between the body panels. Make sure to fit the head all the way into the body. The front of the neck should be flush with the front of the body. If you don’t get it set right, the scarf may not fit.

4.) Hot glue or stitch the head to the body, from the inside.

5.) Hot glue the antlers onto the head and button on the scarf.