9. Now remove the paper leaf pattern carefully, keeping it whole for later use.

10. Turn your fabric leaf right side out. (It helps to approach this as you would a pair of inside out gloves.)

11. Very carefully work out the tips of the leaves to points and fill out the curves. I used a dull pencil to help me. Turn under the 1/8 inch allowances at the opening. Now iron the leaf flat. Stitch along the opening to close it.

12. Pin the pattern back on the leaf, making sure to center and line it up. It will be a little large than your leaf, but that is okay as long as you take note of it and don’t run your machine off the edge of the fabric. Or, Alternately, you could trim the excess off the pattern.

Just saw one of these made with felt and I like this one so much better. Thanks, you did a good job.

COOL idea, design, and follow through!!!! WOW!!! :)

13. Stitch along the veins of the leaf in one long continuous line of stitching. I start by going straight up each center vein and then backtracking up and down each side vein on the way back down. Be careful to closely follow your own lines of stitching on the way back along them, so as not to leave small gaps for the paper to get stuck in. My presser foot was sometimes getting a bit stalled on the bulky leaf tips when I turned to head back down, so I used a pencil eraser to give the fabric a gentle push through. You could also simply stop your stitching before you reach the end point of the leaf.

14. Remove the paper pattern. Use tweezers to get any little stuck bits of paper out.

Thanks so much! I've bookmarked this. The fabrics you chose are beautiful.

15. Your leaf is finished… Now go brew a cuppa and enjoy!

PS: Some members have asked how to download just the pattern: To download just the leaf pattern, click on the word (download) right underneath the pattern on page 1. You can then shrink or enlarge it to whatever size suits your purposes.

For those of you who would like to download versions of the entire tutorial, Marcia created a copy using Word (page 19, second post down) and Kim then created a copy in .PDF format for us all (page 19, fourth post down). Thank you Marcia and Kim for your kind help!