Country-Style Wine Bottle Costumes

If you're looking for a cute and relatively fast Christmas project - here is a great one. This lovely set of country-style wine bottle costumes can be a great add-on to festive table. You may either use them yourself, or make a lovely gift to someone.

This project was made using a couple of embroidery designs from Tiny Christmas Trifles set, and a couple of free designs in same style, that we've made especially for this project. The instructions and freebies will be available below, and here is a picture of ready items:

This set includes two decorative bottle covers - a man wearing a tie and a woman wearing an apron. Plus, there are two tiny doilies, which can also serve as coasters or even Christmas tree ornaments - whatever you choose them to be. Here is an example:

The doilies are too simple to make and don't require any special instructions. The tie & apron are a bit more complicated, so there is a separate page for each of them, with detailed instructions, patterns and corresponding free designs.

Here we will cover the process of making a decorative tie. The collar and hat are paper; both take around 3 minutes to assemble.

Country-style Bottle Costumes - Tie

Instruction for making the tie

1. Pick up a piece of mono-color, non-stretchy fabric. We've used black cotton for this project.

2. Download the free leaves patterns, and gets the dwarf design from Tiny Christmas Trifles set.

Be sure to stabilize properly. For machine cross-stitch designs, we usually prefer cut-away backing.

4. Cut out tie front, back and bow according to the above drawing.

5. Sew tie front & back sides together. The front should be a little wider than the back, to create decorative folds later. Like shown here:

6. Sew on the tie "bow", like shown on the diagram below - in three steps. First - sew the backside of the bow to tie back. Then, iron the edge of bow inside (image #2 - where the arrow shows). Fold the bow so that you see only it's reverse side, and sew the edges, BUT not completely (look at the picture). Turn the bow to its right side via the bottom opening, and insert a ribbon via the tiny openings on bow edges. Like shown here:

And here is a diagram of the tie, showing the sizes. These sizes are perfect for the 16-count version, so if you choose to use 14 or 18 count, make an adjustment in pattern size. Also, be sure to leave 1/3 inch seam allowance.

Country-style Bottle Costumes - Apron

Instruction for making the apron

2. Download the free leaves patterns, and gets the Tiny Christmas Trifles set. The main design with squirrel is there.

2. If you have a large hoop - align all designs in embroidery software and embroider them on a piece of suitable fabric. We've used linen for this project. Be sure to stabilize properly. Cutaway backing is usually best for cross-stitch designs.

If your hoop is small - embroider the designs one-by-one, with re-hooping. You may learn an easy design aligning technique by subscribing to our free e-Learning course.

3. Print out the pattern and draw around the embroidered designs, using disappearing textile pencil. The sizes of our pattern are for 16-count designs; so if you decide to use the 14 or 18-count version, adjust the size a little.

4. Cut out the embroidered fabric according to your marks, leaving 1/3-inch seam allowance.

5. Iron the edges inside and stitch them. You may also add some kind of decorative trim - a narrow lace or ribbon, for example, like we did on the hat.

6. Add a ribbon for apron ties and loop, like this scheme shows:

6. The apron is ready. Now, cut a round piece of similar fabric for the hat, trim it's edges and tie the hat around the bottle head. Wear the apron. Project ready!