Freestanding felt designs have been specially digitized to sew on only a hooped piece of felt, so there is no stabilizer used of any kind. After the pieces are embroidered and cut out, only the embroidery and felt remains, allowing for the pieces to look pretty on both sides.

Alternatively, the pieces of this poinsettia can be stitched using organza fabric, hooped with water-soluble stabilizer. If you want to stitch this using organza, simply follow the steps below, but hoop your organza together with water-soluble stabilizer when stitching each piece. See this tutorial for more information on embroidering on organza.

When you download the design, you will find multiple embroidery files containing all the pieces.

As the freestanding embroidery will be seen from both sides, wind a bobbin to match every thread color used in the design.

Hoop the piece of felt firmly. Make sure it is nice and tight with no wrinkles.

Attach the hoop to the machine and load file "a". Embroider the design. The first thing to embroider will be the lighter color of shading on the leaves.

Follow the color change sheet, and embroider the rest of the design, changing out the bobbins to match every thread color.

After the embroidery has finished, unhoop the felt. Then using scissors, carefully cut along the stain edge, make sure not to cut the stitching. Cutting right along the satin edge will result in leaving a clean fabric edge after the piece is cut out.

Repeat the steps above to embroider and cut the rest of the fabric pieces.

To make a complete poinsettia, make sure to embroider a total of five single petals (file "d").

The single petal pieces (file "d") have darts on them. The dart is the triangular cutout at the bottom of the each piece.

To sew the dart, match up the two edges with right sides together, and hand sew the edges together using matching thread.

Repeat to sew all the darts on the five felt pieces.

Take the smaller five petal piece (file "c"), and lay it on top of the larger five petal piece (file "b") with the right sides facing up.

Hand stitch through the center to adhere the two pieces together.

Then take the leaf piece (file "a"), and arrange it onto the back of the larger petal piece (file "b").

Make sure the right side of the leaves is against the wrong side of the petal piece. Hand sew through the center to adhere the leaves onto the petal pieces.

Take one of the sewn single petals (file "d"), and arrange it on top of the five petal pieces. Hand sew it in place just at the base of the single petal piece.

Repeat to sew on each of the five single petals. Overlapping them slightly will give the poinsettia a more realistic effect.

Finally, hand sew a button onto the center of the poinsettia.