Stuffed Rune Projects

Elder Futhark Rune Meanings

My husband found this idea on Facebook and it seemed like such a great idea to a. teach my daughter to do hand sewing and b. learn about the Elder Futhark runes. I don't actually know about the runes myself that's my husbands line of expertise. My hope is that with us making this projects we'll be able to learn more about them.

While we sat up all our materials that we needed and talked with my husband about what runes meant what I have an idea about herbs. I went into my cabinet and grabbed the herbs I had on hand. Unfortunately my stock is really low and I only had sandalwood, jasmine, lavender, rose petals and a couple of others. We went ahead and looked up what those did as well and the eldest was super excited about making a mixture to put in the stuffed runes and to make an incense to burn. With that we made a little chant and I had the kidlet say it out loud three times while she was grinding the herbs in my brand new granite mortal and pestle. Between the both of us we came up with our chant. It was her first bit of magic and I was so proud.

Clean this house
Let all sleep well
Let everyone be happy
Keep everyone in the house safe

It's simple but she helped come up with it and you don't always need things to be elaborate! Now onto the stuffed runes!

Algiz, Jera, Sowilo

Things you will need.

Scissors
Mixture of color of felt of your choice (we chose black and green felt)
Green and black thread
Needle
Straight pins
Embroidery floss in your color of choice (we used gold)
Drinking glass or other round item of your choice of size that you want to use. We used a small one at first and then larger after that.
Stuffing for the rune toy
White fabric pencil
Print out of runes will include the images so you can download and print them out and use to cut out on the felt of your choice.
A piece of paper with the viking rune meanings so you can discuss what they mean while making the toys.

What we did first was pick a glass what would be the right size for our rune toys. We folded the felt in half and traced the opening of the glass with the white fabric pencil. This got us four circles out of each piece of felt. We printed out the pieces of papers with the runes on them as 5 x 7 pictures and the images came out as the right size for our project. You may need to adjust them for your size.

Using a straight pin attach the black rune to the round green piece of felt and using the embroidery thread sew it onto the felt. Line up the two pieces of round felt and pin them together making sure to leave two inches open for putting the stuffing in. I used a running stitch around the edge and then stuffed the toy. After it was done being stuffed I finished it with another running stitch. After that I used the overcast stitch with embroidery thread which made sure everything was nice and tight and wouldn't come apart.

Having these runes are great ways to educate your kids because they also can be used as toys. Kids love them because they're soft and adults love them because you can make up games to teach the kids about your beliefs!

Something like this could also be used as a gift for someone using a particular rune for protection or something aimed for sleep and put lavender with the stuffing and a drop or two of essential oils in there. The possibilities are endless and then your kids feel really proud because they have helped!

As promised here are the pictures that I used for the project.