Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Embroidered felt brooches


Remember this flower-flower felt brooch that I made here?


 I use the exact same template as my flower-flower applique.

Apart from the blue/red felt brooch, I made another one, very similar, just different in felt colour and stitches. The sad thing is I probably forgot to take a pic of it as I have hunted high and low. Anyway, both brooches were sold at my VivoCity craft market. When I first made the brooches, I did wonder if anyone would buy them. Now that both have been sold, I feel encouraged enough to make a few more.


The difficult part in making layered felt brooches is putting the colours together. I don't know if you know this but putting colours together is not my strong point. I have to see the colours together to know if it works. I can't visualize it. My son and hubs are gifted with colour matching skills. For the brooch on the right, I had no problem putting the 3 colours together. But the one on the left, I wanted the green/yellow to go with the pink but I couldn't find the right center. My son said the blue would work and he's right.

I have listed these 2 brooches on Etsy. Check them out HERE and HERE.


As always, Bear steps up to model my brooches.

Anyhoo, I got so into the brooch making mood that I made another one.


I was in the process of taking a pic of the third brooch when my Canon S100 died on me. Can you believe it? I almost had a heart attack. It hasn't even been 6 months. So I went back to my trusty Casio. The third brooch is orange and lilac. The colours didn't quite pop.

I think I would like to have at least 10 of these flower-flower felt brooches for my next craft market at the end of the month. I'm looking around for a book on crazy embroidery stitches because I think the embroidery style suits such brooches. These 2 books look good to me. 






I have read Judith Baker Montano's Embroidery books before and the stitching is amazing. If what you want is something FREE, this is a link to a free PDF on crazy stitchery. HERE. Search for "Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work". The pages are not in the right orientation so you need to print them to view them comfortably without straining your neck. It's in black and white so don't expect to be wowed. And while you're there, the Antique Pattern Library has loads of other free pdfs of very, very old books. You might want to have a look around.


Lastly, I wanted to show you a new isolated stitch I've not used before. It's called spider's web. It's the stitch I used in the center of the flower. You sew an odd number of straight stitches. Then you weave your thread over and under the straight stitches. I'm liking the look of raised stitches.

Linking to:

Ask anna
ninth street notions
get outta my head please

4 comments:

Forest Flame Millinery said...

I have a book on doodle embroidery ie you just stitch as you like, like you doodle. I haven't read the book yet as I bought it to get ideas for my sewing project with y students. If I can find it, I 'll bring to vivo on 26 may.

Suzee said...

Your brooches are so pretty.. love the colors. It seems like Bear enjoys helping you display =)
The isolated stitch looks like a button!! Very nice! I will bookmark that page for the stitches and have a look see.. I can't do alot of hand stitching these days as my pointy finger is always slightly numb..a little leftover from a surgery...sigh..

Laurie-Jane said...

I too suggest the book doodle stitching I believe it would be right up your alley, so to speak.

Chris H said...

They are so cute, and the stitchery is really well done.

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