Spring Flowers

Spring Flowers

Monday, March 22, 2010

Felted Wool Rose Brooch Tutorial

Here's a great little project for all of you fabric crafters! It's a great way to use up your scraps of colorful felted wool, fleece or any flower colored fabrics. These brooches are very pretty pinned to a jacket, sweater, handbag or hat year round, but especially nice for Spring!
Materials needed:
*felted sweater wool or fabric for flowers and leaves
*strong thread such as embroidery, hand quilting or button and craft
Fabrics: I have always used felted wool to make my flowers, but I think you could experiment with and get interesting results with all sorts of fabrics: woven cotton, cotton knit, denim, felt, home decorator fabrics, fleece and ultra-suede.
You could also try not folding the fabric, using just a thinner strip, a single layer of fabric and leaving a cut or frayed edge for interesting detail.


Step One.
Measure and cut the flower and leaf fabric. For flower, cut a strip of fabric that measures 11" x 2 1/2". Fold the strip in half lengthwise, right sides out, so you have a 11" x 1 1/4" strip. Pin cut edges together to hold in place. For the leaf shapes, I make a paper pattern. You can draw the leaf shapes freehand on paper or gather interesting leaves from your yard or garden and trace or photocopy them onto paper. Use pattern to cut out as many leaves as you would like to use.


Step Two.
On flower fabric strip, use a long running stitch or basting stitch close to the cut edge of fabric to replace the pins. Start stitching close to one folded corner, angle down to long cut edges to hold edges together and stitch back up to opposite folded corner. Trim open corners to make a curved edge. Then pull thread to gently gather the cut edge of fabric. This will make the fabric start to curl and you are ready to "roll" the rose into shape.



Step Three.
Starting at one end of the folded, gathered fabric strip, always keeping cut edges even, start to roll up the fabric strip. Using heavy thread on a good sized needle, make stitches back and forth close to the cut edge as you continue to roll up the fabric.




Secure the final curved edge of the fabric strip with a couple of knotted stitches and you have a completed rose.

Step Four.
Add leaves and finish the back of flower. For a little extra detail, I sometimes add beads to the edge of the flower or embroider "veins" onto my leaves. But, plain flowers and leaves are good, too. Stitch a few leaves to the back of flower. If you want to sew the flower directly onto a handbag or hat band, you won't need to finish the back. If you want to finish the back of the flower, cut a small circle, slightly larger that the back of the flower. Position over the back of the flower and slip stitch or blanket stitch in place, catching the leaves in your stitching. Add a levered pinback and you now have a pretty fabric flower brooch!



Here is a rose brooch pinned to one of my felted sweater wool handbags. They work well as a single flower or you can stitch two or three flowers together for a fuller look.

If you try this, send me a link to a photo!
I'd love to see your flowers and any variations you come up with.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Special Award!


I had a wonderful surprise the other day! Thanks so much to Amy aka: ropergirl3, of Amy's Handmade Goodies and Vintage Finds, for The Circle of Friends Award!!!

The conditions of accepting this wonderful blog award are for me to list five things that I like to do. After creating that list, I am to pass on this blog award to five more bloggers that I would like to learn more about... so here goes:

Five things I love/like to do:
1. Spending time with my family.
2. Creating. Especially sewing, but I like other types of needlework, beading and I still want to learn to knit and crochet!
3. Gardening. Both flowers and vegetables.
4. Cooking. I love trying new recipes!
5. Reading. I love to sit on the porch on a warm summer evening with a good book.


Now here are the five bloggers I am passing this on to:
1. Kim at Sandbox Gems
2. Olly at Wollies
3. Catherine at The Sewing Attic
5. Tara at SewGorgeous

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Irish Blessing -
"May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand."

This afternoon I'm going to try Paulette's yummy looking Irish Soda Bread recipe! See Paulette's blog, Beedeebabee, for the recipe and photos. Yum!!!

Monday, March 15, 2010

And the Winner Is. . .

The two winners of the FeltSewGood Spring Blog Giveaway are Sandy and Amy. Thank you so much to everyone who entered! I love reading all your comments.

Sandy chose the orange poppy brooch.

And Amy chose the black-eyed Susan.
I'll be listing some more flower brooches in the shop later this week. I've been working on some more poppies, I haven't had many of those listed this year. Feel free to convo me through the shop if you have a special color in mind!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Floral Inspired Crafts

I've been in a floral sort of mood this week, as you can see by my Giveaway! I came across this link on the Martha Stewart website and thought I'd share this with you.

There are 57 different floral inspired crafts made with fresh and faux flowers in one form or another! There are beautiful ideas for fresh flower arrangements and gifts, ideas for crafting with dried flowers and ideas for making paper flowers. All just in time for Spring!

And don't forget to enter my FeltSewGood Spring Giveaway here! You have three chances to win and you can enter until midnight EST on Saturday, March 13. Good Luck!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Spring Giveaway!

It's time for a FeltSewGood Giveaway! It's almost Spring and that has me thinking of green grass, warmer temperatures, green leaves and flower buds.
Isn't it wonderful to see those first Spring flower buds open to colorful Spring flowers!

In honor of Spring's arrival, I'm giving away the flower brooch of your choice from my Etsy shop to not one, but TWO LUCKY WINNERS! And everyone has THREE CHANCES TO WIN! There are dozens of colors and styles to choose from and I'll be adding more this week.

To enter the FeltSewGood Spring Giveaway:
1. Go to FeltSewGood on Etsy, look through the flower brooches, and leave a comment here on this blog post about which flower you would choose if you won.
2. Become a follower of this blog and leave me a comment to tell me that you are a follower.
3. Become a fan of FeltSewGood's Facebook page, which will also give you notices of special offers and discounts on FeltSewGood products, and leave me a comment on this blog post that you are a fan.
When you leave your comments, make sure that I have a way to contact you if you are a winner - either through your own blog, Etsy shop or email!
Good luck to all! Contest closes at midnight, EST, on Saturday, March 13. Each comment will be assigned a number and the winner will be choosen using random.org.



Monday, March 1, 2010

Is it Spring Yet?!

Today is March 1st. Is it Spring yet?
The temperatures have started to rise and most of the snow has melted here in central Indiana. (Well, except for those big dirty piles of snow in the strip mall parking lots!) I know it's not officially spring until March 20, but the days are getting longer and I'm anxious to get outside and turn the soil, spread some mulch and enjoy the warmth of the sun!

And it's not too early to start planning the vegetable garden.

I've received a few seed and garden supply catalogs in the mail and I've already earmarked some favorites.

My husband bought some of his favorite seed varieties at the local garden center. It's still a little too early to plant seeds in the ground outside, but by the end of March we hope to get some radish and early lettuce seeds planted. It will be the begining of another beautiful, bountiful garden!

What will you plant this year?