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.