Here's my point:
Look at that price tag! £10.00!! I thought to myself, "nobody's going to pay that for felt." But people WERE paying it! Even as I was standing there to take the photograph, women were reaching around me to grab one, all eager to throw away £10 of their hard earned cash. But not me. I didn't get a brooch that day, I got an idea for an Enthusiastitch project!
I'm going to show you how to make two different kinds of flower.
You need: Any colour felt of your choosing. Pick 2 colours that compliment one another. Scissors, needle and thread (use a STRONG thread, as you are going to be pulling it very tight and thinner thread can easily break), some old buttons (optional).
Flower One
Step 1: Cut a rectangle from one piece of felt. It needs to measure approximately 10cm by 3cm, but cutting doesn't have to be exact (or even neat!).
Step 2: Fold the rectangle in half along it's length and, whilst holding in place, make cuts about halfway down the width. Be sure to cut along the folded edge. Space the cuts about 1cm apart and continue along the length. Once again, you don't need to be exact.
Step 3: Using your needle and thread, weave in and out along the unfolded length. Do not tie it off or take the needle out when you get to the end. I should note here that I'm deliberately using the wrong colour thread so that my stitches can be seen on camera. Be sure to choose a better match when it comes to making your own.
Step 4: The fun bit! Pull on your loose thread. As you do, the felt will slide down it and gather. You need to gather it as tightly as it will go.
Step 5: Pull the felt around into a flower shape, push your needle through the first "petal", and pull tight again. Now You can tie off and remove your needle.
Trim off the loose thread and you are left with this:
Step 6: Using your contrasting colour of felt, repeat the steps above; only this time your rectangle needs to be bigger, approximately 15cm x 4cm. When all of the above steps are done you should be left with two flower shapes.
Step 7: Sew one flower on top of the other and add a button for the centre.
Flower one is done!
Flower Two
Step 1: Cut 12 tombstone shapes from your felt. Six around thumb sized, and six about twice as large.
Choose either our small or large tombstones to start with and set the others aside for now. (Actually, I think I'm going to call them petals from now on, tombstones kinda gives out the wrong message don't you think?)
Step 2: Thread the needle in and out your first petal four times. It does need to be four! That's in, out, in out. done!
If you don't do exactly four I find that the gathering ends up very weird looking, and not in a good way! The stitches don't have to be neat or evenly sized though. In fact, a bit of irregularity helps the finished flower to look a little more natural.
Step 3: Thread all petals onto your thread in exactly the same way. As with before, don't tie it off just yet.
Step 4: Pull the thread to gather the petals. Pull it as tight as it will go.
Step 5: Put the needle through the first petal and pull tight. Tie off your thread to finish.
Step 6: Repeat steps 2-5 with the other set of petals
.Step 7: Sew the flower shapes one on top of the other.
Flower two is done!
Attach safety pins to the backs of both of them to make them wearable as brooches.
The finished products:
Now here's the shocker, the cost. It cost £1.50 for a packet of 10 sheets of felt, and as you can see, I made both brooches out of two sheets (and I've easily got enough left on each sheet to make another one). And people were paying £10.00!!!!
Total cost: Less than 30p for both.
Total time spent: 15 minutes each flower.
They are so simple even a child can do them. Here's one made by 5 year old Tiffany for her Easter bonnet:
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