Jubilee Brooch Tutorial

I hope everyone had a wonderful Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend - we certainly did... we saw friends galore and went to the beach (the fantastic Barry Island, home of Gavin & Stacey's Welsh contingent!) and generally enjoyed being at home & chilling out.

Now a while back you might remember I mentioned I was taking part in the Popular Craft's magazine's Union Jack Swap and as my swap was sent off on Saturday, it should hopefully have arrived by now, which means I'm pretty safe in showing you the tutorial I made for one of the bits - A Union Jack inspired felt flower brooch.

This is the first tutorial I've done, so bear with me!

The materials you'll need are all laid out above (except for the brooch back & the button which I forgot to photograph).

• Blue felt - 2 X" squares
• Red felt - 1 X" square
• White felt - 1 X" square
• white embroidery thread
• blue embroidery thread
• small union jack button (or a suitably coloured button of your choice)
• needle
• scissors
• pins
• templates (which you'll find at the end of the tutorial)

 Cut out each of the three flower sizes you want to use and pin them onto the squares of felt, the largest flower onto the blue felt, the medium onto the white felt and the smallest onto the red felt square.

Once cut out, layer all three pieces together like this:

Then start sewing, from the back of the blue layer, bringing the needle up in the centre of the red layer (your stitches in the centre will be hidden by the button)

 You then want to sew through all three layers with your thread making the shape of the white parts of a Union Jack flag:

Then you can add your button to the centre of the red layer, hiding your white centre stitches. As those with sharpe eyes will see I've aligned the button so the Union Jack lines up with my white stitches - you don't have to be that OCD unless you really want to!

Then you need to sew the second layer of blue to the brooch (to hide all your white stitches and to add stability) I find the easiest way to do this is to leave the blue square whole and cut round it after sewing. I used a simple whip stitch all the way round:

When you come to a bit where the white layer overlaps the blue, you can just fold back the white petal and sew underneath it, like this:

The back will look like this - you can hardly see the blue stitches as the colour matches up nicely.

The sew your brooch back in place making sure to place it so that when pinned to your top/bag/coat the Union Jack is straight and being careful not to sew through more than just the back layer so your blue thread doesn't show on the front of the brooch:

Then cut round out the flower shape (being careful not to cut too close to your stitches) and voila!:

Here are the flower templates - I used the two templates on the top line and the pointed flower shape:
Flower Templates

This tutorial is for personal use only, please do not sell items made using the templates and please do not reproduce all or part of the tutorial without prior consent. Thank you for your understanding.

If you would like to buy one of these brooches (any colour combination) please visit my Etsy shop.

So much to do... so little time!

Well, I have managed to get a couple of things finished this week... but that's just left me with even more that needs doing!

First up, the Cuddly London Bus - FINISHED & in my Etsy shop- Hurrah! Patrick loved it (sadly no pic of him cuddling it as I keep forgetting to take one!):

The other thing that I've had sitting in my work in progress box for weeks is a bunch of Snowls (so called because when I asked Seren what she thought the first one was, she replied 'Itsnowl' which came out as 'Its a Snowl'!) which are now finished & also listed in my Etsy shop:

My next thing is something I've done, but can't talk about yet! (I know, what a tease!) It's a tutorial for part of my Union Jack Swap... but until I know that my lovely swap partner has received it, then I can't show you! So you'll just have to wait (but I promise it won't be long!)

Aaaaand finally, I've been contacted by the first customer I had on Etsy (who coincidentally was also my first customer who I didn't know, which made him very special! He bought some Christmas items last year (stockings and tree decs) and he's super organised and is already thinking about this Christmas and what he might send over the pond, so I'm working on a new item for him this afternoon!

Phew... after all that I think I need to go and get a cuppa and some chocolate (shush - don't tell my weight watchers leader!!)

Easter Toys & Union Jack Swap

Sorry for the slight break in posting for the last week or so... our household has been hit by flu (first both kids, which meant I was run ragged looking after them and now me) so everything has been on hold till we all started to feel a bit more human.

Last week (before the lurgy descended) I was busy making Easter chicks and Easter finger puppets

The Chick in the plastic egg is being listed in my Etsy shop later today - as you can see from the second photo, it has a little pocket sewn onto the back with enough space to hold 2 Lindor chocolate eggs (which will come with the chick) so would make a perfect Easter present for a little someone who doesn't need yet another large chocolate egg!

The finger puppets consist of Larry Lamb, Chester Chick and Bertie Bunny and the prototypes have been robustly tested by Seren & Patrick (my 3 year old & 1 year old!) and have also been listed in the Etsy shop.

However the most exciting thing, which I wanted to blog about straight away (but of course didn't quite get the chance!) is that I have joined the Popular Crafts monthly swap which for April & May has a Union Jack theme. I have been paired up with a lovely lady named Cybele, who's blog can be found here - she makes beautiful things, mostly knitted or crochet and I'm really excited about my first ever craft swap!

Watch this space for pics once my makes are finished & have been received by Cybele (and of course, I'll be posting pics of the goodies I get in return!)