Felt Flower Brooch How-to for under $10!

I love getting catalogs in the mail, for me they are a poor man’s magazine. One of my favorite things it so sign up for catalogs from expensive stores, pick out an outfit or an item and try to find a cheaper version somewhere else to recreate the look.

Recently I got a catalog from Fossil. One of the photos showed a girl wearing a simple cardigan sweater and a cluster of oversize flower pins. All in all, the pins were not that expensive individually but if you wanted to wear the in a cluster of three it would cost you around $45, plus they weren’t even handmade! After looking at the catalog several times I decided to take a trip to the fabric store and see if I could come up with an alternative that I could make for less money.

For less than $10, I made three pins…making this project great for gift giving!

What you will need to make one large (approximately 4.5”) pin:
1/8 of a yard of 30” wool felt
Straight pins
Scissors
2.8 cm pin back
Sewing needle
Thread in matching color of wool
Ruler or measuring tape
Hot glue gun or fabric glue

1. Download feltflowerpattern.jpg and print it out full size (a scale has been placed on each jpg to help with printing at the correct proportions). Cut out the patterns.
   
   
2. Pin the 4.5” flower base pattern to one end of the felt and cut it out. Cut a strip of felt 30” long by 2” wide.
   
   
3. Snip the length of felt, creating a fringe effect. Make the cuts about a quarter of an inch away from the end. The individual snips should be between a quarter and three-eighths of an inch wide but they do not need to be perfect. The randomness of the size adds to the character of the flower.
   
   
4. Thread your needle with approximately 25” of double layered thread. Along the un-snipped edge, run a gather stitch the length of the fringe. Pull the gather as snug as it will go and tie off the end but do not cut off the excess thread.
   
   
5. Starting at the end with the needle and thread, roll the fringe around itself stay stitching the end to keep it in place (see Fig. 5A). After you have rolled the entire fringe upon itself and stitched to secure the shape, tie off and cut the excess thread (see Fig. 5B).
   
   
   
   
6. Glue the pin back to the center of the flower.
   
   
7. Cut out the heart shaped pin cover from the remaining felt* and glue it over the base of the pin back. This covers up any glue and helps to secure the pin further.
   
   
   
   *NOTE: I used an alternate color just to jazz up the back but using a second color is not necessary
8. Apply an ample amount of glue the center back, sewn area of the flower and attach it to the pin base.
   
   
9. To finish flower fluff and separate the petals. Take the scissors and randomly snip and shape the ends of the petals so they are not all at a perfect squared angle.
   
   

Smaller Version: To make the smaller version of the flower pin, use the 3.25” base and on step #2 cut the long piece of fabric so it is 30” long by 1.5” wide instead of two.