Felt Badger Brooch Tutorial

This month's freebie for my pattern newsletter subscribers will be a tutorial for sewing a cute felt badger brooch!

 

I stitched lots of these badgers for my online shops a decade ago (how time flies, huh?!) and am really looking forward to revisiting this pattern to share it with you guys.

I've always loved badgers but have had a particular fondness for them in recent years after getting to see lots in real life, visiting my parents' garden for some peanut snacks. You can see a few video clips of them over on my Instagram, if you're interested, just follow the links: one, two, three, and four. 

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I'll be sending out the badger brooch tutorial later this month (June 2019), and you'll also receive last month's project: a felt barn owl mask tutorial.

Click here to visit my tutorial archive for lots more free patterns and project ideas.

New in My Shop: Royal Celebrations Embroidery Pattern

Celebrate Harry & Meghan's Royal Wedding, the birth of the new Royal Baby, or your own special occasion with my new Royal Celebrations embroidery pattern!

I originally designed this pattern as a cute and kitsch memento of Harry & Meghan's wedding, but updated it to celebrate the birth of little Archie Harrison. (I love kitsch Royal memorabilia!)

You can easily customise the design for your own wedding, the birth of your own little prince or princess, or as a new baby or wedding/anniversary gift.

You could also just use the lion and unicorn patterns to sew cute stuff!

Here's how I stitched the Royal Baby version (framed in a 7 inch embroidery hoop).

I've included simpler versions of the text for this and the Royal Wedding embroidery, as well as blank banners and some useful guide lines for adding your own custom text.

As well as the main pattern (plus customisable versions - including a pretty floral option which I think would be lovely as nursery decor or as a wedding gift) I've also included individual elements from the pattern separately so you can easily include them in other projects.

The heart and rings would make a fab embroidered felt ornament for a wedding gift (heart on the front, rings and initials and a date on the back) and the lion and unicorn are just adorable on their own (I'm so pleased with how they both turned out!). Oh, and I've included a Union Jack version of the heart, too, in case that's useful (maybe you'd like to stitch a memento of Will & Kate's wedding instead?)

I stitched the unicorn in some cute colours (adding a metallic silver horn and some silvery bits in its mane and tail) then framed it in a 5 inch embroidery hoop and added LOTS of sparkly silver star sequins. Here's a video so you can see just how sparkly it is!

Remember: when you buy any patterns from my shop you can of course make lots of things for yourself and to give as gifts, but you can also sell the finished items at craft fairs or in your Etsy shop, etc, as long as you credit me as the designer.

You can buy my Royal Celebrations pattern from my shop - it'll be available to download immediately after your payment goes through! Shop before June 2nd to get this design at the bargain launch price. 

P.S. Don't want to miss out on any new patterns I add to my shop? Subscribe to my newsletter for shop updates and/or a monthly free project!

Design Dilemmas and the Magic of Social Media Feedback

What do you do with designs that go nowhere?

Last spring I started work on a bunch of ideas for possible projects to celebrate the Royal Wedding. I stitched and shared a simple cross stitch sampler pattern and put lots of work into this design for a cute embroidery pattern...

... but then I ran out of time and it never got made and now I'm not sure what to do with it.

Over the years I've worked on a LOT of sketches, doodles, prototypes and project ideas that never turned into anything. This is just part of the creative process! I usually squirrel them away for the future because you never know what might end up being useful as source material for another project, or what might end up working after all when you revisit it with fresh eyes in the future.

This particular design, however, was so specific that I was convinced that it wouldn't possibly ever be remotely reusable. But I also really liked how it had turned out thus far and didn't want to just chuck it away (and have, as a result, wasted all that work).

So, after finding the pattern in a pile of paperwork this weekend, I posted this pic on Instagram and Facebook and asked everyone: "what the heck could I or should I do with this??? "Should I take the time to neaten it up a bit and share it on my blog in case there are some Harry & Meghan fans out there who'd like to (very belatedly) stitch themselves a wedding souvenir? Or just recycle it??"

And, thank goodness for the magic of getting feedback via social media, because everyone immediately had such great ideas.

Some people suggested sharing it to celebrate their upcoming anniversary, and lots of people suggested updating the pattern slightly so it could celebrate Meghan and Harry's baby, which is due this spring (I had totally forgotten that they're expecting a baby!). This could totally work for the royal baby!

Other people suggested doing something just with the lion and unicorn on their own (maybe even adapting the whole design to be a customisable nursery sampler)... which I had somehow not thought of as a possibility??? I do love those little guys, though, they're just so cheerful and sweet and the unicorn took me absolutely ages to draw (because I am the world's worst person at drawing horses). I'm picturing the lion holding birthday balloons, maybe? Or the unicorn standing next to an awesome rainbow birthday cake? Something happy and fun and colourful, anyway.

What do you guys think? I'd love to hear which of these suggestions you like, and if you have any more ideas for ways I could revisit this design and (finally) turn it into a finished project. 

UPDATE: this embroidery pattern is now finished and available in my shop!

 

 

 

 

Sew Sweet Creatures: Adorable Plush Animals to Stitch!

I have lots of fun news to share this month! It's funny the way these things work out - you work on a whole bunch of different projects at different times, then they're all published at once and you seem like a super-busy crafting machine.

Today I'm delighted to be able to show you guys the projects I designed for Sew Sweet Creatures, a new book from Lark Crafts which features 16 plush animals with matching accessories:

I know I am a teeny bit biased but this book is straight up ADORABLE. I actually emitted a small high pitched squeak upon seeing everyone's projects - all the animals are very cute and their accessories are super charming.

You can make a cupcake-baking squirrel, an adventurer bear, a party-loving fox, a lumberjack beaver (complete with logs joined together by velcro so you can "chop" them!), and more!

I designed four creatures for the book.

There's Alex the crafty bunny, who loves to knit and sew...

... (look! there's Alex peeking out from the inside cover of the book!)...

... Olivia the fairy mouse who's here to grant your wishes...

 

... Lynne the festival-loving panda...

 

... and Samuel the superhero pig!

It was an absolute joy to design these animals and all their accessories, and so much fun coming up with little stories about them and their lives. I hope you guys will have just as much fun stitching them when you buy the book!

Sew Sweet Creatures is out now in the USA and will be published here in the UK later this autumn. It's available from Amazon USA, the Book Depository and many other bookshops, and you can pre-order it from Amazon UK. Please note: The Amazon and Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Show & Tell #14

One of the best bits of my job is seeing what people have been making from my books and free tutorials. I love seeing the photos of finished projects that people share with me, and I love sharing them with you guys too as part of my ongoing (though somewhat infrequent) Show & Tell series.

It's been a while since my last Show & Tell post, so I've got lots of crafty goodness to show you...

Holly stitched a fab cassette phone case using my pattern from Mollie Makes #41.

Lisa shared this in-progress photo of an angel bear she was sewing from my first book, Super-Cute Felt. Her daughter helped trace the pattern and was "very insistent that the colours are as close as possible" to the ones in the photos.

Kate bought a big bundle of felt from my shop and used it to create two colourful patchwork projects, which she shared as tutorials on her blog.

Felt patchwork table mats...

... and a rather fabulous felt patchwork blanket.

 

Louise emailed me these photos of a cute woodland garland she'd sewn using patterns from my second book, Super-Cute Felt Animals. It looks like lots of happy hours of sewing went into this!

 

Liz used my vintage felt baubles tutorial to decorate her Christmas cards last year. Look at all those baubles!

Liz said she made the ornaments "then attached them to cards using a brad, so the recipients can take the ornaments off and keep them when they are done with the card" She "made the cards from a very heavy cardstock so they wouldn't tip over" and "sewed on the coordinating borders with my machine". Such a great idea.

Linda wrote a lovely review of Super-Cute Felt Animals. "The day the book arrived in the mail our granddaughter was here and we had a wonderful time looking through the book and picking out animals I would make for her. She chose a cat and a dog"

Instead of stitching eyes (which can be quite fiddly at this scale) Linda added cute googly eyes instead.

She also stitched a pair of blackbirds using my free pattern.

The delightfully named "A Foolish Twit" tweeted photos of a whole bunch of things she's been making from my books. She said "Without your patterns I would never have got back in to crafting, now I love it!" which makes me very happy.

She combined two projects in Super-Cute Felt to make this bee needlecase...

 

... stitched lots of safari animals from Super-Cute Felt Animals...

... and made a whole army of mice finger puppets (I wonder what the collective noun would be for finger puppets?). You can also spot one of my floral projects in the bottom pic - patterns for the mice and the flowers can both be found in Super-Cute Felt.
 

My previous Show & Tell post was all about the sky blankets other people have been making, inspired by my sky blanket.

Here's Leanne's finished blanket - congrats, Leanne!

 

Amy is making a fab crochet version of the sky blanket, crocheting a granny square a day and using cheerful yellow yarn for sunny days instead of sticking with shades of blue.

She's blogging about the blanket as it grows. It's looking great, and has a surprising amount of yellow in it.

Amy wrote "I can't actually say just how much I love this project - it is great seeing how it grows, as I have no idea what colour the squares are going to be from one day to the next" ... "this blanket is bringing me nothing but pleasure" - which sounds a lot like how I felt when making my sky blanket. Such fun!

And last but by no means least, Polly stitched a tree stump pincushion using this guest tutorial shared on my blog by the talented Manuela.

Polly adapted the pattern slightly, using French knots to add the white spots on the toadstools which look great. She says "I'm really pleased I made this! I like having practical items which are also visually pleasing, and this makes me happy every time I use it." What more can you ask for from a crafty project?

You can see see all the previous show and tell posts here. My archive of free patterns and tutorials can be found here and you can read more about my books here.   

If you want to share what you've been making from my patterns (or from supplies you bought from me back when I still sold them, or when I've done a destash sale) please do get in touch. If you just want to share your work privately and don't want to be included in a future Show & Tell post that's totally okay! :)

You can leave a comment and link here on this post, send me an message via my contact form or share a photo over on my Facebook page.

Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links. 

Spot the Difference!

Can you spot the difference between these two copies of my second book, Super-Cute Felt Animals?

... yup, that's right, one of them is in German!

 

My first book, Super-Cute Felt has been translated into German, Dutch and Italian but each of those editions had a slightly different look than the original English edition (a hardback instead of a paperback, a slightly different cover, etc).

This time round though, Super-süße Filzfreunde: 35 Lieblingstiere nähen und besticken is almost identical - apart from being in a different language, of course! - which made it extra surreal to flick through when I got hold of a copy this week.

 

Most of the animals in the book have names - you can make "Frida the Forgetful Frog", "Lucy the Laughing Snail", "Sidney the Fluffy Squirrel", and so on. It's really fun to see the different names the animals have been given in this new edition!

For example, you can sew "Frieda, das fröhliche Flusspferd", "Gwendolin, die hungrige Giraffe", "Isidor, der glückliche Igel" and "Klara, die kichernde Krabbe":

 I also loved seeing the different animal sounds in the speech bubbles that are dotted through the book:

Wuff! Wuff! (instead of Woof! Woof! in the English edition)

Ruu-kuuhh! (Coo! Coo!)

Piep! Piep! (Cheep! Cheep!)

Schnapp! (Snap!)

 

Fancy making your own felt animals? Super-Cute Felt Animals is available to buy from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops. Super-süße Filzfreunde is available from Amazon UK and Amazon DE and (hopefully!) many German bookshops :)

P.S. when the book came out I shared a series of free projects to mix and match with the designs in Super-Cute Felt Animals. You can find all the tutorials here.

Please note: the Amazon UK & USA links & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.