Plant Lady Brooches: Felt Cactus Brooch Tutorial

Sew a fun felt cactus brooch with the second of my plant lady brooch tutorials!

These leafy designs would make great gifts for the plant-lovers in your life! You could also leave off the brooch backs and use the designs as patches to sew on your rucksack, jacket, or other items that don’t need regular washing. Fancy sewing the set? You'll find the Plant Lady brooch tutorial HERE and the Monstera Leaf brooch tutorial HERE.

The tutorials originally appeared on the Village Haberdashery's blog and were created using felt and other craft supplies from their shop.

You will need:

- The plant lady brooch templates (follow the link to view and download the PDF template sheet)
- Light and bright pink felt
- Bright and dark green felt
- Matching sewing thread
- Light pink and white embroidery thread
- A brooch clasp
- A sewing needle and pins
- Sewing scissors or embroidery scissors (these are great for cutting out small shapes!)
- Optional: an air-erasable marker pen

To make a cactus brooch:

1. Use the templates provided to cut one cactus from bright green felt, one plant pot from light pink felt, and one heart from bright pink felt.

2. One by one, sew the shapes to a backing piece of dark green felt. Use whip stitch and matching thread, taking care to sew the bottom edge of the cactus and the top edge of the plant pot flush with each other.

3. Add the stitched spines to the cactus, sewing lots of single stitches with two strands of white embroidery thread (out of the six strands in the skein).

4. Cut a small flower from bright pink felt. You can carefully cut this freehand, or draw a flower on the felt with an air erasable marker pen and cut it out. Sew the flower in position with three strands of light pink embroidery thread, sewing one stitch along each petal as shown.

5. Trim away the backing felt, leaving a narrow border around the cactus design. Then use the shape you’ve just cut out as a template to cut a matching backing piece from dark green felt.

6. Turn over the backing shape. Sew a brooch clasp in position with a double thickness of matching sewing thread. Place the front and back of the brooch together and sew around the edges with whip stitch and more matching thread.

 

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This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many brooches as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial / share my templates on your site. Thanks!

How To: Make a Mini Felt Cactus

To celebrate the launch of my new book, Super-Cute Felt Animals, I'm sharing a collection of free tutorials that you can mix and match with the projects from the book.

This week I'm sharing three mini "extras" that are designed to coordinate with the pets in the "At Home" chapter: a cactus, a hamster... & a little heart because 'home is where the heart is' :)

Today you can make a little felt cactus. If you're sewing lots of cacti you could put them each in different coloured pots and give them different brightly-coloured flowers.

To make the cactus, you will need...
- the template sheet at the bottom of this post
- spring green felt, approx. 1 ¾ x 3 ¾ in (4 x 8 cm)
- terracotta felt, approx. 2 x 3 ¾ in (5 x 9 cm)
- (optional) a small piece of bright pink felt
- spring green, lime green, white, pale pink and terracotta sewing thread
- stuffing & a pencil or other small stuffing tool
- needle, pins & embroidery scissors (great for cutting out small felt shapes!)

1. Use the templates provided to cut out two cactus shapes from spring green felt and two pots and two pot edges from terracotta felt. If you want to add a flower to your cactus, also cut out one bright pink cactus flower. Turn over one of each of the cactus, pot and pot edge pieces – these will become the back of your cactus.

2. Place the corresponding pot and pot edge pieces together as pictured. Sew each edge piece in position with two lines of whip stitch in matching terracotta sewing thread.

3. Add the corresponding cactus pieces, sewing them in place with a line of whip stitch in matching green thread, so the cactus piece is flush with the curve of the pot edge. Make sure the front and back pieces are the mirror image of each other so you can sew them together neatly later. Turn the back cactus shape over and set it aside for the moment.

4. Backstitch four curved lines onto the front cactus shape as pictured, using lime green sewing thread.

 

5. Then sew a series of small stitches with white sewing thread to form the cactus’ spikes. Vary the size and angle of the stitches and sew ten rows, one along each side of the stitched lines and one along the left and right edges of the cactus.

 

6. (Optional) Position the cactus flower on your cactus as pictured. Sew it in place with a starburst of small stitches of pale pink sewing thread. Make sure you don’t stitch right up to the edge of the green felt behind the flower.

7. Place the front and back sides of your cactus together. Using whip stitch and matching terracotta sewing thread sew the edges of the pot together then stuff it. Switch to matching spring green thread and whip stitch the edges of the cactus together, leaving a gap for stuffing. Stuff the cactus then sew up the gap with more whip stitches. Finish your stitching neatly at the back.

Click here to view the template sheet in another window/tab, and print it at 100%.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many felt cacti as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a few photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial on your site. Thanks!

Super Cute-Felt Animals is published by CICO Books, RRP £12.99. It includes 35 fun felt projects, each with illustrated step-by-step instructions. It's available to buy at Amazon UK and Amazon USA and many other bookshops.

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

Enjoyed this free tutorial? Buy me a "coffee" and help support my blog!


Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.