Faux Leather Crafts: Geometric Necklace Tutorial

The third tutorial in my mini "crafting with vegan leather is awesome" series is... a geometric necklace!

Use a chain from an old necklace, or a length of ribbon, to make a bold geometric necklace. Use the templates provided or get creative and draw your own design! You could also make this necklace from felt instead of faux leather.

This tutorial originally appeared on the Village Haberdashery's blog and was created using synthetic leather and other craft supplies from their shop.

You will need:

- The necklace templates (follow the link to view and download the PDF template sheet)
- Some synthetic leather
- Matching felt and sewing thread
- A necklace chain or length of ribbon
- A sewing needle
- Sewing scissors
- An air-erasable fabric marker pen or an ordinary felt tip pen

To make the necklace:

Use the templates provided to cut out pieces A to F from the synthetic leather. Place the paper templates on the back of the leather, trace around them using an air-erasable fabric marker or a felt tip pen then cut out the shape using sewing scissors.

Sew the pieces together using whip stitch and matching sewing thread (I used blue thread throughout). Start with the smallest pieces, sewing piece A to piece B then piece B to piece C and so on, so you’re only stitching through two layers of the leather at a time.

Once you’ve sewn all the pieces together, use the leather shape as a template to cut out a matching piece of felt for the back of the necklace.

Place the felt and leather together then use sewing thread (in the same colour as before) to sew along the top edge, joining the layers together. Place the middle of your necklace chain (or ribbon) between the two layers, so it will be held in place when you sew around the rest of the necklace shape. Make sure there are even lengths of chain (or ribbon) sticking out from each side of the necklace.

Blanket stitch around the rest of the necklace – making sure you don’t let the chain or ribbon slip out as you sew.

P.S. here are the other tutorials in this series: a faux leather star headband tutorial, a faux leather lightning bolt necklace tutorial, and a tutorial for making a mini notebook with a reusable faux leather cover.


This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many necklaces 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!

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#Crafting365 Days 3-12: Lots and Lots of Stitches!

I'm now twelve days in to my #Crafting365 project: doing something crafty every day, taking a photo and sharing it online. It's not gone entirely smoothly so far, but what new daily challenge ever does, right?

On the evening of day three, I was feeling a bit half-asleep and wanted something simple to work on where I wouldn't have to make decisions. So I re-started a project that's been in my "in progress" pile for months and months (I am frankly embarrassed to look up how long ago I started this!).

Next day (just four days in!) I nearly forgot to do some crafting. Oops!

I remembered just in time, and squeezed in a bit of knitting before bed.  Some of these were knitted earlier, I'm not a magic speed knitter :)

The squares are for my happy rainbow blanket - I'm re-knitting a bunch of squares I realised that I'd knitted the wrong size (so annoying).

On day five I did some more knitting, and added some more shapes to my geometric project. Because the felt I'm working with is quite soft (and felt is quite a flexible material anyway) it's quite tricky keeping the lines straight. I'm using a ruler to check the lines frequently, but I'm still having to do a bit of unpicking and re-stitching now and then.

Day six was another sleepy evening, so I added another square (and a bit) to the pile:

On day seven, I started stitching all those felt flowers I cut out last week. I'm using them to decorate a cushion cover - I'm hoping the finished result will be a riot of colour when it's finished.

(I totally ironed the cushion cover before I started, by the way, but gripping the fabric tightly while stitching the felt shapes creates lots of creases!)

I didn't get much #Crafting365 making done on day eight. I was working on my geometric project again while watching TV and it was excellent, very distracting telly!

On day nine, I added some more flowers to the floral cushion. I don't have a plan for the layout of the cushion, I'm just adding the flowers one by one and seeing how the design develops, which is kinda fun.

Then on what was supposed to be day ten of my #Crafting365 project, I totally failed to get any non-secret-deadline crafting done. So far, when I've had busy days (working towards deadlines or going on Nice Days Out) I've managed to squeeze my #Crafting365 making into the evenings but this day was just too darn busy.

I did a bit of work for a deadline first thing in the morning, blitzed my inbox, had an awesome day out sightseeing and catching up with an old friend, then spent most of the evening stitching for my deadline. I guess I could technically have found the time to do a bit of creative making somewhere but never mind. Life happens sometimes! I'm going to do 365 days of crafting, and if that takes a bit longer than a year so be it.

So, after skipping a calendar day, for day ten of #Crafting365 I had a big session of post-deadline stitching - adding lots more flowers to the cushion. It looks like I've come on in leaps and bounds but actually loads of these are just pinned or tacked in place so I've got lots of sewing to do before I can add more flowers. Not that I'm complaining - this is such a happy, relaxing project to work on!

On day eleven I did more thinking about crafting than actual crafting. I have a big box of "in progress" projects which are less "in progress" than they are "abandoned for aaaaaages". I opened up the box and had a good look through all the half-made projects, making plans for revisiting and re-starting a bunch of them over the coming weeks.

First up: finishing cutting out this pile of triangles for something, er, triangle-y.

Then yesterday - day twelve - it was time for some embroidery! The bright pink felt I'm stitching on is super-bright neon pink, which is quite impossible to photograph. Please trust me on its real life awesomeness :)

P.S. I'm posting my daily #Crafting365 pics on Twitter and Facebook - follow along for lots of crafty goodness!

How To: Geometric Christmas Coasters

Remember the Halloween Coaster tutorial I shared last month?

Well, you can also use that pattern to make Christmas coasters :)

 

To make my Christmas coasters I used red, green and white felt for the diamonds and dark green wool felt for the coaster base (it looks almost black in the photos but it is green, honest!).

I love little festive touches like this - small ways to add a bit of seasonal colour to your everyday decor.

Make one coaster for your desk, a pair for your coffee table or a set to give to a friend.

Click here for the templates and tutorial!

P.S. Here's a snap of both colourways together: which is your favourite?

 

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How To: Geometric Felt Coasters for Halloween

Today I'm sharing a Halloween project as part of Felt With Love Designs' Halloween Crafty Tutorial Link Up. I'll post links to the other tutorials in the link up at the weekend :)

Halloween decorating doesn't just have to be for parties! Add a bit of seasonal colour to your decor this October with these geometric coasters...

The Halloween coasters are decorated with white, orange and yellow felt (the classic candy corn combo!) but this design can of course be adapted to any colours you fancy. The coasters are easy to sew and a set tied with ribbon would make a lovely hostess gift. 

To make the Halloween coasters, you will need:

-  Dark grey or black felt for the coaster bases
-  White, orange and yellow felt for the diamonds

(I used 2.5 mm thick wool blend felt for the coaster bases and thinner craft felt for the diamonds)

- Matching sewing threads
- Contrasting thread for tacking
- Sewing needle and pins
- Sewing scissors
- The templates provided at the bottom of this post

To make each coaster:

1. Use the templates provided to cut out the following pieces: two grey/black bases, four white diamonds, three orange diamonds and four yellow diamonds.

2. Arrange the diamonds on one of the base pieces, as pictured, and pin them in place.

3. Tack the diamonds in place using contrasting thread and long stitches. Try and keep the edges of the diamonds flush with each other and the points lined up neatly. Remove the pins.

4. Sew each diamond in place with small whip stitches and matching thread. Work outwards from the central diamond, sewing the felt pieces flush with each other and making sure you sew a stitch over each point to help keep the shapes neat.

5. Remove the tacking stitches. Your coaster top will look something like this:

6. Place the decorated top and undecorated bottom pieces of the coaster together.

Join the edges together with blanket stitch in matching grey/black thread. Take care not to sew over the points of the diamonds as you pass them. Finish your stitching neatly at the back.

Your finished coaster will look like this:

 

 
Click here to view the template sheet in a new window or tab. Make sure you're viewing it full size, then print at 100%. 

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many coasters 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!

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.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns: