Hadrian has gone to a new home

Hadrian is making his new home in sunny Australia

A huge thank you to Present Perfect, Melrose for handling the sale

FABRIC ROSE

An easy way to make fabric rose brooch:  

EQUIPMENT

All you need is a long strip of fabric, the wider the strip the large the petals, and the longer the strip, the more petals or rounds you will have. These can be hand or machine stitched and overlocking (serging) is not essential. 

The best fabric to sue is a soft drapey one for small roses. Larger roses could be made with a stiffer fabric. 

Some felt for the backing and a safety pin.

MAKING UP

For this rose I have used a strip of Georgette about 1 m long and 8 cm wide. This makes a 4 inch rose. The edges are not particularly straight, but that does not matter too much as it will add texture to the petals. 

There is no right or wrong way to do this, experiment for different effects. 

Fold along the long edge with right sides out, matching the raw edges as you go, you can either hand or machine stitch with a running stitch or overlock the edges. What you will have is a tube of fabric with stitching along one side. 

Using a long thread doubled for strength, secure and gather one short end. This will make the centre of the flower.  

Gather a short section, approx 5 cm and secure. Wrap around the mid section and secure to it. 

Repeat this varying the size of the gathered sections and as it gets bigger include some straight sections increasing in size as you go further along the strip.

Gathering and wrapping in sections makes a more realistic rose than one that is just gathered and wrapped. Which if course, is another way to do this - gather the whole length and wrap round itself.  

What you should end up with is a gathered rose which has petals that fold naturally. You might want to arrange them, by gently pulling into place, separating the double layer a bit until you have a pleasing shape. 

FINISHING

To make this into a brooch, sew a circle of felt onto the back which covers all raw or overlocked edges. Fold the final raw edge of the side under this felt piece so all raw edges are behind the felt. 

The size of the circle will vary with the size of the rose.  

Sew a small strip of felt to the back and place a safety pin underneath and sew the other side in place. It's easiest to use an overcasting stitch for this. Pull your brooch into shape again and pin on clothes, bags, anywhere you want a decoration. 

Made me a little something

I found time to make myself a little something, what do you think of them?

Pink Bear for sale

Handmade Pink Bear for sale

NOW GONE TO A NEW HOME

Support Handmade

Memories

 

Heres a lovely idea for a special memory keepsake. There's a photo guide on the blog on how to make it.


I found this on petitspuntpatch

1st stage in gown making

SLEEVES

Here were have the first stage. Its the sleeves. I am using an embroidered linen. Its off white, more of a grey than a ususal  linen colour so I will be using silvered whites to do the embroidery with.

TOP SLEEVE: I've added the lace edge.The lace is already gathered with a bound edge. I over-locked this with a narrow rolled hem stitch, feeding the fabric edge and the lace edge through the machine together.

BOTTOM SLEEVE: As the lace is bound with a particularly nasty looking nylon tape, I topstitched the sleeve edge just to make sure that no tape was visible form the front. This step is not always necessary as a simple pressing of the bound edge to the top on the reverse would be enough.

The only thing to do before the smocking is the gather stitches along the curved edge.

BONNET

This is the bonnet, or it will be when some magical smocking has been stitches along its front edge. As you can see, the front edge has a slight curve in it. If the smocking is stitched on straight then this curve will form a peak which I think is a nice wee feature on a plain bonnet.

So far, the lace has been over-locked and top stitched in the same way as the sleeves. The sides have been hemmed using a size 4 bound hemming foot - quite easy to use when you've got the knack, but quite difficult for a left hander. The back edge has been turned to form a channel for the gathering ribbon. This will be threaded through and pulled tight to make the crown of the bonnet. 

Owls - new design

This lovely hand stitched owl flew out the shop as well