Crafty Colour Palette #2: Colour list

Yellow: DMC 3078 / Anchor 292

Orange: DMC 3856 / Anchor 1010

Pink: DMC 3689 / Anchor 49

Purple: DMC 155 / Anchor 1030

Blue: DMC 3811 / Anchor 1060

Mint: DMC 966 / Anchor 206

These colours immediately made me think of the amazing wool felt colours from Cloud Craft. They are definitely the best colours in wool felt! So I got in touch with Nicole from Cloud Craft, and she very kindly sent me the felt for this project. I have such a large collection of embroidery thread that I had all the DMC thread that I needed! If you would like to purchase the thread or the felt in these colours, you can find the links in the project list below.

Crafty Colour Palette #2: Enamel pin holder

When I was thinking about what to make with these felt colours, I knew that I wanted to showcase each shade and I thought that a rainbow effect would be the best way to do this. I have recently started adding to my pin collection and thought it would be great to have something to keep them on. Ta-dah!

Materials

Templates (click here to download – prints on A3 paper)

7″ embroidery hoop

Needle and pins

Sharp fabric scissors

Paper scissors

A pencil

You will also need wool felt in the following colours (with matching thread in brackets):

Buttery (no matching thread needed for this layout, but matches DMC 3078)

Barbie (matches DMC 3858)

Ascot (matches DMC 3689)

Lavender posie (matches DMC 155)

Spearmint (matches DMC 3811)

Pistachio (matches DMC 966)

Step 1

Print out your templates and cut them out using your paper scissors. Lay out the template pieces next to your felt colours, so that you can work out which one goes with which colour.

Step 2

Carefully pin each pattern piece on the colour you want to use, and cut around them using your fabric scissors. Then layer each piece with about 1cm overlap on each side (I went from left to right putting the next piece on top each time). Pin in place. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make a perfect circle, we’ll sort that out shortly!

Step 3

When all the pieces are in place, check the positioning by putting the outer ring of the embroidery hoop over the top. Make sure you can see enough of the outer colours, and adjust the positioning if you need to.

Step 4

When you’re happy with the positioning, you can start to stitch! You only need one stitch for this, which is back stitch. Using the thread colour to match the felt (I started with apricot), thread your needle with 3 strands. Come up through the fabric and make a small stitch, a little way from the edge (see 1 and 2 in the photo below). Then bring your needle up one stitch length away from that (photo 3), before bringing the needle down through the felt at the point where your first stitch ended (photo 4).

Step 5

Repeat all the way along the line, following the line of the felt as a guide. Then do the same with the other colours, matching the thread colours each time.

Step 6

When all of the stitching is complete, turn the felt over so the wrong side is facing up. Put the outer ring of the hoop over it, and draw around the inside with a pencil. Use your fabric scissors to cut out the circle. You might cut some of the knots off at this point, but that’s ok!

Step 7

Once trimmed, place the felt back in the hoop and tighten the screw to secure it. You can leave the back open to see the pretty colours! I thought about adding an extra circle of felt at the back to cover it up, but this makes it too thick to put the pins through. No-one can see the back anyway! You may notice that I’ve painted my hoop to add a bit of extra colour.

Ta-dah!

Your hoop is ready to display all of your lovely pins on! Or just leave it plain if you prefer – that’s the beauty of this project

The pins on my hoop are by the following makers: Sally Sunshine pin by Leslieanne Made It, Fuelled by Tea pin by Samantha Eynon and I Love Tea pin by Kate Garey.

Want one of these enamel pin holder hoops?

If you’re not a crafter but you’d like to get your hands on one of these, fear not! They are now available in my online shop, where you’ll also find a vegan friendly version too. Also, head over to @hellohoorayblog on Instagram for details of a giveaway coming this week! You could win this hoop! Give @cloud.craft a little follow while you’re there too as Nicole has a super inspiring feed!

If you want to get your hands on some pastel highlighters, you can find them here.

Thank you so much to Nicole at Cloud Craft for providing me with the felt for this project. All other materials and tools my own.

Post updated 11th November 2019.

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Out of the other things that I roughly sketched, this little fox was my favourite. I wanted to do something a little different for the actual feature, because I know that foxes are everywhere right now! But every time I opened my sketchbook, there he was, and I just had to make him. The making principles for the fox brooch are the same as the bird, although there is a little less embroidery on the fox in terms of different stitches. I kept the border of this brooch a little simpler, but you could do a scalloped edge like I did on my bird brooch if you prefer.

Materials

Felt Fox Brooch templates – click to download

A brooch back and a small piece of plasticard

You’ll also need a needle, possibly a pin or two, as well as some sharp scissors.

The felt I used for this brooch is from Wool Felt Company in orange and turquoise.

The threads I used are: Anchor 433 (blue), Anchor 333 (orange), DMC 712 (cream) and black thread too. Just make sure that you match your thread and your felt, whatever you make on your brooch!

Get stitching!

For the most part you’ll need to follow my tutorial on the Craftseller blog, but here are a few additional tips to help you with this design, relating to stitching the fox on to the front felt piece:

• You’ll need to position the body over the tail piece, and then neatly stitch them on to the circle of felt (the bird felt piece doesn’t have to be neat as it gets covered up!). Once they are secure, stitch the head on.

• Stitch the nose on using black thread and satin stitch, then stitch the cheeks (do foxes have cheeks?! You know what I mean, anyway!) using the same stitch but with cream thread. Outline this first as shown on the bird brooch tutorial.

• I stitched the eyes last, using some small French knots.

• Once the fox is stitched, follow step 6 of my bird brooch tutorial to finish it, and then it will be ready to wear!

This is my little bird brooch – be sure to let me know if have a go at making this, the fox, or your own version of a felt brooch! Share them with me via Facebook, Twitter or tag me @hellohoorayblog on Instagram. I’d really love to see what you make!

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The magazine has a 2-page spread with an interview where I’m quizzed about all things craft-related, and I also designed a copyright free tutorial that appears on the Craftseller blog. I wanted to design something that people could adapt with their own designs too, so I came up with an embroidered felt brooch with a little bird on it. What do you think?!

You can find the full tutorial on the Craftseller blog – just click on the link above! And don’t forget that you can use the basic principles from this tutorial to design any brooch you fancy, so just adapt it to whatever design you like. As a little bonus project, I’ll be sharing a new design on my blog over the next week, so keep a look-out for that!

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So I had a little think (and a cup of tea to help) and decided that a loop type thing with velcro would be great to keep it all together. I’ve designed it so that the loop is a little wider than the ear pieces, so it should cover and protect them when they are wrapped around the edge. Yay! I had these lovely fabrics in my stash – the geometric print is from the Helen’s Garden collection by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller (not sure if it’s still available) and the plain is a Moda solid colour, but it has been in my stash for ages and I can’t remember the shade! Anyway, you can use any contrasting fabric that you like for this project, and you don’t need a lot either which is great. I made this in a couple of hours, and that included stopping to take photos, so you’ll be able to make it in no time! Adapt for any phone that you have too, and leave out the headphone loop if you’d rather

You will need:

A fat quarter of two different cotton fabrics (although you actually use much less than this, so raid your stash!)

A 21 x 21cm piece thin cotton wadding

Some bias binding (I used fabric to match the lining and made my own, but you could use a third fabric for this if you like)

Thread to match your fabrics

Sewing machine

Fabric scissors

A pencil

An iron

About 5cm velcro

Pins and needle

Step 1

Cut a 21 x 21cm piece of lining and outer fabrics. Put the outer to one side for now and then fold the lining in half. Place your phone on the fabric, about half a centimetre from the folded edge, and draw around it lightly with a pencil.

Step 2

Pin a little away from the line you have just drawn, and then stitch along the bottom and up the open side – remember to leave the top open! You can stitch along the line here, but no need to stitch along the folded edge. Once cut, trim the seam allowance to half a centimetre.

Step 3

Next, if you want to include one, start making the headphone loop (or skip to step 8 if you don’t want to!). Cut out a 12.5 x 21 cm piece of your outer fabric, fold it half with right sides together and press. Then stitch along three edges as shown, with a seam allowance of half a centimetre. Trim this to 3mm once stitched and then turn out and press again.

Step 4

Place the 21 x 21cm square of outer fabric face down on your surface, with the wadding on top. Place your phone inside the lining and then put it on top in the position it needs to be in. Fold over the wadding and outer fabric in order to work out where the loop needs to go.

Step 5

Place the loop on top of the fabric – I put mine towards the bottom, but you can put it where you like really. Then, position your headphones so that the ear pieces are in the middle, and wrap the wire around the phone. Adjust the loop to get it in the right place – the fabric size is generous, so trim off any excess if you need to.

Step 6

Pin the loop in position at one end once you are happy, remove the headphones and then stitch together. Remember to only stitch one end of the loop!

Step 7

Measure and attach the velcro pieces – remember that you don’t want to stitch the other end of the loop to the rest of the cover.

Step 8

Next, fold the fabric right sides together, and if you’ve sewn on a loop make sure that the stitches face upwards. Place the phone and lining inside and work out where it will sit in the cover – you may find it helpful to draw lines where you need to stitch, especially for the curved edges. Pin down the long edge, remove the phone and then stitch. Trim the seam allowance to half a centimetre and cut notches out of the curved edge, before turning right side out. Press to remove creases.

Step 9

Push the phone and lining into the case, and then remove the phone. If you need to make your own bias binding, do it now! Then attach the binding to the top of the cover. I did this by hand because it was just a bit too small and fiddly to do on my machine, so I tried to keep the stitches as small as I could.

Ta-dah! I’m so glad that I designed this headphone loop – no more tangles! And I can put my phone in the cover whilst I listen to my choons… What should I listen to first?!

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I wanted to make something special for Donna, because I think it’s brilliant that she and her fellow Owls have taken on these roles, which are all voluntary. So I decided that Brownie badges were a good plan! Felt badges are really easy to make, and you can make the design as simple or as complicated as you can manage. So even if you don’t want to make owl badges you could make any felt badges in this way, so just follow the steps below.

You will need

Pencil and paper
Scissors (a pair for paper and a pair for fabric)
Some wool felt in various colours (I got mine here)
Matching thread
Pins and needle
Little pieces of fabric with a small print, matching the felt
Brooch backs (I got mine on eBay)

Step 1

Draw out your design and then cut out some little templates for each required piece (you might need to trace the design to do so). Pin the templates onto the felt and then carefully cut around each one. Layer them up to check that they are all the right size.

As I was making my owls, I changed my mind about the design – I cut body-sized pieces of fabric here instead of doing the separate scalloped pieces of felt that I had originally thought about. Don’t be afraid to change your design as you make, as I do it all the time!

Step 2

Next, I started stitching the pieces together. You might need to change thread a few times here, depending on how many colours you’ve used! I started with the beak because that was the smallest piece to get in the right place. I also stitched the head pieces on at this stage too.

Step 3

I decided that I wanted my owls to be on a background, because I wanted to stitch the pack name on each one. So at this point I cut out two oval-ish shapes of felt and then began to stitch the owl to one side of the badge.

As I got to the sides, I attached the wings at the same time. I obviously got carried away at this point, because I didn’t take any photos!

Step 4

I worked out where the lettering needed to be, and then marked it on with a fabric marker (ideally I should have used my dissolvable one, but I used a very fine quilt marker instead). Then I stitched over the letters using splitstitch, but you could use whatever you feel comfortable doing.

Step 5

The next step is to attach the brooch back to the other oval-ish piece of felt. Try to get it as central as possible!

Step 6

The final step is to attach the front and back of the badge, using a small running stitch.

Ta-dah! The badge is ready to wear. I also made a badge each for Snowy Owl and Tawny Owl too – I picked backing colours that would all work together. I really hope that the ladies like them, and wish them the best of luck running their new pack!

Post updated 23rd September 2024.

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To make a little house, you will need:

A small wooden house shelf
Some white emulsion or undercoat and a paintbrush
Old newspapers
A piece of card and a pencil
A ruler
Scissors
A selection of pretty fabrics
Fabric scissors
Mod podge and another paintbrush

Step 1

Spread out your newspapers and then paint your house with the white paint. I found that the wood soaked up the paint really easily, so I had to do two coats.

Step 2

Once the paint is fully dry, measure the size of each shelf compartment and draw out a template of each shape.

Step 3

Cut out your templates and then choose which fabrics you want to use. Cut out a different fabric for each section using your fabric scissors.

Step 4

Paint some Mod Podge in a section of the house, and then carefully place the fabric inside, smoothing out any lumps and bumps. You may need to trim off any excess – I found that the size at the back was different to the front!

Step 5

Repeat this with the other fabrics and then leave to dry.

I made three houses altogether, and tried to make each one different but tie them together at the same time! I used some of the fabrics on more than one, and used the same selection of solid colours to (sort of) match them. Most of the fabrics I used are by Art Gallery Fabrics – I love the geometric patterns!

The other fabrics I used were by (L-R) Sevenberry, Lewis and Irene and Moda – the middle one was from Plush Addict and the other two (as well as the selection of Art Gallery fabrics) were from The Fat Quarters.

Eventually I’ll hang these up somewhere – possibly in our soon-to-be new kitchen, or maybe in the hall once we’ve decorated it!

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