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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On Thursday I had lots of crafting planned (I’d been thinking carefully about it all week!) and was really looking forward to making the most of my part time days. But I woke up with the most horrible migraine and ended up staying in bed for the whole day! Needless to say, I didn’t get anything done – never mind any crafting! I do get migraines every now and again and I’ve been meaning to get around to making an eye mask to help when I get one. I really could have done with it on Thursday, but at least I’m prepared for the next one!

Aimee Ray has an embroidered eye mask in her book, Doodle Stitching, and I used the templates from that but designed my own pattern on the front. I have looked to see if the templates are available online but they don’t seem to be – but the book is worth investing in! If you don’t want to buy it, I found another template and tutorial from The Red Kitchen which is slightly different to this one but has really clear instructions.

I used some scraps of fabric left over from our wedding waistcoats to make the mask, so it was good to put some left over bits to good use! Once I’d finished the embroidery on the front of the eye mask, I was able to cut out the remaining pieces and sew it all together. The important thing to remember is to put the right sides together so that it’s the right way around when you turn it inside out!

I decided to use some elastic instead of ribbons (as suggested in the book), and had this gorgeous chevron elastic that I got from Etsy a while ago. I had to get a bit of pink on there somewhere!

A mask would be a really good gift and if you used some pretty patterned fabric instead of embroidering the front, they would be even quicker to make. Perfect for a relaxing night’s sleep!

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