Frilly floral brooch

A different type of post for you all today! I made a brooch for a birthday gift last month using a floral brooch tutorial on Gem's blog. It's simple, effective and makes a really sweet homemade gift.

I think the most fun part was choosing a button for the centre. I love buttons! So much so that I have three or fours tins/tubs full of them. They're a mixture of inherited and shop bought which makes them an interesting pile to rummage through.

There's something very satisfying about running a finger through a tub of buttons.

I finished the reverse of the brooch with another piece of felt, a brooch fastening which pierced the felt backing and clipped into place (hurray no sewing!) and some blanket stitching. Shamefully I had to google "how to blanket stitch" as I had forgotten how to do it!

I definitely want to make more of these brooches as they're fun and a great way of using up fabric scraps from previous projects. I stuck to only one fabric for this brooch as I liked the effect of the stripes, but I can't wait to try a multi fabric one. Thank you Gem for such a great design!

It looked lovely against my mustard cardigan.... and my gloriously pasty, Scottish skin. Yikes!

I used to do a fair bit of sewing, initially clothes for my barbie dolls and later cushion covers, bags, skirts and even a pair of trousers! I bought a 1970s dress pattern last year in a charity shop for 50p with the intention of doing more sewing but I have yet to find the perfect fabric. The sensible part of me wants a plain, versatile dress but my inner pattern magpie wants to buy this elephant fabric! Or perhaps this cool view finder print (any of the fabric from that site really). I also have a ridiculous urge to add ric-rac to something, especially after seeing this polka dot number on the Coletterie website.

I'm sensing the inner magpie is going to win the battle.