Easy flower pins

Last Friday, I decided I wanted to wear a flower button to work the next day.* I have one that I won from the lovely ladies at The Spotted Fox, but it's plaid and reminds me of autumn, and I wanted a summer-y flower.** So I made one:

After making The Spotted Fox's Sophisticated Bachelorette Brooch for a friend's Bridal Shower, I realized that the flower brooch I'd won was made similarly: it consists of two fabric yoyos--the top one about a half inch smaller than the bottom one; I used a 7 1/2" circle and a 7" circle for the size above--joined by buttons with a pin back and felt leaf sewed to the back. (I left off the leaf on this one.)

The bachelorette brooch, which is a single yoyo with felt attached to the top.

I'm a big fan of fabric yoyos (excellent tutorial recommend by The Spotted Fox HERE), because they are very difficult to screw up--unless you use weak thread, which will break when you pull it to finish the yoyo, forcing you to start over.

(I've done that. Don't do that.)

The autumn-ish pin I imitated. Image from The Spotted Fox.

Also, make sure you have big buttons on hand if you use small stitches, which make a larger yoyo center. Longer stitches make a smaller center, but little buttons still might not cover it. And just FYI, you don't need to cut out exact circles for the yoyos, although I'm sure doing so helps. I just eye-ball mine. Pin backs can be attached with hot glue or sewed on. For the pin in the picture, I sewed the pin back on and sewed a square of felt over it.

This pin was so much fun to make--no difficult techniques, no need to fire up the sewing machine, and no need to go buy a bunch of supplies. This project is a great way to use up fabric scraps. I'm probably going to make more flower pins, because I like wearing them. They make existing clothes more fun. Also, I think I walk taller because I feel all fancy with one on.
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*Brooch? I guess it could be called a brooch.
**Which is wonderful; I LOVE autumn. I'm already making my apple-orchard-visiting-plans. But it is summer . . .

From Drab...

...to foliated and fab:

I have a bin full of felt scraps and decided to dress up my pen & pencil holder last week. The project took about an hour, and was inspired by the scarf featured on the cover of Sewing Green by Betz White. I plan on making that too :)

Pretty cover image from spoolsewing.com

All I did was measure my pencil holder, cut out a rectangle of felt, cut some leaf shapes (no pattern necessary, and no need to make them all the same size) out of felt in various colors, and attach them with two or three little running stitches made with embroidery floss. I used stick-on velcro to fasten it around the holder. The velcro comes off easily, but since I don't plan on playing with the holder a lot it'll do.

Ta-da!

Warning.

Visiting this website may cause an uncontrollable need to sew/knit/crochet something like this, even if you have no good place to hang it:

Party Garland

These are cute, too. I do believe I've found a new crafting website to love.