Fun with felt

I love working with felt!  It can be so colourful, so tolerant, so easy to manipulate, it doesn't fray, you don't even have to do anything on its raw edge. I thought today I would show you some of the ways I like to use this wonderful material.

Felt can be used as a background for embroidery then appliqued on a bag or made into a pocket. This one has blanketstitch around the edge with a running stitch frame:

A contrast thread highlights the blanket-stitch on the one below. Instead of lots of embroidery on this bag, I've used more felt for the appliques:

Felt is just fantastic for making pincushions - so easy to shape into a birdhouse:

or made into cupcakes:

or a beehive ... and so easy to embroider:

The Pixie Garden pincushion which I showed you recently uses felt in a way that is opposite to the bags above. In this design, the felt is the background rather than the fabric, and the fabric is then appliqued onto the felt. The edge of the fabric is included as part of the embroidery. This pincushion had no need to do anything on the raw edges of the felt:

The Garden Gate Pincushion has inset applique. The embroidered fabric centre is underneath the felt:

You can find the Garden Gate free pattern either here or here at Craftsy.

One of my favourite things to do with felt is to applique it as scallops onto fabric. The Daisy Jane workbox and needlecase have their felt scallops fused in place with fusible webbing and then prettied up with roses and guipure daisies. The reverse happens with the pincushion in that the fabric is fused to the felt and blanket-stitched in place. This pincushion needed to be blanket-stitched on the edge to hide the back of the embroidered roses:

Felt makes lovely French tags. Add a bit of lace, beads and ribbon ...:

Felt makes great keyrings or scissor keeps. I've been making lots for my charity box: 

On this wall-hanging, felt was used for the four heart pockets - so easy to use, again with nothing required around the edge. Fabric, lace and a heart charm give the finishing touch:

 I accomplished a lot more than I expected last week. My husband had cataract surgery and we are ever so thankful that it was successful as there was no guarantee that it was going to work with his problems. He can now read the bottom line on the chart without glasses! It was such a good result that the surgeon now wants to go ahead with his other 'good' eye. In between hospital and post-operative trips, I managed to make a bag for a friend (forgot to take a photo!), cut out and start piecing a quilt, and prepare for our daughter and children's school holiday visit.

I promised to take the grandchildren to the beach and the legendary grass slides in a few minutes, so I had better get off the computer and put on the sunscreen!

Happy stitching!

Val