Fabric Flower Pins

Have you heard of Mary Stanley?   She a fiber artist who creates marvelous small creatures, quilts and objects de wearable art.   She writes a bright and colorful blog called Art Spirit that, if you have the time, is great fun to follow.   She's was also published in the recent Sew Somerset issue, which is where I came across her works.   

In this issue, Mary gives simple pattern directions to make shabby chic type flower pins .... for our purses, bags, sweaters .... whatever.    (sorry that I can't include a picture of the article .... it's a copyright thing).   I decided to give them a try.

The instructions are very simple.  

Cut a circle from a piece of paperstock at 3 or 3 1/2 inches.  

Select a number of fabric scraps.

Cut them to the size of your circle template. 

Mate the circles into color sets of your choice - however many you want - mine are 6 to 7. 

Take each set and layer them; cutting each piece to lay over the previous circle.  Let your imagination go.

Pin them together for stitching.

I matched up 10 of them. 

Take to your machine.

Starting at the outside edge, start sewing around in circles, securing all the layers

(Mary added decorative stitches with embroidery thread)

Sew on a button, (or whatever you want to the center)

Sew on a pinback to the back.

And there you go!.   A great use for those bits of scraps and cute besides.   I finished two of them all the way.   The other 8 I've set aside.   I like having an accumulation of hand sewing to work on in the car during road trips -- which we have on coming up soon.   

Okay, that's it.   Go get out your scraps.  

Lorrie