Fluffy Felt Flowers

It's been one of those days. You wake up too tired from a night spent sleeping badly because it seems that every bone and joint in your body aches. You're too exhausted at seven thirty in the morning to walk to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee. All you really , really want is to take a bucketful of painkillers and go back to bed. But of course you can't and you won't, there is a smiling three year old covering your face in wet kisses, wanting to play turtles with you. And you decide that works just fine, you'll just pretend to be a three hundred year old turtle since you're already moving like one and she can be a happy little turtle girl hopping and skipping away. Making the best of waking up with a chronic illness, this is. And since it seems that either the sun or the changing of the seasons, or the stress or who knows what is once again threatening my fragile equilibrium with this disease, today just had to be a veeery slooooow day. A three hundred years old turtle kind of day.

So, what to do. Puzzles? Books? Building blocks? Learning to sew? Yes. That's it. Hand sewing. After all, the Little Miss is always wanting to take part and 'help' whenever she sees her Mommy doing any crafty thingies.  A piece of felt, some thread and a needle and there we go. And while the co-ordination, or patience, of a spirited three year old is not exactly suited to any actual embroidery, we did in the end manage to get one pearl and a piece of ribbon attached to a slip of felt. And she was so proud. :)

A blanket for a doll. She decided. And proceeded to build a house for her dolls from the building blocks while I continued with my head in the felt basket ending up with a bunch of pastel colored, fuzzy little felt flowers. You see, the Little Miss received a lovely pink trench coat from Portugal a while ago, and while the coat as it is is really lovely, I have been feeling that there was a little something missing. Something to give it a little bit of personality. To more suit it's owner. And here we have it. Lovely fuzzy felt flower brooches. 

First, I drew some free-hand flowers on the felt and cut them off. Then I just cut some dot shapes as well in different sizes to use in the middle of the flowers. I guess it would be possible to glue the layers together but I chose to sew them together, at least that way they would be less likely to fall apart. I also sewed some tiny seed pearls to form the centers and to decorate the petals. As you can see there are also very simple embroidery stitches that I used to give some shape to the petals and the centers. I was pretty much just improvising as I went along, with no clear idea in my mind but they ended up being rather cute, I think.

 There is one thing I want to mention though. My 'Thread Heaven'. On the box it says thread conditioner and protectant, and I am sure it does both of those, but to me what it really 'protects and conditions' is my nerves. It keeps the thread from unraveling or tangling or doing many of those things that are simply infuriating when you're hand sewing. I also find it much easier to thread a needle if I have used some Thread Heaven on the thread first. If you want more information about it you can find it here. 

 And here is the end result. A bunch of little pastel flowers. Cute as anything. I think only one will end up on her coat though, and the rest? Hmmm. I am sure I can figure out something. :)

.