More yummy fabric and stitching

I've had another fun week making bits and pieces for the summer fair (to raise money for repairs to the local church roof). These butterfly brooches were a bit of an experiment but I was pleased with the result. I cut the butterfly shapes from patterned fabric then used iron-on fusible webbing to stick them to black felt which was about 1 cm larger.

Next I randomly machine embroidered black veins on the wings. As you can see I used ordinary scissors and pinking shears to trim the excess felt from the coloured butterfly.The black body is a rolled piece of felt, two small beads make the eyes and thin copper wire is used for the antennae. Finally I stitched a brooch pin to the back of the body.

The butterflies were made from left-overs scraps of fabric belonging to these bags. The variety of rich colours is absolutely scrumptious and mixing and matching the rainbow shades took almost as long as the bag making!

I used a Jelly Roll of 'Tropicana Batiks' by Moda and I'm happy to say there are plenty of strips remaining for future projects.

If you aren't fond of vibrant shades then you'd probably enjoy working with the mixture of Tanya Whelan fabrics below.

These bags, like the previous ones, were made from narrow strips of fabric. To line the bags I used a white cotton curtain lining which had been fused to felt interlining. This is easy to cut out, doesn't fray and makes the bags more robust. The lining is the same size as the bag and with narrow turnings on the tops of bag and lining I stitched the two together incorporating the handles as I stitched.

Another Moda Jelly Roll in my collection is the yummily named "Butterscotch and Rose". Unfortunately the visitors to the summer fair won't be finding anything made from these fabrics as it exactly matches my sitting room curtains and so it is destined to become cushions. I can't wait to start on them as I adore this combination of colours.

After my enjoyable extended sewing session with so much yummy fabric I'm hoping I'll be able to pick up my knitting needles again anytime soon but it might be difficult!