Felt Animal & Bird Brooch Craft Kits for Hawthorn Handmade

I've got some very exciting news to share today - I've designed some craft kits!

Hawthorn Handmade sell absolutely gorgeous beginner-friendly craft kits, and I am beyond thrilled to have been asked to work with them on some felt-y goodness. 

I loved working on these and am SO PLEASED with how they turned out. I hope you guys will be just as excited about them as I am. 

You can find the whole range of brooch kits here (they ship worldwide, hurrah!), but today I thought I'd show you half the collection: cute felt brooches featuring British wildlife. 

There's a hare...

 

 

... a deer...

 

 

... a wren...

 

... a hedgehog...

 

 

... a fox...

 

... and a tawny owl!

 

 

How nice are the photos they've taken of the finished brooches??? Oh my goodness. 

I'd love to know which one's your favourite (mine changes all the time!), and to see some photos if you buy and sew some of the kits xxx

 Click here to shop the whole range of felt craft kits. 

Sew a Felt Barn Owl Mask for Halloween

The series of Halloween tutorials I'm sharing with my Patreon supporters continues today with this fabulous felt barn owl mask.

Subscribe for a small monthly fee and you'll get access to a growing library of PDF patterns and tutorials, with an email whenever I add a new project. You can cancel any time. 

Click here to check out my Patreon page and sign up!

 

 

I've shared lots of mask tutorials with my newsletter subscribers over the years, and now I'm giving them a new home over on Patreon. You can dress up as an owl any time you like, of course, but the run up to Halloween felt like a good time to reshare these projects! :)

P.S. Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly(ish) free pattern or visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

Cute Owl Embroidery Pattern

It's embroidery time again! Today I'm sharing the pattern for sewing this fabulous little owl:

This pattern is the second in a new series I've started where I'm reworking some of my old designs and turning them into embroidery patterns.

This owl was orginally a tutorial for sewing a felt plushie, which I later adapted to show you how to make felt owl ornaments... and now you can embroider an owl, too! Hurrah!

 

Here are three of the designs I've stitched so far:

I shared the folk flowers embroidery pattern last month, and next month you'll get to stitch that rainbow LUCKY PANTS design (so much fun).

You'll find the PDF owl embroidery pattern over on my Patreon.

Subscribe for a small monthly fee and you'll get access to a growing library of PDF patterns and tutorials, with an email whenever I add a new project. You can cancel any time.   

Click here to check out my Patreon page and sign up!

I stitched my owl mostly with backstitch, using three strands from six-stranded embroidery thread (floss). I also added single stitches for the very short lines and two French knots for the pupils.

I used a kitsch colour combo of purple, pink, turquoise, and minty green but there are so many colours that this owl would look spectacular in! You could even choose a realistic palette of browns if you prefer your owls less cartoony :)

I stitched my owl on white fabric to make the colours really pop, and framed it in a 5 inch embroidery hoop.

I actually started out sewing the owl on some pale brown felt. The colours looked okay but didn't stand out brilliantly and it looked rubbish when I took photos! It was a faff having to start again, but totally worth it as I'm really pleased with the finished version.

As for that owl I embroidered on felt? I didn't let it go to waste! I cut it out carefully, added a matching backing piece of felt and a ribbon loop and now have a little embroidered owl ornament.

Luckily it looks much cuter in real life than in the photos! Haha. (Note to self: check how your chosen materials look when photographed together BEFORE you start sewing with them).
 

P.S. Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots of free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

Lots of Sparkly Felt Owl Ornaments!

I've been trawling through my photo archives a lot lately looking for old project photos and a few weeks ago I found a folder of photos from a project I never shared here on my blog!

 
Way back in 2012 I posted a tutorial for making felt owl ornaments, adapted from the plush owl sewing tutorial I'd shared the previous year.

A few years ago I decided to revamp this tutorial, sewing lots of colourful felt owls as samples and taking step by step photos to make the post even more useful.

I stitched a whole batch of sparkly owls and took and edited photos of them...

... but never got round to taking the step photos or writing a new version of the tutorial!

I think I ended up being too busy and deciding that the original tutorial was perfectly good (which it is!) and just selling my finished felt owls and forgetting about them.

Having rediscovered the photos, though, it feels wrong to just let them sit gathering virtual dust so I thought I'd share them with you guys today.

Maybe they'll inspire you to visit my felt owl ornaments tutorial and make some cute and sparkly decorations of your own during the holidays? 

 

If you're celebrating Christmas tomorrow, I hope you'll have a great one xxx

Felt Barn Owl Mask Tutorial

UPDATE: my barn owl mask tutorial is now available via my Patreon page.

Subscribe for a small monthly fee and you'll get access to a growing library of PDF patterns and tutorials, with an email whenever I add a new project. You can cancel any time.   

   

Click here to check out my Patreon page and sign up!

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The next project for my newsletter subscribers? A tutorial for making a fun felt barn owl mask!

 

This mask is really easy to sew and would be great for summer festivals, costume parties, Halloween or just dressing up like an owl because you feel like it. (And why not, right? Owls are awesome!)

 

Click here to visit my tutorial archive for lots of free patterns and project ideas... including a step-by-step tutorial for sewing this embroidered owl mask!

Felt Barn Owl Brooch Tutorial

The next free project for my pattern newsletter subscribers is gonna be...

... a little felt barn owl!

I made this fella a couple of years ago as part of my (rapidly abandoned) 100 Day Project. I thought it was high time I turned him into a pattern and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you guys.

I'm still running a bit behind with my "monthly" patterns but I'll hopefully catch up soon. The emails might land in your inbox at slightly unexpected times but you'll still get a free project for each month this year.

Click here for more information about my newsletters and to subscribe!

Click here to visit my tutorial archive for lots more free patterns and project ideas.

9 Free Halloween Craft Tutorials

Are you planning some Halloween crafting? Here are nine ideas from my free tutorial archive you might enjoy...

1. Eyeball buttons. These are great for giving an old cardigan a spooky twist! You could also sew them in other places too - eyeballs are the perfect Halloween accessory, you know.

 

2. Sew some cute little felt candy corn ornaments...

 
... or 3. Make a giant plush candy corn!

4. If you prefer your Halloween decor more chic than cute, why not make some candy corn inspired geometric Halloween coasters?

5. Dress up as an owl with this fun felt owl mask.

 

6. Disguise yourself with a felt moustache.

7. Turn any outfit into a Halloween costume with a sparkly dripping wound brooch.

8. Make a fun Halloween card to send to your friends (includes instructions for how to turn your drawing into an e-card!).

 
9. Finally, invite all your pals to your Halloween party with these easy-to-make invitations. You could also use these templates to make a cute Halloween garland.

 
Follow the links to find all the tutorials. Happy crafting!

You'll find eight more of my Halloween craft tutorials in Felt-o-ween: 40 scary-cute projects to celebrate Halloween - including a vampire, graveyard cupcake toppers, skull bows and more! (I am a teeny bit biased but I adore this book: so much felt-y Halloween goodness!). Felt-o-ween is available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops, you can read more about the book and take a peek at my projects here. (Disclosure: those links to Amazon & The Book Depository are affiliate links).

For more Halloween craft ideas, visit my Halloween Pinterest board!

And for lots more crafty ideas to keep you busy after Halloween, visit my tutorial archive or check out my books: Super-Cute Felt and Super-Cute Felt Animals.

 

P.S. Thinking ahead for Christmas? Check out my free Christmas Ornament Tutorials.