Flowers Everywhere

It's my day for the Say It With Flowers blog hop organised my fabulous Madame Samm from Sew We Quilt and Carol from Just Let Me Quilt.  Thank you so much ladies for organising this fun swap for us all.

I have a bit of an obsession with wool and wool felt at the moment so I thought I'd share some of my recent wooly flowers.

These all became pin cushions or needle cases and have been sent off to bloggy friends.

Suffolk puff flowers are another favourite, I use quite often.

A Very Easy Project

I've also made quite a number of iron cord holders as small gifts this year so I thought I'd share a little tutorial on how I make them.  A flowery version of course.
You will need 

• Two pieces of fabric 10" x 4"
• 1 piece of light weight wadding (I used an iron-on but you don't need to. You can just lightly glue ordinary wadding in place.  You can also use felt.)
• A 2" piece of velcro and a glue stick.
• Bits and pieces to decorate your holder.

Iron or glue the wadding onto the back of the fabric you have chosen as the front of your holder. 

Place the front and the back pieces of fabric right sides together and stitch around the edge, leaving a small gap for turning.Turn your holder right side out and slip stitch the opening closed.  Top stitch all the way around, very close to the edge.

Separate the velcro and glue one side to the front end of the holder and the other piece to the other end but on the back.  (I use glue in a lot of my projects but not special expensive crafty/quilty glue but a good old super cheap glue stick from the supermarket.  Just check it says suitable for fabric on the pack.)

Now comes the fun part.  Time to decorate.  I'm using suffolk puff flowers on this one.
Not made one before?  They are super easy.

Cut out a circle of fabric twice the size you want your finished puff to be.  I've got an old set of cookie cutters which went a bit rusty.  Instead of throwing them out I moved them to my sewing room and use them to trace my suffolk puff circles.

Now run a gathering thread around the edge of the circle and then pull until a tight little puff results.  Sew a few stitches to secure.

Stack a couple of different sizes on top of each other. sew a button in the middle and you'll have a little flower to decorate anything you like.

I usually pop a picture of the iron cord holder being used in with the gift so that the person I'm sending it to knows what it is supposed to be.
And there we have it - a cute and useful gift that costs virtually nothing and is light and inexpensive to post.  Plus it brings a bit of glamour to a boring old task like ironing.  What more could a girl want.

The thing I like best about this project is that you can use up any odd bits and pieces in your stash and it is a great place to use orphan blocks or little stitcheries.

A Flowery Giveaway

One of my dearest bloggy friends is a wonderful Aussie designer and she has just released her latest BOM - Daisy Days.  I think it is absolutely adorable and will be stitching it myself.

Just take a look at a close up of Block 1.  The sweetest stitchery ever.

And so as my giveaway I will subscribe to this BOM for the winner and every month another delightful stitchery will appear in your Inbox as a PDF.  If you don't win you can still stitch along by visiting Jenny at Elefantz and subscribing for just $5 a month - a super bargain.
You can enter by leaving me a comment on this post.  If you are a follower let me know in a second comment and you will get another entry.  I'll announce the winner at the end of this Blog Hop.

Here are the next blogs to hop over and visit and share in the love of flowers.

A Quilt Lady

Ella & Nesta’s Little Room

CLF by Nailaa

Atelier De Handwerktuin

Life, Quilts, and A Cat Too

Marjorie’s Busy Corner

Celtic Thistle

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Dreaming In Patchwork

Around The Homestead

Subscribe to Jenny's free weekly newsletter over at Elefantz and you will receive this gorgeous free pattern for a Vase Wrapper. 

Thank you so much to Jenny for all she so generously shares with us.