Frogglin Faffing

I love working with felt, it’s a lovely thing to play with. You can bend it shape it anyway you want it, come on baby, it don’t care.

Wait, what? Anyways, this brooch is one I made for a swap on Swap-Bot. It’s a sneaky little design in that it’s not stuffed, per se, but you do cut smaller versions of the main shape to sandwich in between the main pieces. This gives it some dimension without weighting it down too much or making it too foofy for wearing.

If you’d like to make one yourself, you can find the pattern and tutorial at Bugs and Fishes – do be careful though because there’s a lot of gorgeous things to make over there and you could end up making everything (oh noes!).

Since this is for swapping, I wanted to present the brooch in a pleasant way, to make it all the nicer for the person who will get it, so I decided to make a matching felt envelope to tuck it into, and here’s how I did it. Click any image if you’d like to see it slightly more bigly.

Step One.
Put whatever it is you’re going to store in the envelope onto your felt sheet. Leaving an edge around it of around 1 – 2 cm, cut your felt up the uncut side.
(the gap at the edge is to make sure you have room to freely place your item inside, if you cut it too exactly, you might find it’s a tight fit)

Step Two.
Fold your felt strip over your item, this will tell you how big to  make the pocket. I painted in a yellow line so you could see where the raw felt edge was, it all kind of blended into blue. Once you have your pocket size, cut a flap to fold down over the pocket. You could use a template, I just eyeballed it.

Step Three.
With your envelope all folded up how it will be in the end, slip some pins in were the flap starts, and where the fold is. Unfold your envelope and you’ll see a marked out area – if you’d like to add embellishments or whatever, this is the easiest spot to do it – it will be be the back of your envelope.

Step Four
This is optional really. Add your embellishments.  I decided to cut another cloud shape from the pattern and stitch that on, but you could embroider, stamp, paint or whatever you like. Remember that this envelope is unlined though, so try to minimise loopy bits on the reverse – you don’t want your treasure getting caught up on loose threads.

I didn’t photograph the “sewing on the cloud” bit, you can imagine that for yourself if you’d like to.

Step Five.
Fold the flap closed and pin it there. Pick out a button and play around with it till you like where it sits (keep in mind any edge decorations you might want to do later – leave room). Once you’re happy with it, mark the button spot with chalk or air fading marker (or cheat and eyeball it like I did) and cut a slit in the flap.
Now, sew the button in place on the front of the envelope. Again, use chalk, pins or air fade marker to line it up to the slit you cut.

Step Six (Last step!)
Hand sew up the sides of the pocket. I used blanket stitch because I like how it looks even when it’s wonky (I am usually a wonky stitcher), but you can use any stitch you like. As you can see I also did the flap edge – you don’t have to do that. The main two places to sew are down the side, the rest is optional.

You could even – if you wanted to get really fancy – sew the sides of the button hole. I didn’t. Lazy.

And here is the back of the envelope, with brooch. I’m really pleased with how it came out, and I hope you found these instructions useful. The basic envelope shape and pattern can be customized in a bajillion* ways, to match whatever you have inside or to clash with it!

*I counted.