This was a class taught in our Embroidery Club and it is really so simple. Take 2 layers of stable stabilizer, 1 piece of washable felt. Choose a design--we used a Viking Pansy design. However, you can use any flat design like a daisy (enlarge the width of petals and use 5. Once you have your bottom flower to suit you, make another which is about a quarter smaller; choose the leaves you want to use. Don't embroider the stem, if there is one on the design. On the felt, in one spot embroidery the leaves and in another spot, embroider the bottom layer of flower, but do not embroider the center and in another spot embroider the last and smaller flower (this flower will also have the center embroidered). Here comes the tricky part.

With very sharp and small scissors trim the 3 pieces out very carefully about an 1/8" away from the embroidery stitches. If you cut into the embroidery, you get to do that piece over. Those three pieces are laying in front of you all just beautiful. Take Aleene's glue that you use on fabric which is washable and does a great job. I like to use the foam trays that comes from the grocery store washed and cut into 2 or 2 1/2" squares. These I use to put a bit of glue on to make the glue handy and any left over just return to the bottle. You will also need a little container of water half full, cotton q-tips, a very thin line paint brush, and toothpicks. Now you might not need all of this, but after you do one or two, you will know what you like best.

Take a tiny bit of glue and glue bottom layer of flower to leaves. Press and hold for a few seconds to set, then glue top flower in place and hold this for a few seconds. If you can see any little dab of glue that doesn't belong there take a toothpick and get the glue off. You can use a speck of water to wash glue off. Be very careful to use as small amount of water as possible. When everything is to your satisfaction just leave it overnight to dry completely. The next day you can sort of cup the leaves and petals to make them stand up and look like flowers.

For the pin backs, I used suede, but a bit of leather works good to. If you don't have suede or leather, go to the nearest thrift shop buy an old suede skirt, or men's leather gloves, or sometimes you get lucky and get suede work gloves. Put whatever you find in the washing machine and wash nice and clean. Get a cup of coffee, prop you feet up, turn on the TV and you will be justified in doing this because you are removing all the threads in your bargain pieces.

One piece of my suede skirt I put under the edge of the sewing machine and let the rest hang over and down the front of machine. Thisgives about 5" covered with suede to catch pins and whatever.

To finish the flower, cut a piece to fit the back of the flower then force a tie tack from the underneath side to the right side. Then glue the part of tie tack you don't see to the back of the flower. The back of the flower looks finished and all you see is the part you stick into a scarf, collar or whatever. You can also use a small pin (like those used on brooches). A safety pin doesn't work too good as it allows the flower to sort of bounce around.

These three pictures represent how the back of your flower will look. The yellow sample shows the back of a tie tack, this part would be glued to the back of flower.The red sample shows the front side of a brooch pin, indicating the little slits for both ends of the pin to show through. Then glue the back side of pin to the back side of flower.The third sample shows what the back of your flower looks like. This sample has a tie tack in place, but doesn't show up due to the dark color. You can see that the sample would have looked better if the bobbin thread had been a matching color.

You can use a small square of Velcro if you have a collar you like. Put one side of Velcro on collar and the other on flower and presto now you can have several different flowers! If you don't want to wear your flower glue a magnet for the fridge. Make your bobbin thread match whatever color felt you have used. I didn't think and used white bobbin on black felt. I'll think next time. I have several ideas in mind such as an angel, butterfly, daisy, poppy, bird and a generic flower. Of course, you can use a pansy, if you have one or digitize your own.

Just came from The Pfaff Project Page which has a free 3-D lily for downloading and butterfly. The butterfly isn't free, but it gives you an idea.

If you have any questions, just whistle.

Rocky