A selection of fabric brooches made from Lutradur XL

I love working with Lutradur XL. It’s great for boxes, bags, postcards . . . and unlike other, similar products, it doesn’t give off dust when you stitch into it. But what do you do with the odd bits of scrap you have left over from larger projects?

Here’s an idea . . .

I love fabric jewellery and often get compliments from people in shops and other places when I wear pieces on my coat.   They make great gifts and being quick and easy to make, are also good for charity sales. The picture above shows several examples of fabric brooches. Let me talk you through them. All are made from Lutradur XL scraps, cut to the size I wanted. The first one is very quick and easy to make (actually, they all are!). I just wrapped some yarn round the brooch, and added a few little beads to give it some extra texture. It made me think of flapper girls, all that fringing. Easy peasy! The second brooch also features wrapping, but this time I have used two different yarns to create a square around a lovely hand-made button from Incomparable Buttons; the background has been transfer dyed. Brooch three was also transfer dyed, and then some pieces of silk fabric were added, using an embellisher. It might seem unlikely to use an embellisher with heavy weight lutradur, but as you can see, it works really well. Just don’t overdo it; this silk was very light weight and may have disintegrated if I had embellished too thoroughly; I used the needles just enough to hold it in place where I wanted it. The fourth and final brooch uses two scraps of XL, one glued onto the other, and held in place by a clothes peg until the glue dried. Both had been transfer dyed; the details such as lines were added using a silver marker pen. Then, to add a bit of textural interest, I wrapped some thread to either side of the central motif, having first cut little slits top and bottom, to keep the thread in place. To finish them off, all you need to do is to glue a brooch pin to the back of the piece (or earring posts, for earrings); jewellery fixings are available from bead and craft shops and are very inexpensive. I use fabric glue and hold the pieces together with clothes pegs until the glue has set. Of course, you don’t need to limit yourself to brooches; try making a whole set, earrings, necklace and brooch and, above all, have fun! – Marion Barnett To see our entire range of Lutradur please visit our online shop.