Jewellery made from handmade felt beads is:
- easy to make and fun to embellish
- inexpensive to make
- a great alternative for people that cannot wear metal jewellery
- lightweight. Sometimes glass, ceramic or metal jewellery can be heavy but felt beads are very light, so no matter how large the design of necklace, bracelet or brooch, the wearer will not be weighed down. The 15 beads shown above are 2.5cm (1") in diameter and, after embroidery, the total weight of the beads is only 36g (1¼oz). Of course if you wish to mix and match other types of beads and materials this can give even more design options.
- importantly, fun to wear!
Shown below are the beads prior to embroidery. They were made using the method in the free tutorial on this blog and they are 2.5cm (1") in diameter, felted until very firm.
Felt beads can be embroidered just as easily as a flat piece of material. They can be stitched with embroidery floss, thick sewing cotton or any suitable smooth thread. If you use embroidery floss you can choose to use it as it is or split it - in the first photo below only 3 strands of floss were used.
Don't worry about getting the stitches perfectly even or perfectly spaced. The beads look better with 'organic' stitches!
Using the examples shown in this short tutorial, we hope you will feel confident to experiment and find many design possibilities with just a few basic stitches.
Backstitch is useful for stitching lines. To secure the thread at the beginning of stitching, insert the needle and thread straight through the bead ...
... leaving a little tail poking out. Tip: if you find it difficult to grip the end of the needle to pull it through, use a small pair of pliers.
Insert the needle one stitch-width to the left of where the thread came up through the felt ball, exit the needle after one stitch width, then pull the needle and thread through ...
... take the needle back to where the thread came up through the felt ball and insert the needle into the same hole then pull the needle and thread through.
After making a few stitches, gently pull on the little tail then cut it off close to the felt. The end will disappear into the felt ball and be held firm.
To secure the end of the thread when you've finished stitching, take the needle and thread through the ball, gently pull the thread taut, then cut it off close to the felt as above.
If you would like a guide to stitch to, you can mark out your design with pins as you go.
To stitch a spiral, poke a needle right through a felt ball to use it as a stitching guide - sew the stitches at an angle to the vertical needle.
Backstitch can be enhanced - one way is to weave a thread through the stitches.
There are many designs possible with simple stitch combinations.
To make cross stitches, insert the needle at point A to form the first part of the cross and exit the needle at point B ...
... insert the needle at point C to make the second part of the cross, then exit at point D ready to start the next one.
You could add another colour by placing a single stitch over the middle of a cross.
Double Cross Stitch is simply that - make one cross then put another over the top.
You could use a different colour for the top cross - stitch all the single crosses first then go back over with a second thread.
Seed Stitch is so named as it resembles spilled seeds. It's simply random short stitches.
To add interest, use a variegated thread. The thread used below is 'cotton perle'.
A single stitch can make many different patterns.
This bead is decorated with straight stitches in a variegated cotton perle thread.
Divide and mark the circumference of the felt bead with 8 pins.
Insert the needle into the bead as shown then pull it through the felt ball just above the pin line. Repeat until the stitches go right around the bead. Then push the needle right through the bead to the opposite side as shown bottom right.
Repeat the stitching but the pins aren't needed this time.
A different effect is achieved by making more stitches into the same point.
You can use pins as a guide or work freehand.
Both ends of this bead were sewn with different colours.
We hope you enjoy embellishing felt beads - there are so many exciting possibilities!
The next blog post shows a simple way to join felt beads into a necklace with a double sliding knot.