Felt Embroidered Bookmark

When I was asked to be the Guest this month in the Pinterest Challenge – I spent days going through my boards trying to decide what to do.
(Yes. I have no life.)

Did I want to make something Grand? Something fun? Clothes? Something for the house? There were so many choices.
But I kept going back to a little Felt Embroidered Bookmark that has been lurking in my Embroidery Board for 16 weeks.

I just loved the pretty daisy stitches on the wool felt – it’s an adorable bookmark that makes you feel like you are reading Austen and Dickens and Bronte.
Even if it’s a cheesy mystery novel about an Elvis look-alike and a stolen Cadillac.
Yep. Read that.

So here is my version of the sweet little Felt Embroidered Bookmark.
Well – my first version.

Here’s the Inspiration Pin -

Unfortunately when I tried to find the source of the pin I went on a bit of a wild goose chase. This is from a Tumblr site. So of course trying to find it is like trying to navigate down Alice’s tunnel to Wonderland.
I also tried general searches but no luck. So if you know of the original maker, let me know – I’d love to link to it!

UPDATE: Thanks for all the links – you guys are awesome! We have the source of the pin – it’s an adorable Etsy shop called love, maude. She makes these as headbands but she also has cuffs and necklaces. So pretty!!
Make sure you check out her shop! I don’t normally post knockoff’s from Etsy shops so I double checked with Sandie from love, maude. She was super sweet and said she had no problem with me leaving the tutorial up. Yay Sandie! Thank you!!

So here we go then -

This is pretty easy to put together – here’s what you’ll need:

Wool Felt (lasts much longer than regular felt. Promise)
embroidery floss in colors of choice
small circle of super heavyweight interfacing
elastic headband

Begin by cutting 2 three-inch circles of wool felt. I used a canning jar lid as a pattern.

Trace the inside of the canning jar lid onto one of the circles. This will be your stitching line when you put it all together. You want to use it as a guide for your embroidery so you don’t go over it.

The inspiration piece uses mostly Lazy Daisy embroidery to decorate the front so that’s what we’ll do for this first bookmark.
The lazy daisy is a simple stitch – and it doesn’t have to be perfect. No one is going to inspect your embroidery.
And if they do you can snap them with the elastic of the headband.

The “petals of each flower on the bookmark are a single lazy daisy stitch. Here’s how you make it.
Decide where you want the first petal.
Insert your needle at the bottom of the petal – that will be point “A”.
Bring your needle out at the top of the petal but don’t pull it all the way through. That’s point “B”.
Wrap the thread around the tip of the needle from left to right.

Pull the needle through, keeping it above the wrapped thread. Don’t pull too tight or you’ll have a line instead of a petal.
Here’s what it should look like.

Now, keeping the petal loose, insert your needle on the outside of the petal at the top. In the diagram below – point “C”.
Bring the needle back up again at point “A”.

Pull the needle through. This will make a tiny little stitch at the top of the petal and hold it in place.

Aww. That’s nice.
Now continue making petals with the bottom points touching to make a flower.

See? Not perfect. But still cute. :)

Continue to make flowers on the circle. I made three with this color.

Now add a few more flowers and other details to fill it in. I added three more small flowers in a contrasting color. Then I added some gold lazy daisy stitches in the open area around the larger flowers.
I also made some little star shapes to help fill it in. These were just tiny lines going out to 5 points.

Once you have the top of the bookmark stitched, layer together your other pieces.

Cut a smaller piece of heavy weight interfacing. I used the inside edge of the canning jar lid as my pattern.

Place your elastic headband under this interfacing piece, but on top of the back felt piece. Add your embroidered circle to the top.

Sew all the layers together with matching embroidery floss using a Running Stitch. Make sure you sew through the elastic headband in place too.

When you have sewn all the way around the circle, knot your thread on the back of the circles.

Here’s a tip to prevent the little tail of the knot from showing after you snip the thread.
After you tie the knot, make a stitch beginning right at the point of the knot and coming out about an inch or two away on the back.
(Don’t sew all the way through to the front of the bookmark)

Pull very slightly on this thread and then cut the thread close to the felt.

Once you cut the thread, it should disappear back into the felt and that saves you from having a little loose knot tail.
The knot lays nice and flat.

Now you have a cute little bookmark! Slip it on your book and admire your awesomeness.

So sweet right? I love it.

It does have one drawback though. It works best on larger books. On a smaller book, the elastic is too loose and flops a bit.
Flopping is bad.

So I decided to make a version 2.0 and try to come up with something a little more adjustable. I thought a ribbon tie would work great.
Here’s the second Bookmark!

The ribbon unties, then you can just re-tie it depending on the where you are in the book – or if you need to use it on a smaller book it will just have a larger bow!
I realllllly like this one.

The steps for this version were pretty much the same except I made a more 3-d look. I cut out several flowers, petals and leaves out of the same wool felt as the top.

I sewed them on with running and straight stitches. The centers of the flowers are French Knots.
Instead of sewing it to an elastic headband, I cut a length of ribbon and sewed it to the felt circles closer to one end of the ribbon. That way I can pass the long end of the ribbon through the book around the top, then tie the two ends in a bow.
(My ribbon is 43″ long and the felt circles are sewed 14″ from one end.)

(How gorgeous is this silk dyed ribbon? It’s from M&J Trimming.

I think the dimensional flowers on this one are fun -

And it looks so pretty against the bow of the ribbon.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite?

I think these would be fun gifts too!! Don’t forget – Easter and Mother’s Day are right around the corner!

I’m linking to Sunday Scoop, Today’s Creative Blog, Met Monday, Skip to my Lou, Tutorials & Tips Tuesday, Funky Junk Interiors, Quilt Story and the other fabulous parties on the sidebar – make sure you check them out!