Turning Recycled Water Bottles Into Flowers - Really?

 

Needlecase made from Recycled Water Bottle Felt

I love to craft and create, I love to reuse and recycle, so when I found out that this felt is made from recycled water bottles it made my heart beat a little faster, wow, how wonderful!!  So here's a little project I made for my Mum.  It's a needle case, Mum is a quilter and stitcher, she's back home in Western Australia and belongs to a very lively quilting group, between them they turn out fabulous works of art on a regular basis.

Bust out the Cuttlebug or your die-cutting apparatus of choice for this one.  I had wanted to try cutting felt with my steel rule dies for a long time, finding the recycled felt gave me the push I needed to get going.  I cut out a whole bunch of flowers, leaves, flourishes and swirls - don't think too much about the final product here, just give yourself plenty of pieces to play with.

Once you have all those shapes cut out, start stacking them into pleasing arrangements of shape and color - arrange and rearrange until you're happy with the overall look.  Take some embroidery floss and embellish the edges - I mostly went with blanket stitch and french knots, super simple.  If you can do a blanket stitch you can make this whole needle case.

I used found objects - an old key and buttons - to make the fastening for the case.  The finished item is now in Australia with Mum, and I have plenty of extra pieces to make some more.  The cover is simply a rectangle, cut two, stitch your flowers on the cover, then blanket stitch the cover to the second rectangle as a 'liner'.  Cut three slightly smaller rectangles and stitch them inside as a signature to make the pages of your needle book.  If anyone wants dimensions or step by step instructions let me know, I'll work on that.

Have fun - hope your recycled water bottles transform into a flower garden :)  I was partly inspired to make this by seeing lovely felt projects on Pinterest, have you made anything after being motivated by what you found on Pinterest?