Recycled Thread Flower Pin

Anyone who sews regularly knows that when you finish a project you always have a pile of thread ends (little pieces of thread you snip off). Years ago when I had a handmade business and sewed hundreds of purses a month, I noticed after a sewing session that there was this unexpected beauty in the pile of discarded thread on my sewing table. The colors all intertwined to create a wild abstract rainbow of color and texture. I just couldn’t bring myself to toss the thread scraps into the garbage. I rolled them up in a ball and realized that it sort of looked like a flower. After a few failed attempts at creating a flower from the thread scraps I perfected the process with a bit of interfacing, felt and sewing a pattern over the ‘flower’ to keep the threads from moving and the flower intact. And…the thread flower was born! The thread flower became one of my trademark designs as it was one of the most popular motifs for the bags and purses I made. For this project I took the same idea and created a pin so you can add it to just about anything.

Materials to Make a Recycled Thread Flower Pin:

• Sewing machine (I used my BERNINA 380)
• Scissors
• Various bits of thread and/or embroidery thread
• Felt (one small piece of green for the leaves and one small piece of an alternate color for the flower center)
• Iron-on interfacing
• Thread
• Pin back
• Glue gun and glue stick

Instructions to Make a Recycled Thread Flower Pin:

1. Gather your bits of multi-color thread into a circle.

2. Cut a circle of interfacing (size depends on the size of your pin, mine was about 4 inches).

3. Place the glue side of the interfacing down on your circle of thread and iron it.

4. Flip the flower over and iron over the thread side to flatten out the stray threads on the flower.

5. Cut leaves from the green felt then iron the glue side of the interfacing onto the leaves and trim the edges of interfacing from the leaves.

6. Sew a “vein” design on the leaves with a contrasting thread color.

7. Now here’s the tricky part: You need to sew a starburst pattern on the front side of the flower (this will keep the flower from coming apart as well as secure the interfacing on the back). Use your finger to flatten out the threads so your machine foot doesn’t get tangled in them. Start at the center and work your way out to the edges then go back to the center and back to the edge. Repeat until you have a pattern that looks like the photos below.

8. Sew your leaves onto the back of the flower.

9. Sew the felt flower center onto the flower front.

10. Use a glue gun to secure the pin back on the back of the flower.