Q. How can I make an owl brooch using scraps?

There are many different ways, but here are some that I made a couple of years ago:

This is a super simple design and construction method. Fabric can be anything you have on hand, but make sure its not too stretchy. I have used everything from lightweight upholstery to quilting cotton to velvet.

What you will need:

        Fabric Scraps

        Paper, ruler, pens, cardboard (for making the pattern)

        Sewing machine and related supplies

        Glue - fabric or tacky glue will work

        Dried stick coated in glue or other similar item

        Embroidery floss

For my sticks, I had saved some really nice long skinny branches when I trimmed my lilly pilly. I let them dry for a period of time and coated them with Mod Podge matte finish to seal them. You could use any kind of stick or dowell or even a straw? Whatever you have on hand will work.

First thing we need to do is to make the pattern. I made this one by folding some tracing paper in half vertically, then cut out on the fold, to make the whole piece. Scale is in inches, so around 3" high by about 2" wide when complete. Just make a pleasing teardrop shape like the below:

Take one of the fabric pieces and mark the outline of the pattern onto the reverse (wrong) side. Gluing the pattern onto cardboard will help if you wish to trace multiples:

Stitch inside the marks - I used a 6mm seam. Stitch all the way around without leaving a gap:

(As an alternative, you can trim the pattern by 6mm, and draw the line as a stitching line. You will see that I have done this in the updated photos below.)

Trim the seam close to the stitching or clip the curve or use pinking scissors, and trim the point:

Decide which side is to be the body and which side is to be the nose. (Note - I needed to change photos due to incomplete or missing info - sorry if this is confusing to anyone).

Plain body, patterned nose:

Patterned body, plain nose:

On the side that is to be the body, mark where the turning slit is to be. This is where the piece will be turned to the right side. It will be covered once the nose piece is folded over. Make sure this is high enough and small enough to be covered once folded over. Make sure you only cut through the one layer:

Turn through the hole:

Pop some stuffing into the body through the hole leaving the pointy end empty. I like to use my thread scraps and trimmings from my overlocker but you could use fibre fill. If using scrap threads, be mindful of the darker colours showing through any light coloured fabrics and adjust accordingly. The effect of the thread scraps makes a more dense fill, rather than soft and puffy:

Keep filling until you are happy with the way that the nose piece is sitting. Note that the slit has been covered by the nose piece:

Next, lets stitch the nose down. Choose some matching (or contrasting) embroidery floss (I used leftover bits from other projects). It doesn't matter how many strands, but the more strands you use will make it more difficult to pull through the stitch hole. 

Knot the end and stitch through under where the slit has been cut. Take a small stitch to secure then pass the needle up through the point of the nose:

Fold the nose piece over to where you want it to be when completed. You can put a pin in to hold it in place as you stitch, if you wish:

Take the needle and make a stitch vertically from your current position and come back up in the original stitch. Make sure that you go through the body piece when pushing through the needle.

Now take the needle and determine where you want the sides of the "V" to sit. Insert the needle at one side and stitch through to the other side and pull through, catching the body piece underneath:

Take the needle and go back through the original stitch hole and back into a place under the nose piece where it can be secured but still hidden:

Now select your stick piece. I had already snapped a piece off my branch, coated with matte Mod Podge and left to dry. You can put a dab of glue on the underside of the body if you wish to have a more secure grip between the stick and the base and stop it from twisting. I used an elastic band to hold the stick in place while I stitched the little claws but you could use a hair tie or similar. It also helps to show where the centre point is, for reference as to where to place the claws:

Select the embroidery floss that you wish to use for the claws and cut a length around 30cm long and put a knot in the end. Again, it doesn't matter how many strands you use - I used four in this case. 

Enter through the front under the nose piece so it is hidden, and come out at the back where the first claw is to be placed:

Turn it back to the front and stitch around the stick, go through all layers and back through the front three times. On the third turn, go through to the other side of the back, and repeat the process.

Secure the threads back up under the nose piece:

Now for some eyes! Test some different sizes and styles, to see which is best for your owl.

I like to put a googly eye on top of a sequin, but you could use anything on hand, such as buttons or beads. Below are the three types that I decided to test - 11mm sequin + eye, 9mm sequin + eye and 1cm eye with eyelid. Each will give a different look to your owl - it just depends on what you like:

Use fabric or tacky glue to hold your eyes in place.

I'm not going to tell you which eyes I have chosen, just yet. I'm going to keep this as a surprise :)

Next, lets add the pin to the back. The pin back I had on hand was 1cm wide, but it could be larger if that is what you have. I used a dab of glue to hold in place as I stitched all around to hold:

And your owl is now completed! 

So, which eyes did I choose?? 

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Surprise!! Its the 9mm purple sequin with the tiny eyes :)

They all look so different depending on the fabric chosen, but its the eyes that give it the final character. These are some of the first that I made. Note the eyes on the first two are sequins with seed beads, rather than the googly eyes. You can see the progression of how the eyes evolved over time:

VARIATION - FRIDGE MAGNET

Why not make the owls into fridge magnets??

I covered the magnets with fabric circles (like making a yoyo), then glued to the back. This is not essential, but it stops the fridge getting scratched up.

FINAL OBSERVATIONS: Scraps of any size can always be made into something cute.

Q: Where do you keep the spare batteries?

This is a question that has been asked by many an amateur comedian to a TESLA owner. You know the one - they think they are HILARIOUS when they asks how you change the batteries?

Well, I'm going to reveal the secret - they are in the frunk! 

What??! Yours didn't come with the spare batteries? Well, you should complain to Mr Musk immediately, post haste! See? I have proof:

Seriously, though, this was so much fun to do. I have seen these done in many different brands, but not in the eneloop's. We use these exclusively at home, so it makes sense to make what we are familiar with.

To start the process, I had to decide what to use for the base. Piping? Tubing? Wood? What is the easiest to get? What is the easiest to work with?? Piping was out of the question, unless I could get an offcut - do we know any plumbers?? No. Do I want to buy a 3 metre length in order to get the correct diameter that would create a bunch of waste? Definitely no. Same with the tubing. Wood would have been heavy when finished, so this had to be excluded, too.......

I had to think about this for a bit..... Then, I saw it! An old pool noodle!! Lightweight, easy to cut, readily available - PERFECT!! But the proportion was all wrong. It was far too skinny for the purpose that we needed, but after a quick google search, I found that they make pool noodles in a JUMBO size!! And I could get them from our local Big W!! Winning!!

So, off we go, pick up a couple of noodles (I think they were $10 each?) and back home for Step 2. How big do they need to be?? I only had one shot to cut them up, so this had to be perfect. Originally, we were planning on only making two "batteries" but once they were cut, it was clear that three created a better visual illusion and filled the space better.

Math had to happen and so I started by cutting the noodle in half - they could be trimmed a bit more later. The best part of this is that these can be cut with a serrated knife and neatened with a file. Super easy.

Problem number one arises - the noodle is quite flexible, so how do I stop the noodle from bending? The noodle has a hole in the core, so a quick trip to Bunnings to buy a length of dowel in the correct diameter fixed this pretty easily.

Next decision to make - how do I cover the blue noodle to make it white? The eneloop batteries come in all different colours, but the classic colour is white with an electric blue logo. I experimented with white spray paint, but this was not working very well, as the pool noodle is some kind of extruded foam with a shiny finish and the paint simply did not stick. I had some white house paint which was better, since I could put it on a lot thicker, but it was clear that I would still need some kind of cover if it was to look uniform and flat.

I looked through my fabric stash for inspiration. Ah ha! I had some black stretch knit fabric, which was going to allow enough stretch to even out the textured surface of the noodle, but not become transparent. So, off to Spotlight I go, pool noodle in hand, in search of some appropriate white fabric. I tested a bunch of different stretch fabrics, from lycra to double knits, and found a two way stretch that didn't become transparent when stretched with enough thickness that smoothed out the imperfections of the noodle. I guess-timated the amount I needed, and home I went.

Next question - how do I attach the fabric to the noodle? I decided that I could just stitch a tube and feed the noodle into it. I just measured the circumference of the noodle and cut my fabric to this same measurement, so the seam allowance created enough reduction in size to make it tight. So far, so good!

Problem number two arises. The fabric slipped around a bit - well, actually a lot - so I needed to secure it somehow. Glue was not going to be the best option for the same reasons above. The noodle is soft, so maybe I could use sewing pins? I found some silver headed pins and ran a row up the seam of the tube, stretching slightly as I went. Perfect!

This also worked as a solution for what to do with the ends. The fabric was trimmed and many, many more pins were used to secure the raw ends into nice, neat little pleats. The plan would be to cover this later.....

Now for the logo part. My original plan involved using heat transfer vinyl pressed onto the fabric, but the tube was now already attached over the noodle, so this was no longer an option due to the risk of it melting the noodle underneath. I had to change tack and decided to use adhesive vinyl instead. 

Time to put my Scan-n-Cut to good use. Thank goodness for the interwebs, as the logo had already been uploaded in a format that was cutting machine compatible, and best of all, it was FREE! This excluded the text under the logo, but this was easy enough to design in the SnC software. 

Size testing time!!

This is starting to look pretty good. Time to order the vinyl and get cutting!!

After weeding the vinyl and tranferring it to tape, I used some masking tape to mark the level and centre point, so I can then transfer the vinyl onto the fabric, making sure it was straight.

Once this was done, it looked like it was missing something. Even though the proportion of the logo to the white space at the ends was reflective of the real life battery, it just looked like it was incomplete. This is when I created the + and - to add to the ends. This is based on the actual positive and negative design on the battery, but on the real battery, these are on the reverse side to the logo. I think this fills in the blank space well, and helps to explain why one of the batteries is reversed when "inserted" into the frunk - its exactly how it would be in real life.

Now for the ends..... How do we cover the mess created by the pinning of the excess fabric at the end? I used a scrap of craft foam to create a cover. Again, the SnC came in handy to cut the perfect circles, which were painted with silver paint. A selection of jar lids were then  auditioned for the "button" end, but the larger lid looked visually better, even though this is not technically accurate to the scale of the actual battery. A much smaller lid would have been more in keeping with the scale, but it just looked strange. These were painted with a primer, then also painted with the silver paint, then glued in place.

And that is it! Or is it????

After testing them in the frunk, it was clear that the adhesive vinyl was not going to be as long lasting as I had hoped, as it started to lift off pretty soon after being added. I think this was partly due to the movement of the fabric and the nature of adhesive vinyl ie. this is not designed to go onto fabric permanently.

I searched around the house for a solution and found some clear plastic table covering, which would be perfect to cover the fabric and the vinyl. It would also add the glossy finish that the real battery has, while also adding a waterproof layer in case of rain. Once the plastic was cut to size, this was also attached using the silver headed pins across the back side.

And NOW they are done! Well, no, not just yet......

I needed a way to hold the "batteries" in place when in the frunk, since they would roll around without any supports. My original idea was to make a frame with half circles cutout for the cylinders to sit in - like a wine rack. This would work, but be bulky and difficult to design and store. Thinking cap on again.......

I had another idea - what about using the leftover pool noodle parts? What if this was cut into halves and quarters and used as blocks to stop the "batteries" from rolling around? Lets stew on this for a bit....

Remember the black stretch fabric I mentioned earlier? I pulled this out again and decided that I would cut the remaining noodle piece in half lengthwise and then one into quarters lengthwise. I could then cover it with the black fabric and it would be virtually invisible against the black frunk liner, with enough friction to hold in place. This would also allow it to be easily setup and put away. I used the same method as the "battery" itself, sewing the tube and using pins to cover the ends. It worked perfectly! The two half rounds sit between the batteries, and the quarters wedge in front and back. (You can just see the quarter piece sticking out at the bottom of the picture...) 

I also decided to make a storage bag, so when the car goes on display, it can be setup and packed away quickly and easily. It keeps all the pieces together and makes it easy to stow away when not in use.

To be fair, this was not a challenge of my own making, but a request from the other half. He was super happy with the final result and has used them a couple of times already.

So, where DO you keep your TESLA batteries? In the frunk, of course!

FINAL OBSERVATIONS - Pool noodles are super versatile.