A different brooch idea...

I decided to try a slightly different approach for a new range of brooches - I wanted them to be larger, flatter, and to have more flexibility about what shape I could make them.  I recently bought some Bondaweb (sort of like double-sided sticky tape, but for fabric!) and some Tyvek (crazy tough paper that is sometimes used for envelopes, but also by fibre artists), and wondered if I could use them to make thinner brooches that still had enough stiffness to them.

Anyway, as usual I started with a layer of felt, made onto a backing of cotton wadding, with my embellisher.  This piece was made with metal organza fabric, wool roving, silk noil fibre, silk throwsters waste, trilobal nylon and organza ribbon, in blacks and greys.  The trilobal nylon (like angelina fibre) and the organza give a subtle sparkle.

After embroidering and beading the front surface came the 'sandwiching' work to give the brooch shape and structure.  I decided on a large-ish round shape for my first attempt.

Here are the layers of the brooch sandwich: 

front felt-bondaweb-tyvek-bondaweb-plain black back felt.

The bondaweb sticks with heat using an iron.

Then I tidied up the raw edges by whip-stitching around the edge in black embroidery cotton, and I finished the brooch with a silver metal brooch finding on the back.

Here's the finished brooch.  I called her 'Storm'.  The glass beads are mostly Miyuki and Toho, with a few tiny vintage Italian ones scattered around.  The hand embroidery stitches are in silk, rayon and metallic threads - mostly colonial knot stitch, with a little stem and running stitch in metallic threads added for extra sparkle.  

She is about 6.2cm in diameter and less than 5mm thick.