Mother’s Day Gifts - Free sewing patterns

Our coordinating glasses case and nail scissors holder are made from small pieces of felt and fabric that could be easily found in your remnants box. We have used recycled scraps of woollen jumpers, but for a special gift why not splash out on pure wool felt for added luxury? Machine embroidered flowers decorated with sequins and seed beads add a little flourish, but if you’re not confident at machine embroidery, a similar effect can be achieved by hand.

Essentials

Fabric: floral; small print, 20cm square
of each
Felt: thick, 40cm square; dark orange;
orange; yellow; blue; red; green, scraps
Sequins, orange, small
Seed beads
Thread: embroidery; machine, coordinating
Fusible webbing

Dimensions List

Glasses case: 9.5cm x 19.5cm
Nail scissors pouch: 6cm x 12cm

Sew a glasses case

1 Download the templates, print and cut out. Pin the glasses case template to thick felt and cut out one piece. Reverse and cut another from green printed fabric. Cut small squares of dark orange, orange, yellow and green woollen fabrics and iron fusible webbing onto the back of each.

2 Trace the spiky flower motif onto dark red woollen fabric, the two oval motifs onto orange and yellow and the stem onto green. Cut each of the shapes out using embroidery scissors.

3 Peel the backing paper off the stem and arrange on the right-hand side of the green base fabric. Press under a cloth to fix and stitch using green thread. Repeat with the spiky flower and position just above the stem. Iron to fix. Machine stitch in an oval pattern using straight stitch and red thread.

4 Fix the orange oval in place. Stitch using a zig zag stitch. Iron the yellow shape on top and zig zag stitch in orange thread. Sew small orange sequins and seed beads around the centre of the flower, then dot more around the embroidery.

5 Write ‘Mum’ onto the green fabric using an air-erasable pen. Thread a needle with three strands of orange embroidery thread and sew using back stitch. With right sides facing, pin the base and sides of the glasses case together and machine stitch up to the curve. Turn out.

6 With right sides facing, pin the base and sides of the green floral lining together and machine stitch up to the curve. Press over a 1cm hem at the raw edges and push the lining into the glasses case. Fold over a 1cm hem at the woollen edge, then pin and sew the lining into place with small neat stitches.

Stitch a nail scissors pouch

1 Cut out the templates for the scissors case. Pin to green woollen fabric and cut out a back and front. Repeat with lining fabric. Iron fusible webbing onto the back of squares of blue, green and red woollen fabric and transfer the templates.

2 Cut out the flower and stem shapes and iron them onto the front section of the scissors case. Embroider with zig zag and straight stitch. Sew sequins and beads around the flower, and dot sequins along the edge.

3 With right sides facing, pin the front and back pieces together and machine stitch. Turn out. With right sides facing, pin the lining pieces together and machine stitch, press down a 1cm hem on the raw edges of the lining and push into the case. Fold over the edge of the pouch and pin and sew the lining into place with small neat stitches.