How to Make Wool Embroidery Flowers to Perk up Plain Cushions

Pinterest Hidden Image

I’ve had the idea for these cushion covers embellished with wool embroidery flowers for a few weeks now. 

Actually, that’s a lie, I had a completely different idea in my head.  Initially, I thought about embroidering my flowers with actual embroidery floss.  HAHA no…

I’ve seen so many beautiful and absolutely unbelievable embroidered pillows on Instagram.  They all make me have momentary flashes of motivation. 

The only thing is I’m a lazy crafter.  There, I said it, laaaaaaazy! 

There is no way I would ever finish a project like that, I just know this about myself. 

But still, the idea kept fluttering in and out of my head for weeks before I got the bright idea to use yarn instead of embroidery floss. 

And although my pillow is nowhere near as beautiful as those bedazzled floral masterpieces on Instagram, I still think it turned out pretty nifty.

The best part is, even if you have never embroidered before, you will be able to do this method.  It is SUPER simple and works up quite quickly. 

 

Yellow cushion with white wool embroidery flowers on a grey sofa

 

 

Looking For More Easy Home Decor Projects?

 

WOOL EMBROIDERY PILLOW FOR SPRING

Tools & Materials

~This post may contain affiliate links.  If you click one and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. 

I only ever recommend what tools or materials I use for my projects.  I also test all my projects before publishing and if something doesn’t work, I don’t share it!  ~

 

Use old cushions if you have them to perk them back to life, or pick up a few inexpensive cushion covers. 

I will add the link to the covers that I purchased, but you can pick up pretty inexpensive covers at places like Walmart and Ikea. 

Yarn?  Use what you have.  This is a great stash buster project.  I used 1 skein of yarn.   I used 100% cotton blue skies alpaca on this pillow, but there is no need to get that fancy.  ANY wool, or cotton yarn, or even acrylic will work. 

Just get it a bit on the bulkier side.  The yarn I used was size 4 worsted.

 

Materials

 

Tools 

  • Embroidery needle
  • Wool Needle
  • Stork Embroidery Scissors   – I linked the ones I used because I had a few people ask me about them in a photo I added to Instagram. They look vintage, but they are not.  I really like the point on them, it’s perfect for getting in tight to cut away small threads.  But as always, use what you have!  

 

A skien of White cotton yarn, a yellow cushion cover, scissors, and embroidery thread laid out on a grey wood background

 

Step 1

Make small round templates out of your tissue paper.  I made mine 4, 3 and 1.5 inches. 

I added 14 wool embroidery flowers to the front of the pillow straight down the middle and added some macrame cording to look like flower stems.   

That’s the design that liked the best.  I tested a few different designs including the one below where the flowers were scattered (didn’t like that design as much when I was finished!). 

Pin down your circles after you get your pattern figured out.    The round templates are easy to move around until you set the pattern that you like.  They also work very well for marking the edges of your circles. 

 

 

Step 2 

For this project we’re going to use a wagon wheel rose embroidery stitch.  It sounds complicated, but I swear, it’s incredibly easy.  

To make the 3D embroidered roses you need to first create the base by stitching a wagon wheel shape.  The shape is simply a center with spokes radiating from the center.  It resembles a spoked wheel as you can see in the photo below. 

You can add as many spokes as you want to create the base of your roses.   The larger you make your wool embroidered flowers the more spokes you can add.  

 

 

The trick is to make sure that you always add an odd number of spokes.  

For anything larger than 4 inches, I would add 7 spokes.  For this project, since my flowers were all under 4 inches I only needed 5 spokes for each one.

They do not need to be perfect, everything is hidden after the wool is weaved on.  But if you are a perfectionist you can mark on your tissue paper pattern templates where to add each spoke.  

I eyeballed it – that’s why some of my spokes are not even.  It didn’t matter in the end the roses still turned out beautiful.  

To start, thread your embroidery floss into your needle and sew 5 spokes to the end of your tissue paper pattern. The image below shows exactly what I mean.  

Once the spokes are sewn, tear out your tissue paper. 

 

Step 3

Thread your yarn on to your yarn needle and double up.  Keep the full length to around a yard, anything longer and you will need to deal with tangles.  I found it was easier and quicker to deal with shorter lengths and add more yarn later as required. 

To attach your yarn to your spokes, just tie off and snip off the ends as shown in the 3rd image above in step 2. 

 

Step 4

Now all you need to do is weave your yarn on to the spokes that you embroidered to your cushion cover. 

You always weave over, and then under, and then over and then under.  By the time to get back to the start, your pattern will reverse.  Where you weaved over, now you’re weaving under.  This is what creates the pattern, holds down the yarn, and why you need an odd number of spokes.

If you used an even number of spokes the pattern never reverses and you will be weaving something that resembles a web vs something that looks like a flower. 

Weave a bit tight, not too tight, but not too loose either.  If you leave the weaving loose, the wool embroidery flowers will look very flat, and that’s not what we want we want them to pop off the cushion cover. 

 

 

Step 5

If you run out of yarn, just tie off and tuck the end under the rose and start your weaving from where you stopped.  You never see the ends and the pattern really does hide a lot of mistakes.

You will want to keep going until you no longer see the ends of the spokes that you embroidered on to the cover. 

Tidy up any ends and move on to the next one. 

 

 

 

Step 6 (optional)

Adding the macrame cording to the pillow is very easy.  I just used some matching thread and tacked the stems on where I wanted them.  I only added a few stitches here and there, so my stems are loose and open in some areas, but I like that look, they seem to settled and bend into interesting patterns.

You can glue them on, although I don’t believe they would hold up or last nearly as long sewing them to the pillows. 

 

Wool embroidery flowers ……

This is a really simple project that adds a lot of wow to a simple cushion cover, but don’t stop there.  You could add these wool embroidery flowers to anything! 

And I don’t know about you but I am eagerly waiting for spring.  This winter has been one hell of a ride and I am desperate for some sunshine.  This is probably why yellow is making an entrance this year into my home decor, I need a punch of something bright and fun to get over the doldrums of winter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Make Wool Embroidery Flowers to Perk up Plain Cushions

How to Make Wool Embroidery Flowers to Perk up Plain Cushions

Yield: 1
Active Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $10.00

A sunny and bright yellow cushion cover with white wool embroidery flowers. An easy crafting method to perk up old cushions.

Materials

  • 1 Skein Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton Yarn (614 DRIFT)  Use what you have! But I linked what I used, it is beautiful organic cotton yarn.  
  • Throw Pillow Cushion Cover Sets Yellow 18 X 18 inch 
  • Embroidery thread (match the color of your yarn)
  • A sheet of tissue paper 
  • Pins
  • Macrame Cotton Cord, 3mm if you decide to add the stems

Tools

  • Embroidery needle
  • Wool Needle
  • Scissors (needlepoint scissors work best)

Instructions

  1. Make small round templates out of your tissue paper. I made mine 4, 3 and 1.5 inches. 
  2. Pin down your circles after you get your pattern figured out.  The round templates are easy to move around until you set the pattern that you like. They also work very well for marking the edges of your circles. 
  3. You can add as many spokes as you want to create the base of your roses.  The larger you make your wool embroidered flowers the more spokes you can add.  The trick is to make sure that you always add an odd number of spokes.    
  4. To start, thread your embroidery floss into your needle and sew 5 spokes to the end of your tissue paper pattern. See post for image example.  Once the spokes are sewn, tear out your tissue paper. 
  5. Thread your yarn on to your yarn needle and double up. Keep the full length to around a yard, anything longer and you will need to deal with tangles. I found it was easier and quicker to deal with shorter lengths and add more yarn later as required. 
  6. To attach your yarn to your spokes, just tie off and snip off the ends as shown in the 3rd image above. 
  7. Now all you need to do is weave your yarn on to the spokes that you embroidered to your cushion cover. 
  8. You always weave over, and then under, and then over and then under. By the time to get back to the start, your pattern will reverse. Where you weaved over, now you're weaving under. 
  9. If you run out of yarn, just tie off and tuck the end under the rose and start your weaving from where you stopped. You never see the ends and the pattern really does hide a lot of mistakes.
  10. You will want to keep going until you no longer see the ends of the spokes that you embroidered on to the cover. 
  11. Tidy up any ends and move on to the next flower.
  12. Adding the macrame cording stems to the pillow is very easy. Use some matching thread and tack the stems on with a few simple sewing stitches. 

Notes

Use any color yarn or any color pillow you want.

Try using thicker yarn for larger flowers and to save some time. Thicker yarn will give a different look, but the flowers will stitch up super quick.

This method would add pretty texture to almost anything.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *