Golden Snitch

Before I went on vacation I shared a peek of this brooch I made for my trip and shared a reveal on my Instagram.

Here it is. It's a little golden snitch. I spent last week with friends in Orlando visiting the Wizarding World at Universal Studios. We were there to celebrate my friend's 9 3/4 birthday as she was born on February 29. We made t-shirts for the occasion which we wore on February 28. I also wanted to make her a little something special for the trip.

I looked around Pinterest for a nice shape and settled on this one. I liked the mechanical look of it. From there, I re-sized the drawing till I got a size I liked and determined what would have a felt padding.

The snitch itself has a single layer, while the wings have two. I guesstimated the shape of the bottom layer of the wing.

(click on the post to see the animation below)

Since this piece was so small, I decided to use up leftover materials from previous goldwork kits.

First step was outlining the shape in pearl purl.

(click on the post to see the animation below)

It took a while for me to figure out how I wanted to fill the snitch's body. I ended up going with chipping.

I wanted a different texture for the rest of the body and went with cutwork using smooth purl. For the knobs (where the wings met), I changed the direction of the cutwork so they would be more distinct.

The wings were tricky as I liked the lines that were inside. I ended up using two types of purl: wire check and rough purl.

For the finishing, I looked in the fabric shop for suede or leather and the closest I could find were suede elbow patches.

To give it a bit of sturdiness I used a piece of soft cardboard, the kind that comes with tights, that I save for such occasions.

The first step is to cut around the snitch getting close to the edge but not too much so as to accidentally cut the stitching at the back.

I used the cut snitch to create an outline for my cardboard. The cardboard needs to be smaller than the actual finished piece so I did a rough outline and trimmed it.

For this pin, I bought some tie tack pins from Amazon.

When I decided to use tie tack pins, I didn't expect the suede to be so tick. I ended up using an awl to pierce the suede so I can get the tie tack through it.

Once the tie tack is in, I put in the clutch back to keep them in place (and protect my fingers).

The next step involves glue. I spread glue on the back of the embroidery and then placed my snitch on top of the suede making sure it was laying properly over the cardboard. At this point, I left it to dry.

Once it was dry, I cut out the piece. I tried not to have too much of the suede showing on the back but it was very hard to cut it with my embroidery scissors. If I do this often, I might need to invest in a pair of scissors made especially for cutting leather.

From there I whipped stitched the two layers together, going all around. It was very hard to pierce the suede. I was using an embroidery needle with a thimble, but again the right tools would have made this easier. I will be looking for needles made for leather embroidery.

Here it is all done. I really enjoyed stitching this piece. It was a nice quick project to make before my trip and my friend really loved receiving it. I hope I will be able to make more pieces like this in the future.

(click on the post to see the video below)