Starry Night Brooch

This brooch is totally different from the Flower Garden brooch (previous post). It started off in a similar way but when I added the beads it more and more reminded me of a Victorian mourning brooch. Mourning brooches were often made from jet or from the hair of the deceased or were cameos or lockets designed to hold the hair like a 'relic'. This of course is far more fun and sparkly and cute.


The main part of the brooch is needle felted black merino wool with a border crocheted from dark blue silk over steel yarn and black lurex thread for extra sparkle. The beads are a gorgeous small purple/opalescent glass star, several alexandrite glass flower beads with sparkly lustred round beads in the centre, and teeny faceted glass beads with a special sparkly silver coating (the beads are a soft lavender with the coating covering most of the beads).

The brooch is 2" (5cm) in diameter, soft and sparkly all at the same time. The brooch needle is fine enough to go through thinner fabric without tearing it and it's light enough not to 'fall over'. However, I would not use it with silk or similarly precious fabric.