Lancashire rose brooch

Last time I told you about Lancashire Day and mentioned the rose brooch I'd made. The idea was inspired by the poppy I made for Remembrance Day from the pattern by Tally.

The symbol and County flower of Lancashire is the red rose and dates back to at least Tudor times. There are many interpretations used in company logos but I wanted something traditional.

For my first attempt I enlarged a picture from the internet and traced around it to create templates. It's pretty but the petals felt too rounded to be reminiscent of a Tudor rose. I tried another image but the petals were too uneven and it was difficult to get the layers to line up. There was only one thing to do - draft my own pattern.

Using a round protractor, I drew a circle and divided it into 5 equal segments for the 5 petals: each segment is 72 degrees. I then drew an inner circle to the size I wanted the finished brooch to be. The petals were drawn freehand so are not completely the same but are at least spaced evenly. I kept measuring each element to keep them as uniform as possible.

Once the pattern had been drafted, I traced around each component to produce separate templates for the 4 layers. For the second sample, I decorated the petals with some simple stitching before sewing the layers together.

Ta-dah! And this is the finished brooch! This is my favourite and the one I wore. Others have preferred the simpler, stitch-free, rose. Which is your favourite?

PS I had planned to share the templates with you but it's proving more difficult than I thought to load up the pdf. For now, here's a photo of the templates which you could enlarge. If I ever figure out how to load up the templates, I'll attach it here.