Sunday 26 June 2011

Fabric flower tutorial

Hello to all on this beautiful sunny day!!! Its red hot, and Im sitting in my garden with my feet up enjoying as much sun as I can (which wont be an awful lot as Im a red head with very fair skin so pretty much allergic to the sun,lol)
There are lots of fabric flower tutorials on the web, and I can completely
understand why. They are fairly easy to make, with need for very little skill or
tools, and they are so versatile. They can be made from practically any fabric,
and can be made into brooches or hair slides, and can be attached to bags,
clothing, hair bands...the list goes on. They can also be decorated with beads
and buttons. You can really let your creative imagination run wild on these
little beauties.
So here goes...

Heres what you will need:
Fabric (any type you like)
Needle (strong enough to go through all the layers of fabric)
Thread (preferably a similar colour to the fabric your using)
Something round to draw around (I used the bottom of a plastic Ikea cup. Obviously the size will make the flower bigger or smaller)
Pencil, scissors, PVA or fabric glue

And this is how you do it...
Firstly, and this is just to save time, fold your fabric in half (either right sides facing or wrong sides, it doesnt really matter). Also, if your fabric is very creased, it might be easier to work with if you give it a quick iron :)

Now youve got your fabric ready, you can start to cut out the circles. Keeping your round object steady, draw around it with a pencil or tailors chalk (or something similar) six times.
Now simply cut out the circles, taking care to keep the two layers of fabric together. You should now have twelve seperate circles of fabric :) For this project you actually only need eleven, so save the left over one for your next flower.

The next step is where you need your needle and thread. Take a circle, fold it in half (wrong sides facing), and then in half again (so you have a quarter circle) and sew a couple of stitches on the end of the point to keep it folded in place. Tie off and snip thread. Repeat this process with nine more circles.
You should now have ten quarter circles and one whole circle ready to go!


Now to construct your flower...

Taking the one whole circle, position four of the quarter circles so that the points are at the centre, and the folds all face the same way. Now, taking your needle and thread again, knot the end, and push it through the whole circle from the back and through the point of one of your quarter circles. Stitch it again, so the needle is at the back of the flower. Repeat this process with your first layer of quarter circles.


Now onto the second layer...

Same rules as before; points to the centre and folds facing the same way. Position each quarter circle so it overlaps the join of the two quarter circles underneath. Build this layer up following this pattern.

Last two...

Your last two quarter circles need to be placed in such a way so that they cover up the stitches. To do this, bring the needle vertically up through the folds of the quarter circle (see photo) and flatten the folds out a little. Sew back through and do the same with the last quarter circle. Before sewing through a final time, spend a little time tweaking the last two quarter circles, making sure they are sitting nicely. When you are happy with how it looks, sew through a final time, tie off and snip the thread. Now, if you want to decorate with beads or a button, you can do this before you tie off and snip the thread.

Now to decide what to do with your beautiful fabric flower...

You can either leave it as it is, and sew or glue it onto a bag or a top. Or you can cut a small circle out of felt and sew a brooch back onto it before glueing to the back of the flower. Instead of the brooch back, you could sew a bobby pin onto the felt before glueing. There really is so many different ways to use these. Why not let me know how you used yours...
However, if all this seems like too much hard work, but you love them, then head over to my folksy shop at Princess Pearl where you can pick one up for only £2.50!
Thankyou for reading X

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