Saturday, September 25, 2010

Fabric Flowers - Variations on a Theme


I was playing around with some material to make an easy fabric flower that is a little more refined-- less carnation and more rose. 

I used the same technique as these flowers created with circles, with one change-- I used a petaled flower, instead of just a plain ol' circle.  I think it especially looks nice for larger flowers (those larger than 2 inches in diameter).

Step 1
Make a flower pattern.  Draw a 5 petal flower on paper to use as a pattern.  As you can tell by my lack of drawing skills, the flower does not need to be perfect... yay!

Step 2
Choose a fabric.  I used a variety of muslin and cotton fabrics.  If you use a printed material, make sure both sides of the fabric are presentable. Cut out your fabric using the flower pattern.

These flowers are around 2.5 inches in diameter

Step 3
Fold your flower in half.  Make sure that the petals are staggered.  Then fold it in half again. It should sorta/kinda resemble a slice of pie

Step 4
Put a couple of stitches into the bottom of the "pie shape". But don't knot it off yet...

Step 5
Keep adding those folded flowers until you have 8 "pie shapes" stitched together.  If you'd like it to be fuller, continue to add more folded flowers.  I found that the larger the diameter of the flower, the more petals you will need.

Step 6
Then run the thread a final time through the entire stack of folded flowers, stitch it together & knot it off. Cut the thread!

 Step 7
Fluff out the petals.  If you have a flower that is larger than 2 inches in diameter, you'll probably see a little gap between the first folded flower that was stitched on and the last.  Stitch together those petals so that the flower will hold it's shape.

And that's it!  An easy, yet refined fabric flower!

And here's another variation (dahlia perhaps?) using this pattern...
Again, as you can see, the drawn flower does not need to be perfect.


Okay, that's it, I'm done with fabric flowers tutorials... I promise!  Hope you're having a great weekend!

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