Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Fabric Flowers!!

I absolutely love working with fabric. It intimidates me sometimes, but after learning how to make fabric flowers – the fear is gone. I am absolutely addicted to making flowers! So – I wanted to share this easy technique with all of you!






You can use any type of fabric – I have tried this with cotton, felt, tulle and ribbon! One of the examples is very wide, cream colored ribbon I purchased on sale at Michaels after Christmas – OK – January 2007.

There is no steadfast rule on measurements. The longer the strip of fabric – the fuller/bigger the flower. The wider the strip – the larger the width of the flower. I cut strips of flower – about 1 to 1.5 inch wide and 8-10 inches long.



You can use your sewing machine or hand stitch a straight stitch down the length of fabric about ¼ inch from the edge. (I used my sewing machine – just FYI – I have never created a garment with this sewing machine – I bought it for scrapbooking and taught myself – so – I have only sewn lines and very few curves!!)


If you hand stitched – hold one end of the thread and “scrunch” up the fabric – gathering it together to create the flower. If you used your sewing machine – select one end of the fabric piece – you will see two pieces of thread – hold on to one and scrunch as above.

Once the scrunching is done – the flower will take form. Sew the ends together and stitch the sewn ends together to form a circle

TIPS: You can play with this too! Before you sew – accordian fold the fabric at one inch intervals – hold the folde fabric in one hand and cut a ½ circle. When you unfold the fabric – you will see a scalloped piece of fabric. Proceed to sewing (the non scallop side) and you will have defined petals like the blue flower above (which is the fabric from the Spring Survival kit!!) You can also cut a V in the fabric instead of a ½ circle and you will have pointed petals!

Here is an example of a flower in a cluster on a layout.



I hope you give this a go! I would love to see your flowers! Please link a pic in the comments section!

Have a peaceful day!
Lisa Woodhart

8 comments:

MichelleB said...

Thank you for this great tutorial! Love the flowers and I think I'm going to have to give this a try. :)

emelyn said...

LISA! you make this look so easy...I need to try this! It's so beautiful...you ROCK!

Melaniestan said...

I love this tutorial. I always wanted to make these, just never took the time. I'm going to do it!

Thank you so much!

MarieP said...

That is the cutest thing ever! I so want to try this!

MarciaD said...

Ditto what the others said. This is beautiful! Thank you Lisa!

Melissa B said...

Love this - Can't wait to try it!!

Leena said...

I will definitely try this!! Love this tutorial, thanks Lisa!!

June said...

I love your flowers. They are phenomenal. I dislike sewing though, so I doubt if I shall be trying them.