Fabric Flowers

Hello friends,

I have been sharing many of the Eclectic Elements fabric makes on Instagram, but today I have a step-out tutorial for the fabric flowers here on the blog.  I did not create this pattern/idea.  I found it on Pinterest back in 2013 (I'll link it at the bottom).  The flowers are easy to make but you do need a sewing machine for the gathering stitch. When you make them assembly line style (cut all fabric, iron all fabric, stitch all fabric, gather all fabric, etc...) a bunch of flowers can come together in an afternoon.  

What you will need:

sewing machine

5 x 44" fabric strips (one for each flower)

sticks for stems (about 12" long)

hot glue gun (with lots of glue sticks at the ready)

fabric marking pen

thread

scissors

pinking sheers (optional)

iron

So lets get started with the fabrics I used:

Spellbound - orange damask

Crossbones - skeletons

Manor - rosette 

Foreboding - Plaid

Spells - text (flower is in the back and not shown above)

I cut the five different Eclectic Elements fabrics into 5" strips (5 x 44").  

(My fabric came from a bolt so it is 44" wide)

Fold the strip in half and iron so you have a strip that is 2 1/2 x 44".

Move to the sewing machine and run basting/gathering stitch, using the pressed seam as your guide (you will gather this later so leave your threads long).

Use a marking pen to mark the fabric about every 2 1/2 to 3".  

NOTE: You can mark the fabric on either the raw edge side or the folded side.  If you mark on the raw side, the marks will be cut away, so you can use whatever pen you want (like a Sharpie in a pinch).

On one end of the strip, you need to cut a 4-5" tail. Mine is kind of a hack job so I am sure yours will look better.

Use the marks as an indicator to sew the scallop shapes. I like to sew at least half way down the width of the 2 1/2" strip so I get a floppy petal.  You can see my sewn scallops are not even and kind of wonky.  You could use the Mark-Be-Gone pen to draw the scallops before you start but I just went for it.

NOTE: There is also the option to cut the scallops and then sew, but I thought this way was easier and came out fine in the end.  

Next is to cut around the scallops with pinking sheers.  If you don't have pinking sheers, just use regular fabric scissors.

Now that you have cut around the scallops, it's time to gather the basting thread to begin shaping the flower.

Take the tail of the fabric and make a knot around your stick (your stem). Think of the shape of the center of a rose, it kinda looks like that!  Your goal here is to cover the end of the stick.

Use a hot glue gun to secure the tail to the stick (this area will get covered up).

Now start wrapping, gluing, wrapping, glueing until the flower is formed.

What I have learned is that at first, the fabric is glued to the stick, but after that, the fabric is glued to itself.

This makes much more sense when you see the finished flower from the bottom.  You can see the flower is flat at the bottom because of gluing the fabric to itself, not to the stick.  This method makes the flower full rather than being stretched-out down the stem.

I bought black leaves at Joann (they were part of the bunch of black roses). Five leaf stems came on the black rose bush which worked perfectly since I was making 5 flowers.  I just hot glued the leaves into place.  

NOTE: You never really see the underside of the flower, but if you were concerned, you always could add some Spanish Moss with more hot glue.

Well, there is the flower tutorial. I hope this was helpful and NOT too confusing! Once you make one, you will know what method works best for you.  

The flowers look great in an old apothecary bottle.  I could swear I just saw bottles like these at Joann!

Props to the original maker of these fabric flowers - see her blog post from 2010 here.  She stopped blogging in 2015 but the blog post is still available.

Now carry on,
paula

Fabric Flowers

Busy times around the house this week.  It's that time again when we start ramping up toward CHA.  On one hand I hate to think it's only 5+ weeks weeks away (so much to be done).  On the other hand, I love CHA; there's nothing like transforming the booth into something magical, talking to the retailers, and seeing old friends.  It's hard work and a lot of hours but I seriously love it all.

Well, on to today's project, Fabric Flowers:
I found the fabric flower idea on Pinterest a while back and wanted to try it with Tim's fabric.  The original tutorial was created back in 2010 by Anj, you can see it here.

 

I started with a few strips of Eclectic Elements fabric, cut 5 x 44".

Fold the 5" strip in half and iron so that you have a strip that is 2 1/2 x 44".

Move to the sewing machine and run a basting/gathering stitch right along the fold (you will gather this later).

Since I am making a lot of flowers I created an assembly line by cutting all the fabric, then ironing, then sewing.  It makes for a whole lot less thinking rather than completing one flower start to finish, then starting over.

Once the strips are stitched, I marked the raw edge of the strip every 2 1/2".  I used a fabric marking pen but you can use whatever you like as this part will be cut away.

Pick up the strip and hand cut scallops between the marks.  The cutting does not have to be perfect. I promise, when finished you will never be able to tell which scallops were wonky and which were perfect.

On one end of the strip you will need to leave a 4-5" tail, just like this.

Once one strip is cut you can either mark the next one or just lay the first strip on top of the next and use it as a pattern.

Cut all the scallops on all the strips.  Remember, they do not have to be perfect scallops.

Next is to go to the machine and stitch the scallops closed.  I stitched some in black, creme and red depending on the fabric color.

Once stitched, gently pull one string on the gathering stitch to gather the strip.

Cut a stick or dowel to use as a stem.  Tie the "tail" to the stick with the skinny strip heading towards the end of the stick.

Wrap the "tail" around the end of the stick to create a sharp point and glue into place. I used a low temp glue gun to secure the fabric to the stick.

Add a bit more glue and begin wrapping the gathered fabric around the stick.

Adding glue just a bit at a time (about 1 1/2" at a time)

Once you go around the stick once, position glue so that it is at lest 1/2" below the gathering stitch.  This will make your flower much more open.

Keep gluing, little by little, until you run out of fabric.

To cover the unsightly bottom of the flower, I cut wool flowers using Tattered Floral die.  I just cut a hole in the center for the stick then slid it into place.

Once the wool piece was close to the flower, I added a bit of glue, and adhered it to the bottom.  It worked perfectly to not only cover the bottom, but it looks like it's part of the flower.  Of course you could cut these in green to make them more "natural"; but I figured what the heck, my fabric is untraditional, why do the petal have to be?

finished flower

And from the side 

I ended up making 5 flowers for my vase.  This is a really easy project and they came out great. Again, thanks to Anj for a great tutorial to begin with.

Today is the last day of school for my husband.  That means he's making pancakes and bacon for all his students today while they finish up some last minute work (insert Alice Cooper singing, "School's out for Summer!").   It's going to be a happy day around here...
cheers for a great weekend!
paula

Flowers in my garden

While on vacation my sister decided to teach us girls how to make fabric flowers while the men folk were on the golf course.  I am sure many of you know how to do this already but I decided to photograph it anyway (just in case) because I found it quite addicting.  In a way it reminds me of embossing powder...the way it doesn't do anything for a minute and then all of a sudden it's done.  I love that part.
As I said, I started the process on vacation but ended at home so please forgive all the different surfaces I photographed the flowers on.

You will need a pair of sharp scissors, acetate fabric (lining fabric), small piece of felt, a hair clip, needle and thread, low temp glue gun, and a candle. 

You will need something to make circle patterns.  I used chipboard but an old cereal box will do.  You really can cut the circles any size.  In fact, now that I have made a few I found I liked the large circles better than the small circles.  So I eventually made a circle pattern 4" wide and stopped cutting out the 1 1/2".  What you put in the center will determine if you need the 1 1/2" size.

 Cut 2 of each size circle so you end up with at least 10 fabric circles to work with.

 Don't worry if your circles are not perfect.  Any perfections will be cured in the next step.

Use a candle to burn the edges of the acetate (here's where the embossing powder theory comes in).  Hold the fabric over the candle, the rising heat will melt the edges of the acetate.   Use tweezers when melting the smaller circles so you don't burn your fingers!

 Once you have all your petals melted it will look like this. 

 Now to finish it off here at home!

With the base flower you can make many variations.  

For the first one I left the flower as it was.  Using a needle and thread I stitched through all the layers to secure the petals in place.

 Then I cut the back off an old clip-on earring with my Tonic scissors.

You can sew or glue the earring to the center of the flower.
Note: If you don't have an old earring just sew a few beads into the center.

Cut a piece of felt for the back. 
Clip a hair clip to the felt piece (I found mine at Michael's by the wedding section).
Add a bit of glue from a low temp glue gun.
Turn the flower over and add to the back.

The Second flower-
Same flower petals, but this time I added tulle.  I cut tulle circles using the largest pattern only.  I found that the tulle melts MUCH faster than the fabric.  It also shrinks much more when it melts, hence cutting larger size circles.  You definitely have to hold the tulle farther away from the flame! 
All that being said, I love the look the tulle brings to the flower.

Now for the center.  My friend Mindy sent me these hair clip things she bought at a kiosk in her local mall.  She liked them and figured I could re-purpose them in some way (of course I can).  I have never seen anything like this locally.  Apparently they are to be screwed into some kind of hair clip or head band for your baby.  I figured it would work perfectly for the center.  It did.

 I just cut a small hole, threaded the small screw through and added the nut.  Perfect.

I cut a piece of pea green seam binding. 

 Tied a big loop bow and stitched it to the back.

I repeated the same method to add the clip to the back.

Lovely.