Fabric Flowers Tutorial

Well, this is my first big tutorial so please be patient with me and I hope you can all understand it and follow along. I thought up these flowers last year and I love making them. They are quick and super easy and the possibilities are endless!

I am someone who hates to be told there is only one way to do something. I like options! So, when I say "fabric scraps" or "buttons" you could use fancy fabric, corduroy, denim, etc. or for buttons you can use some wool circles, wool balls, a fabric covered buttons, etc. As they say on PBS kids "let your imagination RUN WILD!" So, let's collect our supplies...

1. Fabric scraps

2. Heavy Duty Iron-On Adhesive (I like this stuff the best for this project, you need it to be heavy duty to help give your fabric stiffness and body)

3. Buttons

4. Floral Wire

(not pictured)

5. Your trusty sewing machine

6. Thread (matching, contrasting, etc.)

7. Disappearing fabric pen (water-soluble, erasable, etc.)

7. Your handy dandy iron and ironing board

8. Sharp scissors (not your kitchen scissors like I use because I am too scared to go get my nice scissors for fear of waking my sleeping 6 month old daughter who is sleeping in my sewing room, do as I say not as I do)

9. Hot glue (preferably low temp, we don't want to burn your fingers!)

Step 1: Cut out 2 squares of fabric and 1 piece of iron-on adhesive all large enough for each of your flower pieces. Make sure your piece of adhesive is just slightly smaller than your fabric or else you will probably get some adhesive stuck to your iron and we don't want that.

Step 2: Following your manufacturers directions, iron on the adhesive to the wrong side of your fabric. Peel off the paper from your adhesive and iron the two fabrics, wrong sides together.

Step 3: Draw your flower shapes with your disappearing fabric pen. You can see my shapes above if squint your eyes they are hard to see. I like to use a large flower and a small inner flower shape to add dimension. Also, draw out your leaves. I like to connect the two leaves together when I draw them so its easier to attach to the floral wire in the end. Don't cut these out! I know you thought that was the next step, didn't you?

Step 4: Sew around the lines your drew on your fabric. I like to use a small satin stitch but you could use any stitch you like...remember you have options!

Step 5: Now you get to cut out your shapes! Here's a tip: always cut towards the insides of corners even if it means you have to turn over your shape. This will help you have nice sharp corners. FYI, my leaves look funky because I used a variegated thread on them. I don't know if its my favorite look now that I've done it but oh, well lesson learned.

Step 6: (click on picture to see it larger if you need to) Make a flat spiral with the end of your floral wire and poke it through the center of your largest flower and hot glue it down. I like to pull the flower into my hand like you see in the picture while the glue is cooling because it adds a little bit of dimension to the flower, try it you'll see what I mean.

Step 7: Glue on the smaller inner flower if you have one. Then glue on your button. If you happen to be anti-hot glue you can also do these two steps with needle and thread, sewing it all together. I tried this but I find my flower doesn't have enough body and my stitches are too loose. If you want that "sewed together" look then its smart to sew the button to your small inner flower and glue that to the large flower. Then you'll trick everyone and they will think you sewed the whole thing. Tricky!

Step 8: Glue on your leaves. I use the tiniest drop of hot glue (yet another reason to use low temp) and pinch my leaves onto the floral wire like you see in the picture.

Viola!

Your done! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I hope it wasn't as "clear as mud." Oh, I almost forgot...I like to display these in a small vase and use rice to help hold them up in their vase so they don't all flop over to one side.

If you make a flower using this tutorial please add it to my flickr group!