Sweet Pea Fashions Fabric Flower Tutorial

 

Follow along as Jane from Sweet Pea Fashions shows us how to make beautiful fabric flowers that you can use to embellish your doll clothes! 

 

What do you do when you have a bunch of hats to decorate, no artificial flowers, and a room full of fabric?  You make fabric flowers for your hats!  This technique makes quick work of crafting flowers that you can use to embellish any project.  They take very little fabric, and they can be made any size you need.  Let’s get started!

WARNING:  This project is not intended for children!  It involves working over  an open flame and materials that get very hot. 

Here’s what you will need:

• Synthetic fabric - Just about any man-made fabric will work. Organza, satin, crepe, lace, are good choices.  However, be careful that your fabric isn’t too floppy.  Natural fibers such as silk, cotton, or wool will not work.
• Candle – Any kind of candle will work. Make sure that the wick is trimmed to about ¼ inch before you light it.  Trimming the wick will give you a flame that is steady and doesn’t dance around.  Also, choose a candle that is relatively short. Since you will be holding your flowers above the flame, it will be easier to do with a shorter candle.
• Needle and thread
• Tweezers
• Optional embellishments

Cut circles from your fabric that are slightly smaller than the finished size flower you need.  You need six to ten circles, depending on how full you’d like your flower to be.  These circles do not need to be perfect.  In fact, a little wonkiness just makes them more charming.  An easy way to make these is to stack a bunch of fabric squares and cut the circles all at once.

Make cuts in the circles from the edge to about a half inch from the center, like spokes in a wheel.  Again, you can stack the circles and make all the cuts at once.  This also does not need to be perfect.

Using your tweezers, hold each petal about an inch and a half above the candle flame until it begins to curl.  It will usually curl toward the flame.  This usually happens very quickly, so be vigilant.  Don’t touch the petal that you just singed.  The melted fabric is very hot.

This is what your singed petal will look like.  Repeat this process for each petal.

Don’t leave it in the flame too long!  It can burn the fabric, at best ruining your petal, at worst, flaring up so that you are holding a flaming petal with your tweezers.

It is worth the effort to practice on a few circles to get a sense of the amount of time needed to curl your fabric.

Repeat for the rest of the petals and for all the circles.

To assemble the flower, stack two of the circles together, and stitch them together through the center.

Continue stacking the circles and stitching them together. 

Stop adding circles when you get the fullness you want. 

If you want the flower to be less flat and more bowl shaped, fold the flower in half and make a couple of stitches across the fold.

Open the fold, fold it in half at a 90-degree angle to the first fold, and make a couple of stitches across that fold.

If you’d like your flower to have a center, glue or stitch an embellishment into the center.  Buttons, gems, or trims can be used.  You could even make a tiny flower to place in the center.

This flower has a button center.

For this flower, a beaded trim was coiled in the center of the flower and tacked down with thread.

Your flower is ready to be sewn or glued to your project! Check out how cute the Sweet Pea Fashions Springtime Straw Hat turned out with these fabric flowers!

Enter this week's Mod Doll Monday contest for your chance to win an 18" American Girl® doll and this cute outfit! 

Happy crafting!

Jane and the Pixie Faire Team

 

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