Fabric Flowers – not a tutorial!

One of the most popular things I make are fabric flower brooches, they are time consuming to make but a good way to use up scraps and look quite lovely when finished.  I’ve had a few requests for a tutorial on these and it is being worked on I promise – it’s just slow progress!

There are many ways of making fabric flowers, Crystal over at Little Bit Funky has recently had a ‘Flower week’ and has posted a tutorial every day for a different way with fabric flowers (first tutorial is here), go and be inspired.

I was recently asked by a friend Louise to make some fabric flower hair clips for some little bridesmaids  including her daughter (she also asked if I could alter her own bridesmaids dresses – I took a look and said ‘no’, far too stressful for my liking!).  I was given offcuts of fabric from the adult bridesmaid dresses to use.

So what sort of flowers to make?  I’ve seen lots of amazing flowers made by using fabric that melts so I decided to give it a go.  I’ve no idea what the fabric from the dresses was but I’m guessing it was a synthetic satin.  Obviously I needed fabric that melts and this did, so that was a relief!  I cut out circles of fabric, (they don’t need to be perfect as the process of melting changes the edges) some large and some smaller and held them close enough to a flame to melt the edges.  I stitched them together using whole circles to start with and then folding some in half to add bulk and finishing up with smaller circles on top.

I tried to find buttons to go in the centre that would look right with the flower, the bride was going to be wearing an ivory dress so I wanted something that would go with that.  But could I find a button that would do?  No, so I spoke to Louise and asked if there was any fabric from the brides dress available that I could use and she was able to get hold of some, it was really not much, just a strip, but it was enough to cut out the detail and sew into the middle.

So here are the finished flowers:

And I added alligator clips to the back so they could actually wear them in their hair:

I used one of my least favourite ways of fixing: hot glue.  I just prefer to stitch, I know it will stay fixed whereas with glue I’m never completely convinced.  Anyway the little bridesmaids looked gorgeous with these in the hair.

I’m ‘doing’ a session at next months Make, Do and Mend so if you fancy making one and don’t want to try at home then book in with Joe via the group page, but be quick there are only a few places left.  If you’re not local then just search on ‘how to make a fabric flowers by melting’ and you’ll find plenty of tutorials, hints and tips on how to do it.

I’d love to see any fabric flowers you make.