My daughter was just certain her Christmas dress needed a fancy flower at the waistline on the sash. It was a must. Thankfully I had a bit more of our formal dress left....just enough to create such a flower. (We repurposed a formal dress into her Christmas dress.) I'd seen many tutorials on creating a flower out of stacked circles, but wanted a bit more movement in this than the stacked circles could give. We didn't need to have perfect circles at all....wavy ones were the key...and much easier to cut and melt.
Materials:
Fabric that melts (not cotton) If you don't mind a frayed look cottons will do that for you, as you cannot use the flame on them. They catch fire!
Button (or a few beads strung together)
Hand sewing supplies
Scissors
Flame (lighter or candle) A candle may smoke and leave darkened areas. A lighter melts clean, but is harder to hold, imo.
Hair clip or pin
Directions:
I hope you can forgive me for not having step by step photos for this. I made the flower the night before the dress was needed and was in such a hurry I didn't photograph my work. I haven't had the chance to make another since Christmas and simply didn't want to wait any longer to share this tutorial with you. I don't think you'll need photos anyway. If you want clarification...just comment or email me.
1. Cut a group of circles of varying sizes. The circles should be wavy ones....the more movement the better the flower looks.
2. Using a flame (be careful), run the edge of each circle around the flame. The fabric will melt slightly as you move along. That's what you want. Melting it will seal the edges and prevent fraying as well as give your flower a nice little curl.
3. Stack the circles with the largest at the bottom to the smallest on the top.
4. Hand stitch them together in the center. Just a couple of stitches.
5. Stitch the button onto the center. Buttons can be expensive. A great place to find them is on thrifted clothing. Our favorite thrift store has .99 days occasionally. A garment may not be of interest, but the buttons may be a great buy. We usually end up using the fabric for something, though.
6. Stitch the clip or pin to the back.
My daughter was right. This flower pin is exactly what the dress needed. We can easily remove the pin for laundering. I hope you enjoy this variation of the stacked fabric flower as much as we have.
Happy Sewing!
Debbie @ SquigglyTwigs Designs
PS...we're only one follower away from 175...a Follow Me Giveaway is coming soon...keep watch for your chance to comment and win a pattern of your choice.
Also, we'll be introducing the Charlotte very soon! You'll want some Valentine fabric ready for this one...hint, hint!
Hi Debbie,
ReplyDeleteI am posting my own blog entry about melted flower embellishments and wanted to let you know that I included a link to this post.
My severely in need of an overhaul/upgrade blog post link is:
http://gypsythread.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-first-flower.html
If for any reason you wish for me to remove the link, just let me know and I will do so ASAP.
I just thought your variation was great and wanted to give my tiny handful of readers additional ideas when making these types of flowers.
Thanks so much!
Carey
Gypsy Thread