Making flowers.. part one.. an adventure

So I'm planing on making some fabric flowers. Some for my dress, maybe stuff for other miscellany if they work.

There are loads and loads of tutorials on the net for this. After much reading, they all seem to bow down to this.

1. Cut out a basic flower shape from lots of fabric. 
2. Then, either:  
1. fold them into quarters and sew them together or,
2. sew them together in a stack
3. At this point you can :
1. Leave them as they are
2. Stack them with more to make it bigger
3. (If they are synthetic) burn the edges carefully until they curl.
4. Add a bead or diamante or pin to the centre to hide the stitching

Pretty much all of them come down to variants of this technique, and all those fabric flowers I've picked up largely use this as well (unless they are the 'real'  fake flowers, not fabric ones.)

So... I have a stack of fabric in a mix of colours (greys/whites/ pale green) and fabrics (synthetic and silk, chiffon and satin and duponi) bought on sale at Textile Traders. (yay for half price sales).

Step one. Iron them all. I didn't bother washing them because they should shrink cos they aren't getting washed later ;)

Step two... admire the pile of fabric.

Step three pick one and start cutting out the flowers. I'm using the basic Martha Stewart template because I am a detail oriented idiot on some things and the idea of a generic "flower" I draw freehand makes me uncomfortable. And the green chiffon because I got extra of that because there was a flaw, so the lady gave me extra for free :)

Stack them unevenly.

Decide there isn't enough and cut out another stack.

Pin through the stack.

Thread a needle and sew a little fold in one direction, then mush it and sew it the other way.

Turn over and marvel that these things cost so damn much in the shops.

Wedding shawl blocked and done.

Sooo glad I did 3 repeats of the centre and not 5!

I finished it!!

My shawl is done. I need to block it though and sadly it's too late now to do so :(

Can't go to sleep on a wet bed full of pins. Tomorrow night, however... :)

Pre-blocked sneak preview...

My daughter's clever...

Just remembered something worth sharing. We were discussing with a friend how we knew that not everyone will likely be able to come to our wedding, since its a destination wedding and therefore costs etc. and that we completed understood, etc.

She looks up from her game and comments, "Or maybe everyone will just come because they love you."

And goes back to her game.

I love my kid. :)

A little heart (unfelted)

Just before getting dumped into the washing machine with some towels. It's about 6cm across the widest part right now.

Things are ordered...

The Lady of Awesome's dress.
The Flowergirl of Cute's dress.
And my headpiece...

I love it. Very casual and bohemian and pretty.


Now if only those fabric samples would arrive!

Looking for the small-sized pretties... and some larger ones too...

So. My Lady of Awesome and I had a definite win this week.

I sent her a link to a bridesmaids dress site. This one. They have lots of nice dresses in a large range of colours and styles. And I would wear some as dresses. So (to me anyway) not bridesmaid of doom stuff.


So we're comparing notes, my LoA and me, and... we both independently picked out the same dress in the same fabric as a favourite. How awesome is that??

This dress (though in grey/white not pink/white).

I know I'm spoiling the surprise. If you want to be surprised so shouldn't be reading this blog. :-P
Probably paired with a sage green wrap, like these lovely ladies...

From somewhere on the interwebz, I know not where. But I copied it, because, 'Hey! my colour scheme!'

I was also sent this lovely dress but my mother-in-law to be..

Which is lovely. Apparently she and small munchkin spent some time looking at all the pretty dresses and this is one she liked. I told her I *might* knit her a cardigan to wear with it in green. She asked if it could be grey, (child 'o mine..) but I told her if it was green, she'd match the LoA.. and then we had much enthusastic nodding. :)

So now I am looking at girl's cardigan patterns .. and trying to decide if I can overdye my grey left over Kidsilk Haze a darker grey or green... I'm worried about it felting. It felts if you look at it sideways. Which I need for my gloves.. those striped ones I showed a while back. I did post those, didn't I?

Oh shawl at 78%.. At this rate it will be done 2 months early. Which is why I am even considering knitting a cardigan for the Miss. That extra hour knitting time on the bus each day makes a big difference!

Getting On with it....

Yay. Hello folks.

So this week.. Been very busy at home as I get sidetracked with making a baby blanket for a dear friend.

But I've mailed out half the save the date cards and the other half will get mailed tomorrow after I inadvertenly left the at home. Oops.

In other news, i have booked hairdresser and make up - but make up lady might have to cancel as she's taking holidays around then. Not sure what i am going to do then - I don't trust my own abilities in that area too well.

Oh! And we have awesome nice not-pushy photographer who is a friend of my sister in law, who happens to be a professional photographer :)

So I'm working on that to do list.

And please tell me you love my save the dates and make me happy :)