Thursday, March 31, 2011

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.

1 comment:

  1. I prefer your Step 2 best... The cutting out would drive me *nuts*!

    I bow to your superior patience and zen approach to life. Cutting complicated shapes out of slippery fabrics is so fiddly.

    The result is very good. How many are you planning to make?

    BTW, I read the zen-mothering book you recommended and have reached the conclusion that I am just not there, not nearly there, and so not there that the thought of even going there freaks me out.

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