Summer Flower Tutorial – Grow Your Own Hybrid in 5 Minutes…

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Fabric flowers are one my favorite accessories. Put a flower on a t-shirt and voila, you’re ready to go out. Put one on a paper package or head band and it adds instant zing.

One day, while gathering fabric strips, I thought: “Wouldn’t these look interesting together?” I experimented, but wasn’t sure which combination would work best. They all looked great.  Then … ding, ding, ding…. I had it! They could be layered without being permanently fixed by using a button construction and elastic thread to make “flower petals”. Infinitely customizable.
One button, lots of “petals”, lots of flowers and no time….A perfect combination!

WHAT YOU NEED:
- fabric bits (cut on a bias into strips 0.5″ to 1.5″ inches wide, approx. 12″ long)
- buttons
- button hole thread
- thin elastic thread
- scrap of felt (1.5. inches diameter)
- scissors/rotary cutter
- needles
- safety pin

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Cut a piece of felt into a circle of 1.5 inches. Next step is to cut some fabric strips (0.5-1.5″ wide, 12″ long). Gather the strips like in the image below with a running stitch. Here’s the trick. Gather the strips with very thin elastic thread, and tie them close, but not too tight, so they can be pulled over the button.  They end up looking a bit like scrunchies or a fabric yoyo.

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Sew a button onto the felt piece. This will hold the “scrunchies” in place when you assemble the flower. Make sure to leave some space between the button and the felt piece, so the button can hold more than one gathered piece. You can layer the fabric rounds and make the flower as simple or complex as you want.

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Sew a safety pin on the bottom of the felt and you’re done. You can wear your pin with either one or two or more layers of gathered fabric circles. Did I mention that making one of these takes 5 minutes?

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You can use strips of lace, recycled T-Shirt strips, burlap, liberty fabric, silk, ribbons, anything really. The thinner the fabric the easier it will gather, but experiment by all means.

They would definitely make a beautiful gift when you put the pin in a box with several little gathered strips for assembling and customizing. Put them on a hat. They’d make nice wedding favors. Little girl’s goody bags. Velvet ribbon ones for winter. Use them on a head band, bags, gloves, or wear them around your neck.

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But, I’m sure you have a million ideas yourselves……

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