Last year for spring I made a bouquet of fabric flowers for my mantelpiece, out of old-fashioned calicoes in soft colors. As much as I liked the fabric, however (I love calicoes), I wasn't pleased with the results -- they just didn't fit with the quilt I have over the mantel, or the decor (such as it is) in the room. I ended up giving away most of the flowers, keeping a couple for myself:
This spring I decided to try again, using lots of bright colors. Unfortunately, summer classes, a change in Beadboy1's schedule, houseguests, and heatwave after heatwave all conspired to keep me from any major crafting until August. So the flowers are a bit out of season.
Origami Lily:
This pattern came from Denise Taylor's quilt in the Summer 2007 issue of
A Needle Pulling Thread. Basically, I sandwiched fusible web between two squares of fabric, folded it, and stitched it in a few places to hold the shape. The web made it hard to sew through all the layers, so next time I will look for a lighter-weight web. Not sewing it wrong the first time will also help.
Fickle Flowers:
This is
Diana Taylor's pattern from the March/April 2009 issue of
Quilting Arts Magazine. I sewed a very narrow tube from a strip of pieced fabric, turned it right-side-out, and inserted paper-covered floral wire, which allows me to bend the tube into any flower shape I want. By far the worst part of this process was turning out such a skinny tube, and it didn't help that instead of using a gadget designed for this sort of thing (because then I'd have to buy one), I used combinations of pins, plastic threaders, chopsticks, thread, and wooden skewers. I like the finished product, however.
Ruched Fabric Flowers:
This idea came from D'Arcy-Jean Milne's
Fabric Leftovers (a book full of great ideas). I started with more tubes. Fortunately, these were wider than the previous ones, but my jury-rigging turners rather than just buying the proper tools led to one tube taking 15 minutes to turn and the other only 2. (Do I remember what I did with the one that was so much faster? Of course not.) I sewed a running stitch down the length in a zigzag pattern, pulled the thread gather (ruche) it, and formed flower shapes. The first one I did in a spiral and put a big button in the center. For the second, I used the ruching to form a circle instead, and added a yo-yo and a button.
Petal Flower:
This was also from
Fabric Leftovers. I folded squares into triangles and ran a thread through the bottom (hypotenuse) of five to form a circle. For the outer row of petals I only folded the squares once, making larger triangles with unfinished edges. Yet another button completed it (I love buttons).
Felt Flower:
This was the easiest -- flower shapes cut free-hand out of felt and sewn together with a button (did I mention I like buttons? Ooh, I should make button flowers). The basic idea came from
American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, which used fabric fused onto cardstock.
The bouquet so far:
I still have a few more types of flowers to make, but I have to get the appropriate supplies.
also has instructions for making flowers from scraps of jersey. I'm almost finished with another skirt, and couldn't resist making a couple of blooms from the burgundy knit:
I used red and black silk, with two yellow buttons on either side to hold the flower in place on the wire. (The picture is blurry; sadly, the best photo of the batch, and I'm too tired to keep trying.) (Perhaps that's why it was blurry.)
I think I might have some lime green rickrack, too.
The technique, such as it is, also comes from the Fabric Leftovers book -- I strung two to three buttons on floral wire.
This technique was quite a bit more complicated, and required me buying aluminum mesh of the type often used in making three-dimensional objects (I have a lot left over, so I'll be playing around with it some more). I cut a strip of the mesh and layered it onto batting and a wider strip of fabric, then glued and pressed the fabric around to cover the back. To finish it I quilted it in contrasting thread, a zigzag pattern for one flower and a scribble for the other. The last step was just manipulating the strip into a flower shape, a simple spiral for one and a pleated circle for the other. Ms. Nuñez used beads, buttons, and one bottle cap for the centers. I broke away from my button obsession to use only bottle caps for my flower centers (I also have a bottle cap obsession, enabled by Mr. Beadgirl's taste for a wide variety of beer). For the stems I cut lengths of heavy, covered floral tape, created a small spiral at one end, and glued the spiral to the inside of the caps.
This pattern came from Denise Taylor's quilt in the Summer 2007 issue of A Needle Pulling Thread. Basically, I sandwiched fusible web between two squares of fabric, folded it, and stitched it in a few places to hold the shape. The web made it hard to sew through all the layers, so next time I will look for a lighter-weight web. Not sewing it wrong the first time will also help.
This is Diana Taylor's pattern from the March/April 2009 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I sewed a very narrow tube from a strip of pieced fabric, turned it right-side-out, and inserted paper-covered floral wire, which allows me to bend the tube into any flower shape I want. By far the worst part of this process was turning out such a skinny tube, and it didn't help that instead of using a gadget designed for this sort of thing (because then I'd have to buy one), I used combinations of pins, plastic threaders, chopsticks, thread, and wooden skewers. I like the finished product, however.
This idea came from D'Arcy-Jean Milne's Fabric Leftovers (a book full of great ideas). I started with more tubes. Fortunately, these were wider than the previous ones, but my jury-rigging turners rather than just buying the proper tools led to one tube taking 15 minutes to turn and the other only 2. (Do I remember what I did with the one that was so much faster? Of course not.) I sewed a running stitch down the length in a zigzag pattern, pulled the thread gather (ruche) it, and formed flower shapes. The first one I did in a spiral and put a big button in the center. For the second, I used the ruching to form a circle instead, and added a yo-yo and a button.
This was also from Fabric Leftovers. I folded squares into triangles and ran a thread through the bottom (hypotenuse) of five to form a circle. For the outer row of petals I only folded the squares once, making larger triangles with unfinished edges. Yet another button completed it (I love buttons).
This was the easiest -- flower shapes cut free-hand out of felt and sewn together with a button (did I mention I like buttons? Ooh, I should make button flowers). The basic idea came from American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, which used fabric fused onto cardstock.
I still have a few more types of flowers to make, but I have to get the appropriate supplies.
