flowers: the sewing kind
Let’s bring back the happy shall we?
And our joint birthday karaoke extravaganza was happy. witness:
So you remember my random. weekend. rambling.?
And these teasers?
Notice anything in our birthday photos?
Yup! We had a little matching moment! Totally wedding inspired too.
A matching bow tie/hair flower. witness the awesome:
here was my original inspiration:
So you wanna make your own fabric flowers? It’s super easy!
You need:
fabric (2” x 42” cut on the bias or just use ribbon)
needle
thread
fabric cut into circles (i used my pepper grinder)
buttons, jewels or whatever you wanna put in the center
Here are my supplies:
I’ve been toting these vintage buttons around for years:
Ready to start:
- Iron or if you’re lazy like me steam a crease down the center of your fabric/ribbon
2. Trace a small circle onto some fabric and cut out. Pepper grinder size worked well. 
set aside for later.
3. Thread needle and leave attached to spool. How cute is my needle jar btw?
4. Use a very wide stitch (1 1/2”) to sew down the middle of your fabric/ribbon. Keep pulling more thread from your spool so that your fabric/ribbon lays flat. When you get to the end tie a knot.
5. You can cut the thread from the spool now, but leave yourself a long tail (6” or so) Just to be clear- the “tail” is at the end of the fabric/ribbon you started sewing. got it?
6. Grab the tail and pull so that your fabric/ribbon ruffles up. It looks like this.
7. Spread out your ruffles as wide or as close as you like. Now here’s the tricky part where I couldn’t get photos. Ugh. Starting at the “tail” end fold your fabric back along the ironed/steamed crease as you simultaneously shape it into a circle and tack it down to the little fabric circle. Continue to arrange it as you like and throw a bunch of stitches through to hold it in place.
8. Stitch or glue buttons onto center.
Crazy simple right? And you get these:
Crazy awesome!
This is definitely a project I want to adapt and use at our wedding. It’s quick. It’s easy. And it’s super cheap. Lots of visual bang for very little buck. Here are a few places you might see these little beauties at our wedding.
- in my hair
- in my ladies hair
- a whole bouquet? (pretty)
- around our milk glass centerpieces? (i did that for the above photo and i love it!)
Where else do you think we could use ‘em?
ps. sorry i don’t have any pics of making the actual seersucker combo. i worked late the day of our birthday party and had to cheat a little- i bought the bow tie and a matching skirt at American Apparel, and then cut the bottom 2 inches off the skirt to make my flower. Originally I was going to make both and so look for a DIY bow tie post in the future!
Eep! I love these all! It’s EXACTLY what I’m looking for in my fabric flowers (for bouquets, centerpieces, and the wedding party) Love the orange, love the blue-and-green, and love the brooches (flea market, here I come…)
So glad I took the time to stalk your entire blog and found these! Seriously–exactly the kind of fabric flowers I’ve been looking for. All I could find were the ruffled ones, but I wanted something crisper, almost like a prize ribbon. These are wonderful, and will probably end up as boutonnieres on our groomsmen and in my hair (burlap + linen + turquoise?).
Thanks!
ps–where did you get your needle jar?
Yay! They would make awesome boutonnieres! And you definitely had me at burlap/linen/turquoise! Just a heads up that I’m going to do a little redux of this post this weekend, b/c I’ve made so many now that I think I’ve figured out a few ways to make it easier/more clear than in my original post!
My needle jar was a gift, but I’m pretty sure it came from etsy…
Redux is perfectly timed. I won’t have access to my fabric stash until next week anyway, though I really should save these for later… I’ll need travel size projects for when I visit my sister in Japan for a month, and I should be working on my thesis rather than wedding stuff. Oh, finding the balance!
ps–thanks for the bridesmaid inspiration boards, as well. The light one was just what I’ve been looking for to send to my girls. Words only work so well to convey that sort of thing.