How to Make Fabric Flowers

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

One day, when working on a custom prom dress to benefit Teens Turning Green, Carol decided that it would be fun to make a corsage out of organic fabric and thus, the fabric flower was born. The flowers are great since you can make them out of scraps you have lying around and use them to pretty up gifts, make a flapper-ish headband, or whatever you want really. Their just plain crafty and she made a whole little how-to guide with a downloadable pattern and all so that you can make them too! Check it out.

1. Cut a strip of fabric that measures 14” long x 2” wide. Fold fabric in half & iron (folded edge will become edge of flower). – Click here to download the pattern

2. Run a stitch with a wide length (like 4) along the length of the fabric, 1/4” from the raw edge. Do not back-stitch and make sure to leave long thread ends for gathering.

3. Starting from one end, pull the top thread only to gather the fabric. You can adjust the gathers so that they are even along the fabric. When you’ve gathered about halfway, knot the end you started at and begin gathering from the other end. Gather to your liking!

4. You’ll want to double-fold the ends of the piece and stitch to keep the ends from unraveling. Then once you’ve arranged your flower how you want it, hand-stitch the layers down to each other. Cut a piece of shiny elastic (or whatever you want to use for the headband, if you’re making a headband) to about 35”, figure out the half-way point, and hand-stitch the flower down to the elastic. Then stitch the button down to the elastic and you’ll be all done!

Voila! Your done. If any of you lovely readers make these please send us your pics! I’d be really excited to see some other creations. Send them over to info@steawrtbrown.com.