Ok, so this first post is going to be about my attempt at making fabric flowers. ( I wont even describe what happened last time I tried making flowers... lets just say that what was meant to be a pretty paper flower turned into a rather odd shaped pine cone on a stick. *shakes head sadly*) So, these fabric flowers, of which I found some tutorials on pintrest (LOVE the DIY boards there just so you know) looked at first as though they would be a bit of a bust.... the first two I tried.... well.... yah. Messy and not at ALL what I wanted all truth be told. See for yourself!
As you can see from these pictures, I tried a rosette out of lace and... well though not a complete disaster, I was rather disappointed. Lace is SO HARD to work with while making these flowers. I had to redo the rosette several times and sewing it together was a NIGHTMARE! Now, I am doing this by hand, and I am not particularly experienced in sewing, but the lace flopped, bunched, and bent in all sorts of freaky manners. I ended up using TONS of thread trying to make it work. However, the result was a skewed and rough version of what I was going for. By the time I finished it, I was sorta discouraged with the rosette idea, so I decided to try something else.
The next one, I can honestly say, is much MUCH worse than the lace rosette. I made the bottom out of a strip of regular fabric which I sewed a line of thread through loosely, pulled together into a circle, and sewed the ends together. That actually worked really nicely... but then I decided to add lace... and it went rather downhill from there. The lace color worked with the bottom layer, however using the same tactic as the bottom piece yielded vastly different results. the lace was, again, difficult to work with, bunching in odd ways and proving difficult to sew together.Once I wrestled it into a semi-workable shape and sewed it onto the bottom piece... I realized I wasn't really sure what to do with it.
I should have just stopped there till I had a better idea, but me being me, of course I didn't. I pulled out a length of ribbon and decided to use that. After trying a few ways of making it look fancy, I just ended up tying it in a bow and sewing it on top with a button to try to make it look a little better... it didn't. I was frustrated with it, so I ended up sewing it very messily and it turned out looking like Sunday school craft.
I would have stopped there, dejected and pouting cause my flowers didn't turn out how I wanted them, however I was still in the sewing mood the next evening, so I tried again, and this time it resulted in these!
I loved how these turned out! I even made a headband, as you can see in the pictures above. So the trick about these rosettes, let me tell you, is actually to make sure the fabric is thicker! I took a wide and long strip of fabric, folded it in half, and did the rosette pattern and it turned out wonderful! Sewing them together was still a bit of a challenge at first, I think it's something you just need to get the hang of with practice. They turned out so nicely that I got excited and, as you can see, made allot. Hehe. Ok, so with the headband, I sewed the flower and buttons to a separate piece of the same fabric as the base, and sewed the buttons on.(which took forever!) It looked a little plain to me, so I added a bit of the lace that I had, and it worked really well this time! I did, however run into these issues.
1. For the actual headband part of the headband, I used a fabric that was not very cooperative and I had some difficulties figuring out how to make it to fit on the head while not using stretchy material. Because the weave of the fabric was so loose, it kept coming out before I could hem it, and I was scared to make it into the base for the headband, however I took the fabric from an old curtain, so it was already hemmed and made into a tube. I took this, and cut a length that fit around my head.
2. Once I had that though, I realized it wasn't stretchy enough to be a headband that would fit well on a head and support the weight of the flower and buttons(which was also a concern for me) at the same time. So after a little thinking I figured out that since it was already in the shape of a tube, I could just run a length of ribbon through the fabric, and sew it together. To get the ribbon through the tube, I attached the ribbon to a long length of thread and ran the needle and thread through the gap and simply pulled the ribbon through it. Worked GREAT! (Note, this would probably work well for those hoodie strings that always seem to be pulled out. I don't know about you, but that drives me crazy!)
I was nervous that the weight of the flower and the buttons would drag the headband down, however it seems to work perfectly fine and the whole thing looks kinda cute!
Here are links to the tutorials I used to make the flowers in case you want to try them out.
http://pinterest.com/pin/321866704588643535/
http://thedecoratedhouse.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-make-fabric-flower-rosette-step.html
http://thedecoratedhouse.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-make-fabric-flowers-continued.html
So thus far that is how my flower experiences have gone. I've always wanted to know how to make them, so it made me very happy when they worked! My newest project is making a skirt out of a man's dress shirt.
http://pinterest.com/pin/321866704588590580/
So far I have only removed the sleeves, but I'll be sure to write how it goes once I finish it. :) Hope you enjoyed this and have a WONDERFUL day!
Angie
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