Once upon a time I was a bridesmaid in a wedding and the bride decided that all the bridesmaids would carry bouquets just like the one you see here.
All the flowers were made of wood.
Have no idea where the bride got the flowers from, and although she told me, my baby girl was five weeks old when I was a bridesmaid and I have no idea of a lot of things that happened at the end of 2010. Even now I find a lot of toys and clothes that were given to us and have no idea where they came from.
Anyway.
In keeping with my Martha Stewart theme, and because I was quoted $210 for a bridal bouquet, I am flirting with the idea of making a bouquet of flowers out of fabric. I am thinking of doing this for a lot of reasons, such as saving money, getting the exact colour that I want, being able to keep my wedding flowers, saving money etc.
I was looking around the internet and I've found a lot of tutorials telling me how to make flowers out of any conceivable material - paper, cloth, leather, metal, cling wrap, old chip packets*, anything and everything.
So I am going to try out a few tutorials to see if the flowers that I produce actually look realistic (as this is a big factor for me) and whether they are easy to make, because while I love to craft, I also don't have enough time to spend a full day to make a single flower.
So the first tutorial that I came across was over at
ehow, and it was a tutorial to make flowers that look like roses or camellias. I am a fan of both type of flower, so I had a go. I am going to copy the instructions here after I've translated into Australian-ese, but the original tutorial is
here in all it's imperial glory. I've added pictures that I have taken as the original tutorial didn't have images.
How To Make Fabric Flowers
Ingredients:
scraps of fabric, scissors, thread, hand-sewing needle, button (optional), fray-check (optional)
Method:
1. Cut two 10x10cm squares of fabric, two 7.5x7.5cm squares of fabric and two 5x5cm squares of fabric.
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| As you can see, my squares are not 'square'. Straightness of sides will not matter. |
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2. Fold each square of fabric in half, then fold it in half again.
NOTE: I did not take a photo of the folded squares. However, you want the squares to be folded into a rectangle and then into a square.
Why didn't I take a photo of this??
3. Trim the unfolded edges of the
fabric into a scalloped shape. (The scallops don't have to be perfectly
even to make a nice flower shape.)
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| The wonky sides on the squares get trimmed off here. It doesn't matter how unevern you cut the scallops (which as far as I can tell is a half circle, half square shape, the shape of a guitar pick), as petals are not all identical in nature. |
4. Unfold the fabric, then cut
slits between the scallops toward the center of the flower, without
cutting the petals all the way apart. These slits will make it easier to
fluff out the petals and make the flower more three-dimensional.
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| The scallop unfolded |
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| I cut each slit to be about half the width of the narrowest part of the scallop. Not sure if it was too much or too little. |
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5. Place the two large flower
pieces on top of each other. Pull the petals of the lower flower up
through the slits between the upper petals, to make the flower petals
fluffier.
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| Any the wiser of what it's meant to look like? Me neither. But you can see that this red shape has at least seven roundy petal bits. I angled the petals so they overlapped. |
6. Repeat step 5 with the pair of medium flower petals, and the pair of small flower petals.
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| All of the petals paired up and ready to be assembled into a beautiful camellia/rose. |
7. Stack the flower petal pairs on
top of each other, with the largest petals on the bottom and the
smallest petals on the top. Make sure the petal pairs are centered.
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| Stacked and ready to go. |
8. Stitch the layers of the flower
together through the center, using a few small hand stitches. Add a
button to the center of the flower if you wish.
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| I used blue thread for contrast and used about six stitches to secure the petals together. Then I wrapped the rest of the thread around the bottom of the flower to make the petals bunch together and look more realistic. |
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| The finished flower. I didn't add a button this time, but perhaps next time I will. |
Epilogue:
I confess, this time I cut my squares the wrong size which threw the flower out of whack. Instead of two squares each of 10cm, 7.5cm and 5cm, I cut the largest at 12.5cm (5 inches), and didn't cut the smallest square as specified in the tutorial. This was due to me wanting to make this flower before going out for a walk with my housemates. If I was to do this again, I'd follow the instructions more carefully.
I do like these flowers, and I am not intending for everyone at the wedding to go 'ZOMG! Those are not real flowers?' but I also want them to look semi-real.
So what do you think people - do these flowers look OK?
*OK, didn't find a tutorial for making flowers out of chip packets, but I am sure I could find one if I really tried hard.
