"Smalls" Saturday: Fabric Flower Tutorial

I had a request recently to remake a dated grapevine wreath.  The wreath was a nice size, but covered in plastic flowers.  My client wanted something she could keep on her door (or maybe even above her mantle) year-round.

So she pulled all the flowers off of it and brought it to me.  The structure of it was breaking down in parts, but I found a design idea that would look great and give it the farmhouse look that she was after, simply by wrapping the weakened areas in twine and adding some fabric flowers.

So here's my tutorial for the rosettes.  I used both burlap and a cotton linen type of fabric. I had both lying around the house already.

1) Cut a strip of fabric.  If using burlap, make it easier on your eyes - and minimize unravelling - by pulling a thread of burlap out along the line of where you'll be cutting.  Do this by making a cut on either side of the thread you want to pull, then take the thread with your fingers and give it a slow, gentle pull, bunching the fabric as you go, till the thread comes out.  This will leave you with a "channel" to cut along.

The size of the strip of your fabric depends on the size you want your roses.  I wanted larger-sized ones, so I cut most of mine about 18" x 3".  The width will determine the height of your flower top to bottom.  The length will determine the diameter of your flower.

2) Fold your strip of fabric in half lengthwise.

3) Fold one corner down.  Then fold it again and secure with a drop of hot glue.

 4) Now time to start the roll.  This is where things can get a little confusing.  I checked a lot of tutorials before I tried this.  All do a "twist", but some twist inward towards the center of the flower, and some twist outward.  The part that was always confusing to me was how much to wrap before the next twist?  It was never clear to me.  So I just used my best judgement and soldiered through, swatting down my lack of self-confidence as I twisted and wrapped.  And it was all just fine.  I guess if I had to put words to it, I would say I twisted the fabric back, and wrapped to the point where I'd gotten past the twisted part, then twisted again.

It helps to hold the center of the flower between your thumb and forefinger as you wrap.  It keeps the shape from getting out of control.  Which it will do.  Don't turn your back on it.

5) The flap.  When you're down to about an inch or an inch and a half of fabric left, twist one more time and fold to the bottom of the flower.  Glue it down.  Glue it down good.  And while you're at it, dab a little glue here, a little glue there in the nooks and crannies.  Like perfume. Like perfume that strips the skin cells off your fingertips.

6) The leaves.  Leaves are completely optional, but I happened to have some green burlap, so I decided leaves would be nice.  If I hadn't had any green burlap, I do believe laziness would have won the battle and I would have gone without.  But that's neither here nor there.  The lesson here is to always keep a small stash of green burlap in case you want to make leaves and not beat yourself up over being lazy.  Because you don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

So all you need to do here is cut a mustache  out of your green burlap.  Yes, that's right.  Cut a mustache and then glue it down with some more infernal hot glue.

7) Attach the flowers to the wreath.  I placed the rosettes on the wreath, moving them around till I was pleased with their placement.  Then, and ONLY then, did I glue them down.

The twine that I placed, as I said, served a dual purpose.  It added a nice touch, some texture, but also literally held this aged wreath together.  I think it brings a balance to it.  Some masculine to the feminine.  Due to the larger size of the wreath, I actually used rope, not twine.

And there you have it.  Pretty as a picture and easy-peasy to boot.  What could be better than that?


Thanks for stopping by! I hope you found this helpful.

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