Tutorial: Felt or Fabric Flowers

                                                                  

Fabric

Felt

This is an extremely easy project. It requires no sewing and the resulting flowers can be used as napkin rings (they have a loop of fabric in the back as a natural part of construction), hair clips, embellishment on clothing or bags, or whatever else you might think of. The felt flowers are actually a children's project. The fabric flowers are just as easy, but require stiffening the fabric first. 

1. For felt flowers, you need two squares of felt about 3" square. (The size of the squares will determine the size of the flower.) I used yellow, but green would be more appropriate as that square represents the leaves. You also need a rectangle of felt. The longer the rectangle, the bigger the loop in the back of the flower. If you want your flower as a hair clip or embellishment, make the rectangle about twice as long as the square. If you want a napkin ring, you need it a little longer. 

2. Cut the green (yellow) square into leaf shapes by folding in half and then in half again and cutting the open ends into pointed leaf shapes. Make rounded petal shapes from the pink square in the same way. The rectangle should resemble a dog bone! You don't have to be perfect with this. Just don't cut too deeply into the center. If cutting these shapes intimidates you, you could use a cookie cutter to trace around, but I think you'll find it very forgiving.

3. Cut a very small slit in the center of the small petal and leaf sets.

4. Fold the "dog bone" shape in half and compress the middle enough to insert into the slit of the pink petal.

5. Pull it through (the slit should be small enough that it is a tight fit) until the petals gather up a little.

6. Next pull it through the leaf set.

7. Adjust the petals. You will find that there is a very small loop on the back formed by the center of the "dog bone" shape. If you want this loop to be bigger, just make the shape longer. The ones I made are big enough to put a hair clip through . These are simple enough for a child to make. 

8. To make these flowers out of fabric, you need to stiffen the fabric first. You can use undiluted liquid starch (soak the fabric, let it dry, and then press) as I did, or you can stiffen it with glue or a clear medium such as Mod Podge. I also found that you need to put more layers of petals (I used 3 - one larger than the other two) to give it more body. I used two different fabrics here, but you can use the colors you want. Scraps are perfect! The construction method is the same.