Say It With Flowers - A Fabric Flower Tutorial

I love colour! Bold and bright is brash but beautiful as far as I am concerned. When it comes to doing colour with a flourish Mother Nature knows best. Just over a month ago we went for a family walk through Windsor Great Park - this is our regular stomping ground being near to where we live, but in late Spring we head over to an area know as "The Punchbowl" so that I can marvel at the blanket of colour made by the stunning Azaleas and Rhododendrons.

These pictures don't do justice to the vibrancy of the blooms but they give an idea of the stunning colour on show. They are the inspiration for my brightly coloured fabric flower. Simple and fun to sew they would make brilliant teachers gifts at the end of the school year. Here is how you make them:

You will need:

5 fabric flower shapes in lovely bright colours, (these were approx 8cmx8cm), 1 small fabric circle (3cm in Diameter), 1 button, 2 x felt leaves (approx 6cm in lenght), thread.
The fabric shapes were all cut with pinking shears to minimise fraying.

Step 1:

Take one of the flower shapes and fold in half.

Step 2

Fold again to make a quarter

Step 3

Pin the quarter flower on top of one of the other flower shapes positioning it so that it covers one quarter of the shape. 

Secure with a few stitches approx 1cm from the folded corner point along both the horizontal and vertical edges - make sure you sew through all of the layers of the folded fabric flower.

Step 4

Repeat step three a further three times until the base flower shape has been covered by 4 of the folded flowers, securing with stitches at the centre as you go.

Step 5

Sew the fabric circle in the centre to cover your stitches and secure it with a couple of stitches.

Step 6

Sew the button on top and your flower is complete.

Step 7 

The felt leaves are of course optional but do give a lovely finishing touch. These are simply sewn on to the back of the base flower shape with just a few stitches near the centre.

These easy to make flowers are fabulous as corsages (just sew a brroch pin on the back), or as hair decorations - sew on to a hairband. Here's what I did with mine:

I sewed it on to some green backing fabric and framed it in an old Ikea frame that has been sitting in a box of frames in my work room for ages. It now takes pride of place on my wall bringing a lovely splash of Summer colour indoors.