Friday, December 23, 2011

Fabric Flower Tutorial - Repurposing a Knit Dress

It's the holidays... YAY!!! Time to celebrate! Well, I thought I'd get in one small craft project done before we start the new year. I was looking for some cute headbands a few days ago that my girls could wear to church services and kept finding pricetags like $25 for the ones that I liked. Wha???? I need 2 of them and don't want to spend $50 so I passed thinking I can make my own. This is similar to THIS project I had done earlier in the year but with some variations. There are so many ways to make flowers!

**Supplies**
Knit fabric - use new knit fabric or find something that's stained or just heading to Goodwill that you can repurpose
**you can certainly use a woven cotton for this project as well**
disappearing ink pen or something you can use to trace onto your fabric
Felt
Hot Glue or Fabric glue
Headband or clip


I started by finding some things that are in my donate pile. Surely everyone has this pile of stuff that is heading out the door! I've come to look at this pile in a whole new light. I had 2 knit dresses that well...I was just tired of, they weren't getting worn anymore so they were heading to Goodwill. It was time for them to go until it dawned on me that they are made of some great knit I could repurpose into something else. One was black so that was perfect for what I wanted to make. The great thing about using knit fabric is that it doesn't fray like a woven cotton and I love a project where the edges look pretty right out of the gate!
***For best results, use some knit that has some umpf to it. Many tees are very thin intended for layering so my suggestion is to use a knit that isn't paper thin so you don't end up with this flat and no life to it flower:-)***


I started by drawing a template onto cardstock. The beauty of this project is nothing is hingeing on exactness! I cut out a circle about 3 1/4" and then I just sketched 5 fat petals and cut the circle into a flower. Mine isn't perfect but it was spaced out well enough for me. I went ahead and traced and scanned mine if it just makes things easier for you! I put 2 sizes on here but modify as you need. The smaller one is the size I made shown in these photos. You can download it HERE.


Now take your template, trace (this is a PAIN on black since it makes my trace lines hard to see but any other color should be simple) I used a disappearing ink pen, traced and cut out. I stacked my fabric and did 3 at a time. You will need 9 cutouts in total. Don't worry if they aren't all exactly the same. Just get the general shape cut and trim off any areas around the curves that might look more angular.


Now cut out a circular 3 inch felt piece and this will be the backing of our flower.


Take one of your knit cutouts and we are going to start making the petals. Start by folding them in half and then in half again. I like to dab a bit of glue at the bottom so it wants to stay together and then I glue it onto the felt placing the point in the center.


Here are my 4 petals shown glued down for the first layer.


Next you'll do another layer doing the same exact thing except this time you will pivot the petals 45 degrees so that you are covering up any gaps that you can see down into the first layer. By doing this you get more dimension as well as cover up the felt backing entirely.


Next you'll add your rosebud center. Take the last piece and instead of doing it like the others, fold it in half and then just roll it up into a rosebud. Add a dab of glue so that it stays put. Now trim off the end so that it has a base instead of a point. Put a good sized bit of glue into the centerr of your flower and push the rosebud straight down into place and let that all set.


Once that has dried, add a dab of glue to all of the petals from that 2nd layer towards the center where the rosebud is and pull them up gluing them to the rosebud. Your flower needs some fullness and dimension so this is just giving those petals a lift so they don't lay flat. Here is your finished flower! Turn your flower over and trim the felt on the bottom making a smaller circle so that you can't see it when worn,


I added mine to a stretchy headband but you could also do a clip or even a pin if you wanted to accent a piece of clothing, purse etc. Hot glue the headband down onto your felt and then another piece of felt on top of the headband. These flowers would even look cute on military hat. Just get your hot glue gun and add it on.


And here you go...my happy recipient wearing her headband!

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