Making Fabric Flowers

The last two years have been nothing short of challenging, but many people have embraced the situation and found creative ways to occupy their time with crafting and gardening. Of course engaging in craft and gardening projects is also great therapy as well to help manage stress and stay healthy.

New crafters and diehards alike are now interacting more than they likely would have in person prior to the pandemic via special interest groups on social media platforms like Facebook to share ideas and inspiration and ask for tips and advice. A post in one of those groups I read this morning had me thinking of an article I'd published a while back on teaching children to sew. This led to my looking for said article and looking at all the salvaged pieces still waiting to see the light of day, and here we are. 

The following article was previously epublished in May of 2013 on a platform that did not include images.

Create Beautiful all Occasion Fabric Flowers

Fabric flowers are lovely to give and receive and just like their fresh, natural counterparts, can serve for almost any occasion when chosen carefully.  There are many ways to make fabric flowers, but for the finished flower to be suitable for any occasion the key is to stick to flowers that are not associated with specific events such as funerals.

Another thing to keep in mind when creating all-occasion fabric flowers is color. Roses are a prime example of flowers that can have different suitability based on their hue. If you really want to go all out, you can make your fabric flowers based on perennial growers that bloom year-round.

One great all occasion flower which is easy to make in fabric is roses. There are two ways of making fabric roses; one method involves making individual petals, and the other uses one long piece of fabric wound around a central base.

Of course you can avoid flower type casting all together and stick to craft flowers that do not necessarily resemble any known bloom found in nature.  These all-occasion flowers can be made of any fabric and in any color, though if they are meant to be worn as accessories, it is probably better to use fabric in solid colors rather than prints that may clash with an outfit.

Make your fabric flowers from scraps, remnants, old T-shirts or other clothing, old scarves or bandanas, ribbon, or fabric trim such as ric rack. Depending on the type of flower you create, you’ll need scissors, a product that prevents fraying, floral tape, wire, buttons, needles, and thread.

For a unique fabric flower that can also be functional, you can make fabric roses from folded handkerchiefs or towels to give as gifts. These can be presented on a variety of different occasions from birthdays to bridal showers. You could also fold a silk scarf into a unique fabric flower by following an origami diagram.

Generic fabric flower how-to

Did you ever made tissue flowers from stacking squares of paper when you were a kid? You can use the same technique to create pretty all-occasion flowers in solid or multi-colors. Use pinking shears to cut squares of fabric that are five by five inches. If you don’t have pinking shears you will need a product to prevent fraying to use on the fabric’s edges. You could also use a serger on the edges or just leave them be to fray as they may over time.

Stack three to five squares one on top of the other with the “right” side of the fabric face up. Next, carefully accordion fold the fabric (ever make a paper fan as a kid?) taking care to smooth out the fabric with each new fold. Be sure lift and turn the fabric with each fold so that it doesn’t bunch up. Once it’s folded, hold the folds in place with a clothespin, bag clip, or extra-large pin.

Depending on how your fabric flowers will be used, you can secure the folds in the center with tied string, thread stitching (baste and gather), or floral wire. While it’s tempting to use a rubber band, over time rubber bands can become gummy or even break.

Once the middle has been secured, fan out the folds so that you almost flatten the pleats. Slowly peel back the top layer of fabric, carefully pulling it towards the center. Repeat for each layer of fabric until you get to the bottom of the flower which you will pull downward slightly.

If you secured the center of the flower with floral wire, you may want to cover it now with floral tape. If the fabric flower is to be used for a nosegay or boutonniere you can save this step for later. If you decided to sew or tie the center to secure the flower, you can now attach it to a pin back, barrette, headband, hat, or whatever you like. 

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UPDATE: This was a simple how-to article created for a now defunct web site that shared it's ad revenues with content creators. At the time there were no images included with the articles. If you are a visual person and would like to see images of flowers you can make from fabric as well as see instructions, I have a number of links bookmarked to Pinterest. You can find them here: Flower Crafts

Note that as I update boards (organizing into folders didn't exist back in the day) some pins may move. 

Why Children Should Be Taught To Sew

Just a recently there was an NPR broadcast on the president's daughter taking a "gap year" and the whole gap year program and how it got started. A mother stated that her kids were about to go off to college and she felt they were lacking in important life skills. Well, my thought was that teaching of life skills begins at home, but...

Once upon a time life skills were a given. You did chores at home, by the time you got to junior high school if you were a boy, you took shop class. If you were a girl you took Home Ec and learned to cook and sew (if you didn't already know how).

The article below, previously published in April of 2009 on a now defunct web site, starts off with a an account of another mother, this time with her daughter-in-law, addressing a very important life skill - sewing. There are a number of reasons why children should be taught to sew, and as I have addressed the most important of them below, I'll just add that today I'm no longer teaching and I spend a lot of time interacting with adults, young and not so young, who often leave me shaking my head in disdain. Life skills and literacy are disappearing rapidly and it's pretty sad.

Sewing is not a lost art, as some have claimed. If that were so, we'd all be naked. It's not a quaint, old-fashioned handicraft. It's an important life skill that everyone should be able to do, male or female, at least on a basic level.

Without further ado...

Why to Teach Children Sewing Techniques

I teach enrichment classes part time at a K-8 charter school. Last year the school's business manager stopped me in the hall one afternoon and said she had thought of me over the weekend. Her daughter-in-law been about to discard a throw pillow because of a ripped seam. She said she had taken the young woman by the hand and led her over to the sewing machine and taught her how to repair it, marveling at how it almost ended up in the trash.

Once upon a time sewing was considered a valuable life skill that was actually taught in schools. Thankfully that time is slowly starting to return to classrooms everywhere. My second grade students were thrilled at the opportunity to learn to sew as it meant they could potentially make all sorts of things, including their own unique clothing. A few were even dreaming of sewing up items to sell to make money!

It is an easy thing to teach children to sew and can be incorporated into math lesson plans. Before we started I gave my students a sheet of white copy paper and ruler and instructed them to draw lines that were one inch a part. I then gave them each a needle and colored thread so they could practice stitching in a straight line.

Next came the fabric some rectangular bits of upholstery fabric someone had given me that I really had no other use for. I never said what they were making and they all enjoyed trying to guess. They were shown how to pin the pieces together and then make a basic seam leaving a slight allowance. Almost all of them had to go over their seams a second time to reinforce them because their stitches were uneven and usually too long. Before long they had pinned and stitched three and one half sides of their rectangles at which time we cut up Mardi Gras beads to use as filler for the bean, that is bead, bags.

I ended class a little early so they could take their bags outside and toss them around. They learned the basics of a valuable skill that will serve them throughout the rest of their lives and experienced an increased feeling of self esteem and pride at their accomplishments.

Learning to sew by hand improves hand eye coordination and gives children a marketable skill they can potentially turn into income. It is a great hobby that allows them to create their own gifts and it gives them another avenue for self-expression as they begin to embellish and create their own clothing and accessories. Later, learning to sew with a machine takes all those other things to the next level where they can create more sophisticated projects.