Gathered Flower Tutorial

My new obsession is making flowers with ribbon and fabric (as I'm sure my hubby can attest as he wades through mountains of material, beads, and glue sticks...).  I've been so inspired by all the great tutorials I've seen online, and now I've come up with one of my own that I'd like to share with you!  I think this method is great because it is easy to do and you can come up with all kinds of looks depending on the material you use.  For this one I used some super light-weight material that I found at DI (our local thrift store) -- a huge amount of this and the blue stuffed into a ziploc bag for $1.  Can't beat that!

Gathered Flower Tutorial

Materials needed:

• A long piece of fabric or ribbon (satin or anything similar – anything that will melt or “scrunch” when heat is applied)  (Mine is about 45”) 
• Needle and matching thread
• Felt circle the size you’d like your finished flower to be.  (This one is about 3”) 
• Glue gun 
• Heat gun or candle
• Embellishment for the middle of the flower (optional -- I had this pretty little angel button in mind, but by the time I finished I decided I liked this one better without)

Step 1

Heat edges of your fabric or ribbon so that it begins to curl and scrunch.  Don’t go too far, but you want it to have an interesting texture.  If your fabric or ribbon already has an interesting texture, feel free to skip this step!  If you don't have a heat gun, you could also just run it over a candle flame.

Step 2

Sew a straight basting stitch down the center of your fabric and gather as you go along.

Step 3

Fold the fabric in half so that the stitch is now the bottom (kind of in a V-shape – only the part you’re holding will stay folded, so don’t worry about the rest right now).  Stitch that to the center of your felt circle.

Step 4

Put a bead of hot glue around the center of your flower, where you’ve tacked down the beginning of your fabric.  Folding the fabric in half as you go (so you get that V shape), press the stitched line into the hot glue.  Continue to spiral around the center in 1-2” increments until you’ve glued down your whole length.

 

Step 5

Finish however you like – I like to add both a pin back and an alligator clip back so I can use it however I feel like, but you could also add it directly to a pillow, a headband, or whatever you’re accessorizing!

 

You're done!

 

 Now doesn't that look fancy?

Just in case you're wondering -- here are the different materials and measurements I used for these particular flowers: