How To... Make Felt Flowers

The weather here in this little corner of Essex is typically Spring like- beautiful spells of sunshine, followed by April showers, then back to bright blue skies! The countryside and gardens are looking so pretty, with the blossom in the trees and flowers in bloom and this is what inspired my latest How To. Using just scraps of felt and a needle and thread you can create your own felt flowers and bring some Spring sunshine into your home. Be sure to check back later in the week as I'll be sharing some ideas for how to use your floral creations. 

Here's how to make the flowers...

1) You will need

Scraps of felt, needle and thread, pins, fabric scissors, scrap of paper for template, something round to draw around to make the petal template (I used a cotton reel), pencil, glue gun (optional)

2) To make the template for the petals, draw around your cotton reel or other round object on scrap paper and cut out. I've found that something about the size of the end of a cotton reel or slightly smaller works really well for this technique, but you could experiment with other sizes

3) Pin the template to the felt and cut out five pieces

Now you have your five circles of felt, one will become the backing piece and four will become the petals

4) To make the petals, first take a circle of felt and fold it in half

5) Fold the circle again so you now have a quarter circle

6) Place the folded piece onto the top corner of the background circle, ensuring the edges of both pieces are flush. The straight edge of the folded piece should be facing the middle and the open folded edges should be facing the bottom of the circle. Hold in place with a pin and stitch in place with 3 or 4 stitches

7) Fold the next felt circle in exactly the same way as the previous one, stitching it to the background piece ensuring that the straight edges meet

8) Turn the piece upside down and repeat the process with the remaining two felt circles to complete the flower

9) Now to make the flower centres! Cut a long strip of felt measuring approx 1cm wide (or your chosen width- experiment to see what you like best) in your chosen colour. Don't worry if it's wonky, it won't notice in the end

10) Cut into the felt at regular intervals along the length, ensuring not to cut all the way through. Cut into strips approx 5-6cm long

11) Roll the small strips of felt and secure together with a few stitches

To make an alternative flower centre, don't cut into the felt strip, simply leave as it is and roll it up, securing with a few stitches

12) Add a small blob of glue (I've found using a glue gun works best) to the centre of the flower and press the centre into it. Alternatively, you could stitch the centre into the flower

That's all there is to it, so simple but very effective!

You can use any fabric to make these flowers but I find felt works so well because the stiffness of the fabric creates a more three dimensional flower compared with other fabrics and it's so easy to use because it doesn't fray!  If you would like to make the flowers using other fabrics, I find it best to iron interfacing onto the back first to help prevent fraying

I'll be back on Wednesday to share some suggestions of how to use your floral creations. Until then, happy making!

My Workshop With Suffolk East Embroiders Guild

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to hold a workshop for the Suffolk East group of the Embroiders Guild in Ipswich. I had a fab evening with the 23 ladies and 1 gentleman making upcycled fabric needle books, felt beads and folded fabric flowers. Here are some photos from the evening...

The evening started with me demonstrating how to make folded fabric flowers using fabric scraps and embellished with a vintage button centre. I then demonstrated felt bead making, which could also be used as a flower centre or alternative "button" fastening for the needle books, as seen in my example here!

There was such a lovely atmosphere to the evening- the group meet once a month so there was a real social aspect to the evening- lots of chattering, tea drinking and biscuit eating throughout the workshop. My sort of crafting!

The group really got into making the needle felted beads and I demonstrated various variations and applications for using the beads

It was great to see the different ways the group interpreted the project and really made it their own

One lady in the group made some fabric hair slides to give to her Granddaughters, which was very sweet!

Thank you very much to the Suffolk East branch of The Embroiders Guild for inviting me to run a workshop for you and thank you to all the members of the group for being so welcoming and making it such an enjoyable evening!