Fabric Flower Tutorial

Okay, finally, here's the tutorial for the fabric flower that is in my Pretty Pinafore movie. I didn't take pictures while I was making it because I thought it would turn out like my Spring Flower Brooch. But it didn't so that's why this is late.

First cut a strip off of your fabric, the whole width is fine. Mine is 4" tall. Fold the fabric in half lengthwise and thread a needle with lots of thread.
 

Get ready to sew long stitches like this :).

So make a knot at the fold near the end.

Then sew long gatherins stitches, curving down to the long cut edge.

After you've sewn 4 or 5 inches, pull the thread to gather and start rolling the strip like a cinnamon roll.

Sew through the bottom to secure.

And then continue sewing more gathering stitches along the cut edge. You will be sewing a bit, pulling to gather, wrapping and securing, and then repeating. Keep in mind that the more gathered your flower is, the fuller and more "bloomed" the flower will be (see pic at end). The flower that I'm sewing here is less gathered and bloomed.

Here I am securing a bit that I just gathered and wrapped.

Near the end I wasn't gathering too much, mostly just pulling the thread a little, and then wrapping and securing.

When you get to the end, curve your line of stitching up to the fold so your cut edges will be at the bottom,

And the flower will have a nice little sloped edge on one side.

Stitch the bottom all together again to be sure it won't come apart.

At this point, you could hot glue a piece of felt on the bottom like my other flower has. I skipped it this time. And so far, I have just pinned this to things from the inside. I'm afraid to wash it. Let me know if you do and what happens...

So here is what it will look like if you have not so much gathering:

And this one has lots of gathering - it's in full bloom!

Good luck and don't forget we have a  flickr pool so you can show off what you've made.