Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Try it Tuesday!: eat, sleep, repeat...and make a fabric flower retutorial!
"It occurred to me at once
That love gets everything it asks for
Like a young girl picking flowers in the lawn
She gets every kiss and tear
She gets every smile and fear...
That love gets everything it asks for
Like a young girl picking flowers in the lawn
She gets every kiss and tear
She gets every smile and fear...
(is it any surprise you feel so overrun?)"
Copeland
I love flowers. So much. (i 'spose maybe enough to jump into some rosepatch thorny area with my sexy skinny legs and show off...like 10 years ago...)
So I wasn't sure it'd be awesome to basically do an entire tutorial over that's already posted online. But...it's been far too long of me never actually trying online craft tutorials and saying I want to that you'll just have to deal with it;)
But, sometimes I have friends say that if they see me do it, it becomes less intimidating (ie. I'm not super crafty so if I can do it, well, hells, anyone can! such as with youtube) So, maybe that could be the case with the Try It Tuesday when I'm myself, probably going to be frequently trying a tutorial..and seeing what happens!
Onward, ho!
Mine:
Hers:
Snowy Bliss offers this totally possible, you-can-do-it-and-just-burn-off-the-tips-of-your-fingers-with-hot-glue tutorial for long stemmed-flowers...but worth it!
Obviously, Snowy Bliss blog will have much more accurate instructions and photo - this is an abbreviated of how this double-vision seeing, using-my-sewing-machine-manual Fargo blogger made it happen!
I'm on a pretty good spending freeze right now...so I only used items I already had! This was from my very minor fabric stash. Armed with scissors, an iron heating up, bamboo skewers, a really cheap hot glue gun, my Singer, the blog tutorial, and 5 different fabrics, I embarked on a new journey. 
I folded it in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and pressed it with an iron (on top of my mbmb cloth napkin - one of my favorite kitchen additions!!)
I then had to "ehow" to make a gathering stitch (I know...), but just one, wide, long stitch down the middle with right side fabric up.
I measured on the right side of the fabric every 2.5 inches to then cut the petal "scallops"...I folded the fabric so the wrong sides were together...and then cut scallops...
The last 4-5 inches are cut straight at 1 inch wide to later be what you tie to the stick! I then sewed the edges of the scallops with a more standout colored thread! This was done with a regular stitch (not gathering one).
The piece I cut 1 inch thick at the last 4-5 inches of the scalloping? This gets tied to your stick (or bamboo skewer!) with the tie facing UP!
Then I finagle the end of the tie around the top of my stick to become the inside of the flower bud and hot glue it however I can to stay in place!!
Hot glued:)
That gather stitch you did? (note the hot glue burning my thumb). I gently held that gather thread with my left hand and started to pull the fabric down towards the stick to create a ruffled effect.
It was fun to try different amounts of gathering to make flowers different shapes! Tie/hot glue the end of the gathering thread to hold in place.
Snowy Bliss definitely describes this part waaay better, but what I did was play around with how wide/open I was going to have my flower before doing any gluing. Then I took the sucker-of-a-glue-gun out to begin to hot glue the bottom of the flower to itself.
I made the bottom pretty wide to allow the flower itself to be wider.
The tricky part to me, was making the flower wider, but also making the last couple inches of wrapping get tighter again to finish it nicely. Just took a bit of playing with and some nice "shark farts" being said from burning myself.
I only finished 3 of them! But now it's pretty easy and fun to experiment with so hopefully the rest will be done soon!
So the beauty of these flowers...they'll last!
If you end up making any fabric flowers, too, let's exchange some! I think that would be sweet fun! Just message/comment me when you do and I'll make one for you:)
Remember if you want to enter the GIVEAWAY comment on this blog post!
PS...the sweet cloth napkins I bought at No Coast in Mpls in December were from mbmb in Grand Forks - check it:
Well...thanks for watching my attempts! Now it's your turn to try something you've been waiting to do!
xoxo
ashley
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2 comments (+add yours?)
I just think you are so cool and inspiring!!!
So, just had a thought--- What about a tutorial challenge?! Post a cool tutorial at the beginning of the month and then anyone that wants to can do it and send you pics of there own unique take on it and you can post them at the end of the month?!
:) Just a crazy idea I came up with!!
Hey - we should have a perennial swap when it gets to that point of spring - you host, I will come. :) I have a horticulture degree, you know!
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