Making a Fabric Flower Bouquet

My First Fabric Flower Bouquet !
A very special couple just had a wonderful celebration - namely a 60th wedding anniversary - a truly great occasion. . . wow. !!

I wanted to make a personal anniversary gift and decided on a mini bouquet.    

As I was travelling to the event I was not sure how fresh the flowers would be on arrival so decided I would try my very first fabric bouquet.

Here is how it went !!

I looked at some complex and some simple styles on web and then there was lots of making it up as I went along.

I can tell you it does take a bit of preparation and some time but it is such a fun thing to do.

(1) Cut and singe

I bought some chiffon in white and some in pale pink and cut lots of circles - approx  6 inches diameter. You don’t have to be too careful with exact shape of circles.

But patience is needed for next stage - carefully singeing all around each circle - just heating enough to seal but not burn - not so easy. If you do burn a little - just cut off that piece of black and singe again. I found the easiest way to do this is over a candle.

(2) Making the flowers.

I folded and gathered a circle -  loosely sewing at the end  - four of these together made the flower size I wanted.

(3) Stem

I used hobby/florist wires for the stems.

I bent the wire and sewed on the flower and then to soften the stem and give a little body I used padding - just wrapping thread around to hold.  I finished off by wrapping with green florist tape. At tops I added some dyed silk petals - looks pretty and also helps secure the flower neatly.

(4)

For centers of flowers I picked nice white / pink fabric sewn around padding into little balls. The detail is made by embroidering knots with white cotton yarn and then lots of seed beads. ( I find it hard to make anything without adding seed beads !! )

(5) Wrap

I wrapped the bouquet with 1940’s white open work lace and at top added 1920’s thin lace. I printed the wedding date on cotton as a final touch.

The individual flowers can then be adjusted  - fluffed up - tweeked until it looks done !!

There are so many amazing fabric bouquets to be seen on the web - I am in awe at the detail and beauty of them. There are many ways to make one - mine is just my idea of how to go about it. 

It turned out a light bouquet to hold  - just what I wanted to make - and I learnt a lot making it !!