A mini tutorial for a simple fabric flower corsage

Hello!

I'm off to a wedding this weekend, and have made myself a dress and jacket. The dress is in Rose and Hubble cotton and the jacket is in a very lightweight wool, lined with the R&H, and interlined with sew-in interfacing to give it a little more body.  Both patterns are favourites, and if you look on the right hand sidebar of my blog you will see the exact same outfit, in lilac and plum.  You can't beat an old favourite!

The dress is a New Look pattern, 6824, and the jacket is New Look 6390.  

As well as dressmaking, I do like to play with fabric accessories, as that's half the fun of making your own clothes.  To add some interest to the jacket, and tie the whole outfit together, I made a little fabric flower corsage.  These are great fun to make, very quick and easy too!

To make one all you need are some scraps of fabric, a tiny circle of felt, a button with a shank, and a brooch back. You will also need some extra strong thread - 'button thread' - and a hand sewing needle.  The extra strong thread doesn't need to be a matching colour, so use whatever you have to hand.  Mine just happened to match!

1) Using a glass, or something similar, draw five circles onto your fabric and cut them out.  Mine are just under 3" in diameter, but you can vary this for whatever size flower you would like.

2) Thread  your needle with a long length of the strong thread.

3) Fold a circle into quarters, with the right side outside, and sew along the curved edge, stitching through all four layers.   You don't need to do teeny tiny stitches, as you will be pulling them up in a minute to gather each 'petal'.

4)  Continue folding and sewing until all five 'petals' are attached, as in the photo below:

5)  Pull firmly on the thread until the first and last petals meet and you have a flower shape.  (This is why you need to use extra strong thread, but if you don't have any, you could try normal thread doubled.)  Make sure your gap in the middle isn't too large, as you will need to cover this with the button.  Use a couple of stitches to join the first and last petal together.  Don't cut the thread yet.

6)  Centre the button over the centre and sew firmly to the flower.  Still don't cut the thread!

7)  Cut a small circle of felt.  I happened to have red felt for my red flower, but it doesn't matter if yours doesn't match as you really won't see it.  I used my small thread spool to draw around, but you could freehand cut it.  Just make sure it fits neatly behind your flower without showing between the petals.  

8)  Using an overcast stitch, sew the felt circle to the back of your flower.  Nope, don't cut that thread yet!

9)  Lastly, sew a brooch back to the centre of the felt.  You can now fasten off and cut the thread!!

10)  Turn your flower over and fluff out the petals to make a pleasing shape. 

There you have it!  A fabulously easy and fun way to add a little bit of colour and decoration to whatever you're wearing.

If you don't have a suitable button for the centre, you could cover a button with a scrap of contrasting fabric.  This is quite simple to do bu cutting a circle of fabric a bit larger than the diameter of the button, running a row of running stitches around the outside of the circle, placing the button in the middle and then drawing up the running stitches firmly until the fabric is taut and the button is covered smoothly, with no wrinkles on the front.  Then continue in the same way.  

This is what I did on the flower below, using a scrap of the jacket fabric for the centre of the flower.

I'd love to see your fabric flowers, and hear about your own favourite ways to make them.  They are such a great way to brighten up a jacket, coat, dress or top, in a completely unique and personal way.

Thanks for visiting; I appreciate your company.

Donna x