Folded Fabric Flowers

I've gone from struggling to find new ideas for things to make and sell to now having too many!!

I'm finding it all too easy to be distracted from doing some 'real' work ( pieces for exhibitions) and am prevaricating by making lots of little things for the forthcoming craft fair season. I'm trying to find time to set up the shop on my website too - that's how I'm currently justifying spending so much time folding squares of fabric into flowers!! More time needed with the laptop and less time with the fabric I think.

Anyway . . . . . . . . .I started making flowers like these;

I found the pattern in a library book. Fold a square of fabric into quarters then do a line of running stitch along the raw edges. Pull the thread tight and secure with a few stitches before  attaching the petals to each other. Glue a button in the centre and a circle of felt to the back to hide the raw edges.

All that seemed simple enough but I found it really hard going trying to get the needle through several layers of fabric.

I don't remember how I found the instructions for Kanzashi flowers - maybe I was looking up different ways of folding the petals - but I soon found loads of websites and video tutorials about Kanzashi.

The method is much the same in that the fabric starts off being folded into quarters (although not always!) then there are a variety of different folds to give different petal shapes.

In some cases the petals can be used either way up. The photo above shows the front of the 2 smaller flowers and the back of the larger one. Combinations of different petals shapes means there are endless combinations. I started out making larger flowers but have discovered that smaller ones are better.

This one is about 4cm across and the little ones will be used for putting onto hair clips.

 

I soon discovered from video clips on YouTube that using spray starch on the fabric then ironing them works best.

These are unfinished;

I wanted to use my collection of vintage buttons but most of them are too big, chunky and too dark in colour. The red one further up has a cream coloured vintage button on it but they don't look good on the smaller ones.

Once the petals are folded you secure them with a pin until ready to complete the flower. Run a strong thread through each petal, pull tight then tie a surgeons knot twice to hold the thread tight.

I've been amazed that they look so good so quickly. Usually, you do something new and it starts out a bit raggedy and gets better. Once I starched the fabric even the earliest ones looked good - very surprising.

I found this to be the best tutorial;

My next trick is to work out how much to charge for them.

Any suggestions?