Rosemaking

Sounds pretty, no?
  

Rosemaking...

They are so easy and fun to make this way, and I think they look as real as homemade fabric flowers can! You can get lots of variation, too, with a little practice.

I found this method here, where she has her own steps, along with tips and some very nice pictures. I'm going to try to restate it in quick, simple steps, with my own commentary.


1) cut a long strip of synthetic fabric (polyester linings are perfect, though satins and sheers are fun too)

2) Shape the strip, cutting waves along the one side. Make the petals shorter at one end to be the center.

3) Seal the edges to prevent fraying by running the edge quickly by a candle flame. You can move more slowly (but carefully!) to give the edges time to melt and curl a little, like realistic petals.

4) Use a running stitch to gather up the straight side of the fabric, and gather it as you coil the strip around itself. Hardly gathering at all gives more of a closed bud/early bloom look, while tight gathering causes the petals to open out more.

5) Once it's all coiled and styled as you like, use the same thread from the running stitch to go back and forth through the coil and secure it. My centers usually pop out of my coil, so I had to go up in the rose and stitch through it, too.



This is also a great time to shape the rose to how you like. For instance, I didn't like how open this rose was turning out to be, so after it was all secure, I went around taking large stitches higher up in the petals, bringing them closer to each other.



This picture shows the two different sizes I made this time. The small one (2 1/2" diameter) is made with a strip about 2 x 30". The large one (3 1/2" diameter) was with a strip of fabric about 3 x 54". That may have been too much fabric... these are almost carnation-like.

And there you are.

You could use these for all sorts of things. Hair accessories, trim on clothes, bags, curtain tie-backs, table decorations, name-card-holders...

Who ever complained of having too many roses?

Oh no! It's another excuse to hoard scraps of fabric!