Fabric Flowers for Christmas

The weather outside may be frightful, but these fabric flowers are delightful! I love Christmas fabrics, with their metallic tints and shimmery opulence, and often find ways to incorporate them in my work all year round. I picked out a beautiful bundle and set about learning how to make fabric flowers for Christmas with a Kanzashi Flower Maker.

Kanzashi is a traditional Japanese art form of folding and stitching fabric petals. Clover’s Kanzashi Flower Makers come in different shapes and sizes and include a sturdy plastic plate and detailed instructions. I chose the Pointed Petal flower, thinking it would look more like a poinsettia. The large size finishes at 3 inches, the small size at 2 inches, and the extra-small size at 1-1/2 inches.

Supplies

All you need to get started are:

• fabric
• scissors
• sewing needle
• thread

Here’s how to make a fabric flower using Clover’s Kanzashi Flower Maker.

1. Sandwich fabric between plate and cut

Fold the fabric wrong sides together and align the fold in the plate with the fold in the fabric.

Fold the plate over the fabric and snap in place.

2. Sew, following the numbers on the plate

Thread a needle with a long piece of thread – 24″ to 28″ depending on the petal size – and tie a large knot at the end. Begin sewing by putting the needle in the “START 1″ position on the back side of the plate. Bring the needle through to the front side of the plate.

Insert the needle in position 2 on the front side of the plate and pull it through to the back. The thread should lay flat in the elongated slit of the plate – too much slack may result in tangles; pulling too tight may dislodge the fabric.

Continue in this manner, bringing the needle in and out of the slits following the numbers.

3. Remove plate and shape petal

Remove the plate but do not remove the needle or cut the thread. I used white thread for greater visibility in this photo.

Pull on the thread and fold the petal in half. Keep pulling the thread tighter to gather the fabric into a petal shape.

4. Make remaining petals and complete the flower

Using the same needle and thread, repeat steps 1 to 3 to make the remaining petals. The Pointed Petal flower has five petals in total.

Pull the thread through the first petal. Pull tight to gather the petals into a circle, then knot the thread.

And in just a few minutes, you have a beautiful fabric flower!

There’s a hole in the middle of the flower, which can easily be covered with a button or other decorative accessory. Have you shopped forbuttonslately? I was so dazzled by the extensive selection that I want to make fabric flowers just to showcase the buttons! Here’s our completed flower.

It’s so fun, quick and easy to make fabric flowers using Clover’s Kanzashi Flower Maker, you won’t be able to make just one. In fact, this is just the start of what you can do! Join us tomorrow as we get creative with layering, fussy-cutting, and using fancy fabrics and buttons. Then follow along each day this week as we get ready for the holidays, putting our fabric flowers to good use in Christmas decorating, gift-wrapping, and entertaining. Let it sew, let it sew, let it sew! Who knew making fabric flowers for Christmas would be sew easy?!