As promised, here are instructions for some of the ribbon flowers I was working on a few days ago.  If you have all your supplies ready to go, and your glue gun plugged in, you can make one of these in less than 10 minutes, and probably in no more than 5 minutes.  They really are that easy.

I like to use these little flower stamens, which are available in the cake decorating aisle of your local craft store.  But in a pinch, you can easily substitute a narrow ribbon in their place, and that’s what I’ll show you in this tutorial.

For the small flower I used a 10″ length of 1″-wide wired ribbon.  For the large flower, I used an 18″ length of 1-1/2″ wired ribbon and an 18″ length of 1/4″-wide grosgrain ribbon.  If you’d like a fuller flower, just cut a longer piece of ribbon.

First, remove the wire from one edge of your ribbon.

Next, turn under one raw end of the ribbon and tack it in place by hand with tiny stitches.

Then, with your needle and thread, sew a loose running stitch along the edge from which you removed the wire.  This is your gathering thread.

Pull the gathering thread to gather your ribbon, and tack the end in place with a small stitch to secure the gathers.  At this time, if your ribbon seems to fray easily, you might want to turn this end under and stitch it like you did the first end.  At this point you’ll have a nice little curly piece of ribbon.

Adjust the ribbon until it looks the way you want it.

Now you’ll make a flower center with the grosgrain ribbon.  Fan-fold the ribbon into 1/2″ folds. 

Tie a thread around one end of your fan to secure the folds.

Place the fan through the center of the flower.

Use hot glue or the craft glue of your choice to secure the fan to the back of the flower.  At this time you can also put a little extra glue into the folds of the fan to make sure they don’t come undone. If you’re using stamens instead, glue them on as well.  You could also use large beads here if you’d like.

Now you can attach your flowers to a piece of crinoline to create an arrangement, or you can sew or glue them to your project.  If the ends of your ribbon appear to be fraying too much, clean them up with a bit of FrayCheck or clear-drying glue.

Fabric flowers are always an easy way to embellish bags and accessories, and there are dozens of ways to make them.  The one pictured here isn’t unusual, but I thought I’d photograph the steps for you while making this one last night, and give you the directions that I typically use.  I also made a very easy ribbon flower, and I’ll try to show that to you this week.

Start by cutting 5 squares of fabric, all the same size.  For my flower I used 3-1/2″ squares, and the finished flower measures approximately 3-1/4″ at its widest point.  You can make these in just about any size you want, but keep in mind that if they’re really tiny or extremely large, they may be hard to handle. You can also use more squares if you want, depending on the look you’re after.  Lightweight fabrics are easiest to work with because they gather more easily and more tightly.  I used a mid-weight hand-dyed cotton, so I have some additional bulk in my gathers.

Fold one corner of a square over to meet the opposite corner, forming a triangle.  Finger-press to hold it in place.

Thread a needle with a fairly long double strand of thread. I like to use something that pretty closely matches the fabric, in case some of the stitches aren’t completely hidden by the button later on.  OK, beginning at one corner, loosely stitch along both open edges as pictured below.  Don’t stitch along the folded edge.

Note:  I’m left-handed, so all this may look backwards to you.

Pull the needle and thread to gather your triangle into a petal.

If you can’t keep the fabric gathered tightly enough, it’s OK to stitch the corners together to secure, as I did on the petal below.

With the same length of thread (don’t cut it off and start over), fold and stitch another petal the same way.  You will be making a chain of petals.

Continue in this fashion until all 5 petals are made.  Shape them together until you’re satisfied with the configuration, then stitch the corner of the last petal to the first one.  You may also need to make some extra stitches on the back to hold everything in place.  Once you have them all stitched together, you can fluff them and play with them until they look good to you.

Next, stitch a pretty button to the center front (see photo at top of post).  Make sure it’s large enough to cover the raw edges and stitching that will be visible in the center.  At this point you may want to add a piece of felt to the back if you’re adding a pin back, or you can glue or stitch the flower to whatever you’re embellishing.

Be warned, the back of your flower might not be very pretty, as evidenced below, but it’s unlikely that anyone will ever see the back anyway.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to make a little bag out of bleach discharged velvet.  I’ve had the handbag frame for over a year, and I’ve had the velvet from yesterday’s post even longer than that.  But I just never came across a pattern I wanted to use, and couldn’t motivate myself to draw my own (lazy, I know!). Last night I finally realized that this bag would never happen if I didn’t take a little initiative, so I quickly sketched out a shape onto my lining fabric and took it from there.  The directions that follow are not precise, but will give you some idea of what’s involved in the process.  If I make another bag with a sew-in frame, I will probably make it a lot larger so I can gather it into the frame.  This will not only make it easier to get things in and out of the bag, but will reduce the need for precision in fitting the fabric to the frame. I think I’ll also add some fringe or rhinestones for embellishment. The frame I used has loops for a chain, so now I’m on the lookout for something I like.

I used a frame that was designed for handstitching onto the bag.  You’ll recognize a frame like this because it has small, evenly spaced holes along the edges.  Joggles has a great selection of these in various shapes, sizes, and finishes.

For my pattern, I simply sketched  (directly onto the lining fabric) a top arc about 1/2-inch bigger than my frame, then loosely drew the remaining shape and cut out some darts so the bottom of the bag would have some volume.  You’ll note on the photo that I extended the bottom portion of the pattern out about 1/4-inch beyond the frame area (based on some other patterns I came across).  I won’t do this next time, as it really didn’t make things fit any better.  Be sure to cut 2 pieces of lining and 2 of the main fabric.

Next, you’ll need to sew up the dart openings.  Then, with right sides together, stitch the 2 lining pieces together from the end of the frame area, all around the bottom and back up to the opposite side of the frame location.  Repeat this process with your main fabric pieces.  Place the lining inside the bag, right sides together, and stitch the edges of the frame opening together, being sure to leave an opening for turning everything right side out.  This is the difficult part, because in my case, the frame opening was a little too small to fit over the free arm of my sewing machine. (Looks a little like a gasping puppet’s mouth, doesn’t it? And note the debris from the edges of the velvet.)

Turn the bag right side out. Hand-stitch the remainder of the seam, then press the edges of the bag opening flat.  Next, simply handstitch the bag to the holes in the frame.

When working with velvet, keep in mind that the edges fray a bit, so it can be a little messy.  It can also be hard to handle on occasion, so keep your pins handy.

For an easy and effective do-it-yourself vintage technique, there’s nothing quite like bleach-discharged velvet. In addition to removing dye and giving your fabric a lovely, time-worn look, the bleach also changes the texture of the fabric, and it will feel soft and well-loved.  Although you can bleach-discharge any color of velvet, I find that I like the results best when I use black velvet with a high rayon content.  Your finished piece will vary depending on the combination of dyes used by the manufacturer to make it black.  In the example above,  the bleach left behind a beautiful golden color, but it’s possible that your fabric may have a slightly more red or green cast when it is finished.

Before bleach-discharging your velvet, you will need to decide whether or not you want your finished piece to be patterned.  For example, you might want to tightly fold the piece to achieve a linear effect with the bleach, or you may decide to loosely scrunch it, as I did, for a softer, mottled look.  I suggest experimenting with a few smaller pieces to see what you like.  In any case, you shouldn’t expect your pattern to be sharply defined unless you are using a resist to prevent the bleach solution from spreading across the fabric.

For excellent instructions on various ways to bleach-discharge your fabric, go to this article by Lois Ericson, from the pages of Threads magazine.  Lois also tells you where to purchase bleach-neutralizing chemicals, which are an essential ingredient, along with bleach and water.  I highly recommend following Lois’ suggestion to wear gloves.  It’s also best to do this outdoors, if at all possible.

Tomorrow, I’ll post a photo of my finished bag, along with some basic construction information and lessons learned the hard way.

Here’s an easy bag that goes beyond the basic flat zip pouch.  A well-illustrated tutorial can be found on Craftster.org.  For some directions on how to crinkle and embellish fabric, see my earlier post.

For the zipper pull, I simply knotted a bead onto a piece of ribbon and tied that to the original zipper pull.

Sometimes we are intimidated by what looks like a complex project, and our otherwise beautiful garment, handbag, or accessory is missing that wow factor that makes it extra special.  However, many embellishment techniques are really quite simple. Some may take a bit longer than others, but they aren’t as complex as they may seem.

There are many, many ways to embellish your project, and one of my favorites, and one of the easiest, is the crinkling technique pictured above.  The reason I like this technique so much is that it adds dimension and texture to your fabric, and I just find texture so appealing, both visually and to my sense of touch as well. Embellishing your crinkled piece doesn’t even require a fancy sewing machine.  In fact, I used only a triple straight stitch and a simple turkey tracks decorative stitch for the piece I’m showing you here.  Quite often, I’ll use just the triple straight stitch.  Occasionally, I’ll sew on some beads.

Crinkling your fabric is a very simple process, but it won’t provide instant gratification.  You will need some drying time for this technique, so plan ahead. Keep in mind that you will lose some size when you do this, so you need to start with a fairly large piece.  I typically begin with about a yard of fabric, and I expect that to be about half the original size when I’m finished.  To complete the piece, you’ll also need fusible interfacing, rubber bands or string, and contrasting decorative thread (I like Madeira and Sulky rayon threads). I prefer large-print fabrics for this technique, but this is entirely your choice.

First, take your fabric to the sink and get it completely, soaking wet with water.  Now, you’re going to start crinkling, while at the same time squeezing the water out.  There really aren’t any rules here, and how you squeeze the water out  depends on what sort of crinkles you want.  You can wad everything up and squeeze it, but I prefer to wring it out much like you’d wring the water out of a washcloth.  Usually I just very loosely accordion-fold the fabric (almost like I’m folding a paper fan), grasp both ends of the piece, and start twisting it into a rope. I don’t let go of the ends, and just keep twisting and wringing tighter and tighter until the rope twists up on itself into a ball. This will go more quickly if you can get a volunteer to hold one end while you twist the other.  All this twisting will squeeze out most of the water.  When I reach the “knotted ball” stage, I bind it tightly with rubber bands or string and leave it to dry somewhere.  (Next time I do this technique, I’ll post photos.)

It may take several days for the center of the ball to dry, so be patient. You can leave it in a sunny window to speed up the process. I’ve been known to leave it in a hot car for a couple of days.  When you think it may be dry, carefully unwind it to check for dampness in the middle.  If it’s still damp, you can go ahead and carefully untwist everything, but don’t flatten it out as this may ruin your wet wrinkles.  Now you’re done with the hardest part!

When your fabric is dry, apply a fusible interfacing to the wrong side, being careful not to iron out your crinkles. Take your interfaced piece to the machine, and stitch and embellish the surface in whatever fashion you choose.  Remember, there aren’t any rules!  Use your finished piece in a garment, handbag, quilt, or any other way you’d like.