Sunday, March 25, 2012

Ruffle Fabric Flower Tutorial



  
1.     If using tulle or English Nette, cut one strip 2 ¾ “ wide, using rotary cutter.  We like the look of the nette with the 1” and mini ruffles, but the two-toned stripes are darling on their own. 

  2.  Cut one ruffle, between the ruffles.  If using mini ruffles, we use three ruffles.


                                            

 3.     Using a long stitch, 3.5-4 on my machine, sew next to each ruffle on the thicker portion of the knit fabric behind the Ruffles.  We do not need to adjust the tension on our machines to make the fabric gather- in fact, I often gently pull the fabric from behind the presser foot to prevent too tight of gathers.

4.     Using same method, stitch one row up the center of the long strip of nette.


   5.  Fold mesh in half for the first layer of the flower.

 6.  Using hot glue, place glue in a circle (about the size of a quarter for smaller flowers, and a little bigger for larger flowers) on scrap of felt.


  7.  With mesh folded in half, place the stitching of the mesh on glue, overlapping the ends by about 1/2". 

 8.  Place glue just on inside of edge of mesh.  Place first layer of ruffles on the glue, and repeat, spiraling around until you have two layers of ruffles.

 9.  Glue another layer of mesh.

 10.  Glue another one or two layers of Ruffles.

11.  Finish off the center!  We will stitch/glue buttons, seed beads, etc. with E6000 glue.