My wedding dress flowers tutorial

My wedding dress flowers tutorial

• 7.27.2011

The wedding dress is done!

I showed you the first batch of flowers on my wedding dress here.  I've made some more since then, and arranged them artistically on the dress.

I've done a tutorial before for fabric flowers that uses the same method, but these look very different so I thought you might like a tutorial for these, too.

• Cut out lots and lots of flower-shaped pieces.  I chose pointed petals that make the flowers look a little like water lilies.  In the past I've made round, scalloped petal-flowers, which look more like mums or puffs.  You can also use circles, which will make your flowers look kinda like pompoms.
• I used a variety of silk scraps and tulle for these flowers.  Tulle in three colors, silk organza, silk taffeta, ribbon silk, china silk, a lightweight silk jacquard... use whatever scraps you have!  You can make them out of whatever--play around.

• You'll only need eight or so petals for each flower, of different sizes, but I made a bunch of these so I cut out a bunch of petals at once.
• Not part of my other tutorial: cut some little squares or shapes out of a sturdy fabric like this silk taffeta.  You'll use these as backs.

• Start with the largest petals for the bottom of the flower.
• To assemble, fold all your flowers in half, then in half again.  You'll use the point of the little triangular quarters to anchor to the base.

• Sew through the bottom square and through the corner of your folded petal.

• Do this four times, so you have the entire square covered.
• Take some slightly smaller petals, and fold them into quarters as well.  Sew them down overlapping the tiny gaps between the bottom layer petals.

• Continue with the next-smallest petal you're going to use.  Switch it up and use multiple types of fabric for each row of petals.
• Here's one with only three rows:

• To make it more interesting, I did a layer with just two quarter-folded tulle pieces in the center.

• Here's what the back looks like, FYI.  The base square gives you something to anchor to if you're sewing these to pin backs or straight onto the garment or item like I am.

• Great!  Now make tons more!!

These are beautiful sewed onto dresses, pillows, whatever... headbands or hairclips, even!  If you make them all different sizes and textures they can be really fun to decorate things with in a funkier way.  No need to worry about them all coming out exactly the same!

(If you did any DIYs for your wedding or the wedding of a friend or loved one, I'd love for you to share them in the Adventures in Dressmaking DIY Weddings Flickr group!!)