Kate’s Wedding aka How I became an expert on making flowers.

My friend Kate got married last Friday. Earlier in the year she asked if I could make her a headband, giving me some examples for inspiration. Without really thinking about it I agreed. It sounded like a great idea at the time, and it was for a while until I got really stressed out thinking that I was never going to be able to make one  or when I did, that she would be walking down the aisle looking like a 5 year old had made the thing on her head. But then about a month ago everything came together, I ended up making four headbands and a couple of necklaces and bracelets. Kate chose her favourites and a massive weight was lifted!

I spent a lot of time trying out different ways to make flowers. I have a whole favourite’s folder dedicated to the cause. I also have a stash of white and ivory flowers as a result of my experimentation, I have no idea what I’ll be doing with them! Since the examples were mainly fabric, some with embellishments, I started simple and hit Google with “how to make fabric flowers” and off I went. My favourite and most successful attempts came from these sites:

Simply Vintage Girl



 

BurdaStlye

Tea Rose Home

Delightfully Noted

                                                                 

I absolutely adore this idea, an excellent way to use up all the old zips my Gran collected!

Creative Art & Design

Next idea was some beaded flowers. Using this tutorial I made some nice petals using some pearl beads. I didn’t like that you can see the wire at the edges, I tried with a thinner wire but that made it harder to keep the shape. I also tried a simple freeform style. I threaded loads of seed beads on to some wire and made loads of loops, securing them at a mid point as I went. I thought these would look good for something less formal, maybe a hair clip or a small one on a ring but wouldn’t be suitable for the wedding headband. 

 I also tried some origami and Kanzashi. The origami was the most frustrating thing I tried to do, it was so hard! I loved the Kanzashi, it was relatively simple (especially after the origami fiasco) and it looked lovely. I finished mine with a diamante button in the centre.  

Once I had drained Google of all the different ideas it could provide, I set about “designing”. I could have saved myself a lot of stress if I thought back to my textiles coursework. I would draw a final design for the project and you could guarantee that what I actually made looked nothing like that picture. So after several attempts to get an idea down on paper and have a single design, I bought five tiara bands and went wild. I spent my days off sat at my desk with everything laid out so I could pick and chose, putting different components together and I got four finished peices.

The one she chose:

This was based on the beaded flowers I tried to do with wire. I didn’t like the wire showing through so I stitched the beads on to silk and interfacing and then backed with more silk to cover my messy stitches. I put the button onto wire and threaded it through the centre of the beads and used that to attach the stitched flower to a wire flower. I made that simply by making a loop of beaded wire (checking it would be big enough to show behind the fabric) twisting the wire, making another loop and twisting at the centre, and so on so I had the four ‘petals’. I then secured everything to the headband and then to keep the flower where I wanted it, I wrapped the band with pearls.