I call these Organza Roses, but really they can look more like Camelias or Peonies.
I thought it would be nice to share how I made them. They are so simple to do (especially if you use wired organza ribbon rather than fabric), that even if you aren't much of a seamstress, I promise you could make these. If you can thread a needle and work a pair of scissors then you can make these flowers!I've put all the photos together to save space on Blogger, which means the quality after resizing isn't great, but I think you can still get the idea of how I make the flowers. (click to enlarge)
Ok. the words to go with the pictures. 1. Take a length of organza about a metre long and fold in half. (In the photos I've used wired ribbon to make it clearer, as when you work with organza fabric you end up with a glorious frothy ruffle, fabulous, but not useful when you are trying to show photos - you can't see what's going on!)
2 & 3. Stitch a running stitch along the two open edges, so the folded edge is uppermost and the one that will be on show in the final flower. (this only applies if you are using fabric, if you are using ribbon it will be along one of the wired edges), then pull to gather the fabric. Secure with a few stitches.
4. Start to wind the gathered end of the fabric into a kind of rosette, pinching with your hand and then securing with stitches as you go. Continue doing this until you have used up all of the first gathered half.
5. When you get to the half of fabric that you haven't ruffled, just pinch and gather as you go and stitch in place. I do this because I find you can make it looser and therefore more flower like than having the whole piece of fabric gathered. There is nothing to stop you from doing running stitch all along and gathering, then rolling and stitching in place, if you wish, this is just how I do it.
6. When you get to the end of your fabric or ribbon, turn the end and stitch everything thoroughly.
To add leaves you can either fashion your own from velvet fabric or - as I've used in mine - green satin ribbon. If you don't want to make your own leaves, just swipe a couple from a silk rose that you already have around the house and attach those to the back of the flower.
7 & 8. The finished flowers. For the gold organza rose I pushed an earring through the centre, secured with glue and pushed over the post to hold in place. The white ribbon rose has a small diamante stone glued in the centre. All my organza flowers have been turned into brooches, but I think these would be perfect to use to decorate a really special present for someone.
So there you are. Surprisingly simple to make and can be made (I promise) in about 20 minutes from start to finish. You can make them small or large, depending on the width of the length of fabric you use. Personally, I find that organza fabric is easier to work with and looks much better than wired ribbon. I only made one in wired ribbon to see how it turned out, and because it would be clearer in photos to see what I was doing. Wired ribbon is simple to use, but if you use it as a brooch you have to keep pulling the 'petals' out as it tends to get squished during the day!
