What's a handmade vase without handmade flowers?? |
I actually do say that... quite often, as a matter of fact. So it was a
serious blunder on my part to have named a particular series of blog posts,
"nifty things I'm never going to make".
Is it odd not to have any green fabric? I searched through my closet, my bag of clothing donations waiting to be delivered to Goodwill, as well as my actual fabric stash and nothing (usably) green came up.
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I would usually go into an extensive discussion detailing the entire process to make things easier for those wanting to take on the project, but this tutorial was clear and easy to follow. Everything is fairly simple; it's just a bit repetitive because you're likely to want to make more than just one or two tulips.
In fact, after I'd finished the first nine, I went back to my fabric scraps and found enough among them to make three more closed tulips... including the "directionally challenged" yellow and white striped one seen in the photo above. (I had originally planned for the stripes to be vertical, but lost track of that requirement and didn't realize my mistake until I started stuffing it.)
While I don't foresee a whole lot of exceptions cropping up down the road,
these tulips
by Almudena of Retales de Mil Colores have enticed me
ever since I first saw them. (A few weeks after I posted about these, a
second tutorial from
Singer's website
reminded me yet again that I was itching to make tulips!)
The clincher came when I was out grocery shopping with Mom in mid-April.
Dozens and dozens of newly arrived tulips caught our attention. The displays
of bright yellows, oranges and reds made it clear to me that I didn't need
pastel fabrics; I just needed some green fabric for the leaves.
Is it odd not to have any green fabric? I searched through my closet, my bag of clothing donations waiting to be delivered to Goodwill, as well as my actual fabric stash and nothing (usably) green came up.
My last resort was to ask Mom if she had anything that I could recycle. But
then hubby and I stopped in at a Dollar Tree for some household items
and I found these fat quarters (and some floral tape) for $1.50 apiece.
The checkered fabric is a bit thin, but the solid is surprisingly high
quality. Three dollars worth of fabric for the cause is well justified,
considering that I didn't want to do the project with crazy off-beat fabrics
for leaves.
The original YouTube tutorial provides instructions for making three
different styles of tulips. Two of them are made with rectangular pieces
(for which dimensions are given); templates can be printed for the closed
tulip and leaf. (Note that those two templates need to have a seam allowance cut around
them.)
New for me... assembly line making... |
My plan was to make nine tulips (three of each kind), with ten leaves. My
fabrics would be from the
old motorhome curtains
for the red, the
old duvet cover AKA new motorhome curtains
for the yellow, and a selection from my
Lily and Loom purchase
for the orange.
For the stems, I recycled some plastic straws. (Since they are falling out
of favour everywhere, why not put them to use?) I cut some in half and some
in thirds so that I could use the pieces to add extra length (just squish
one end and push it into another). This enabled me to make tulips in varying
heights.
Wrapping them in floral tape took me a couple of tries to get right, but it
went along swimmingly thereafter. (Just remember that stretching the tape a
bit will activate the waxy adhesive that makes it grab onto itself.)
This "open" version needs to have a hole punched into the bottom... |
I had a couple of the extended length straws come loose after the fact, but
I managed to fix them. The tulip heads aren't heavy enough to cause any
problems, but in hindsight, I probably should have taped the straws together
first — with regular tape, before wrapping in the floral tape — to keep them
from coming apart or bending.
I would usually go into an extensive discussion detailing the entire process to make things easier for those wanting to take on the project, but this tutorial was clear and easy to follow. Everything is fairly simple; it's just a bit repetitive because you're likely to want to make more than just one or two tulips.
"Closed" version... |
In fact, after I'd finished the first nine, I went back to my fabric scraps and found enough among them to make three more closed tulips... including the "directionally challenged" yellow and white striped one seen in the photo above. (I had originally planned for the stripes to be vertical, but lost track of that requirement and didn't realize my mistake until I started stuffing it.)
For these final three, I used the straws in their original length and I
didn't bother adding any leaves.
What would you call this... the "ready to open" version? |
Speaking of leaves, I made them slightly differently. I did not hand
stitch the ends closed — that seemed like an inefficient use of my time.
Some
Stitch Witchery came to my rescue there. I cut a small segment of
it, slid it between the two layers of fabric and fused everything closed
with a hot iron. (Easy peasy if you have the stuff; not saying that you
should go out and buy some if you don't have any. Fabric glue will also
suffice.)
Sewing more veins on the leaves... |
I also thought the leaves would look nicer with more detailing, so I
sewed vein patterns on all of them. (In her tutorial, she only sews a
center line on the leaves.) I also placed them at different heights
along the stem rather than just close to the top of the flower.
Closeup of a leaf... |
Not having green fabric means that I don't have any green thread. The
gray thread that I use for a lot of applications worked well.
I will add another two cents: the measuring and marking that she does
before taking those single stitches to create the four divisions for the
ready to open and open style tulips aren't necessary if you're
good at eyeballing things. In both cases, all you're doing is finding
the middle of a relatively short distance. (I just made creases at those
spots with my fingernails.)
Originally, I was going to put these tulips in my
VoilĂ Vase. But here's the thing: the vase is tucked into a corner, high enough
almost to be at eye level. I'm often looking up at it, which is not a great
angle from which to look at long stemmed flowers. (The artificial
arrangement that's shown in the photos for the PDF pattern is still what's
in the vase today.) So after experimenting with my fabric roses in it, I
decided to leave it as is.
Side view... |
Which is how my
fish bowl vase
finally ended up with its own bouquet. Once I decided that it was going to
be the final home for my tulips, I made sure that the lengths of the stems
were suitable for it. That's something to keep in mind if you're going to
make any sort of fabric flower for an existing vessel: think about what stem
lengths would be best.
I also followed Almudena's suggestion and tucked some fake greenery
into the base of the bouquet. It fills in the opening of the vase quite
nicely.
I like that this is a scrap and recycling friendly project. The tulips
require very little fabric (the closed variation requires the least), and an
old pillow that's fallen out of favour will provide more than enough polyfil
for them. While my leaves were interfaced with scraps of fusible fleece,
regular fleece from an old sweat shirt or pants will work just as well. (And
if you can find something green in your closet, you'll already be ahead of
where I was.) And of course, the straws for stems idea is yet another
recycling win.
All in all, I'm so happy with my turnabout decision on this "never gonna
make" project. These forever tulips will absolutely brighten my
days going forward, regardless of season.
A total of fifteen tulips made! |
Know that else? After I wrote up this post, I made a few more... I ended
up with fifteen tulips and fourteen leaves. Turns out that none of this
was as laborious as I originally imagined it might be, so I won't rule out
adding even more to my collection.
Hmmm... something to keep in mind with Mother's Day coming up!
Looks fun. The bright colors are cheerful and it sounds like you were completely entertained...all a win. Currently my craft counter is completely cleared and a temporary kitchen while the kitchen remodeling is in progress. Floundering a bit with no where to fuss with bits of a project until I am needed as a carpenters helper.
ReplyDeleteRecycling at it's finest! Love your arrangement and the fact that you'll have these to brighten your days for months/years to come.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed! Colourful flowers that don't need to be watered are just the thing that everyone needs to brighten a day. (Thank you for brightening my day, too!)
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