I've been a bit obsessed with felt flowers for the last few years. It started when my sis asked me to make her wedding bouquet and 3 bridesmaids bouquets. I posted a tutorial on how I made her bouquet that you can see here. I'm so glad I got to create something so important for my sis's wedding. It was such a wonderful labor of love. I've gotten so many comments on that post asking how to make the actual flowers that I wanted to post this felt flower tutorial.
I use the Sizzix Big Kick Machine to cut out all of my flowers. I highly recommend the Big Kick and I've had no issues cutting thousands of flowers with it. One nice thing about this machine is that you can cut 2-3 pieces of felt at a time which is a great time saver.
The embroidery on the petals of the flower is what really makes these flowers shine. Here are just a few individual flowers to help show that the possibilities are endless.
Felt Flower Tutorial
- Design your flower
- Select the color and sizes of the felt pieces you want to use. (3 to 5 pieces works best)
- Select a bottom piece with no hole. (this prevents the bottom piece from falling off)
- Decide which pieces you’d like to embroider and the stitches you will use.
- Every other felt piece is a good rule of thumb
- Balance between elaborate and simple stitches.
- There are lots of free embroidery stitch guides on the internet. I also find watching YouTube videos is extremely helpful. Used embroidery books are readily available at thrift stores.
- Choose embroidery thread
- 3 feet is a good length. Longer thread is harder to work with and to keep tangle free.
- For a more delicate look, split the thread apart and only use 3 strands instead of 6. Less than 3 strands makes it hard to see stitches on the felt.
- Embroider felt pieces
- Thread needle and tie a knot at the end of the thread.
- Always start from the back when embroidering so your knot won’t show.
- Select buttons for the middle of your flower.
- Arrange in the order you want buttons to be in with the smallest button on top.
- Pick 1 or 2 buttons for the back side of your flower.
- Assemble Flower
- Take 1 green floral wire or (any wire about 18 inches long) and loosely fold in half.
- Take the smallest button, right side up and put one green wire end through one button hole and the other wire end through the other hole.
- Slide button all the way to the wire’s middle.
- Repeat with all buttons, except the button(s) for the underside.
- Bring the ends of the wire together and thread your felt pieces through starting with the top piece of your flower.
- If the middle of a felt piece doesn’t have a hole, carefully work the wire ends back and forth in the center of the piece to pierce through the felt.
- Be careful not to hit your fingers! It only takes a few second to pierce the felt.
- Remember! The very bottom felt piece should not have a pre-made hole in the middle.
- Slide the remaining buttons on the wire.
- Create the wire stem
- Take both wires and cross them as close to the bottom button as you can.
- Hold the flower in one hand and with the other hand start twisting the wires until they are completely twisted together.
- Take a wood bead and slide it about 1” to 1.5” up the stem.
- Fold the end of the wire up so it looks like a U with the wood bead in the middle.
- Wrap the end of the wire around the stem right above the wood bead using needle nosed pliers to secure the wire ends.
- You now have a gorgeous felt flower!
I would love to hear from you! Send me pictures of the flowers you make. Be forewarned, these little flowers can be come quite addicting.
A Visual Tutorial
This Felt Flower Tutorial was first posted on Handmade in Portland. I put this tutorial together for the Make Something Awesome table at last year's Summit of Awesome organized by Hello Craft. It was such a fun project that I wanted to post the tutorial here as well.