DIY Wednesday: Make fabric roses

I was hoping for a juicy home decor DIY this week, but, sorry, you're getting yet another fabric flower tutorial. I'm on a roll.

There are lots of fabric rose tutorials out there. What makes this one slightly unique is that you'll get some tips for dealing with upcycled fabric, which is to say stuff that frays all over the place or is too thick and is thus not cooperative with standard sewing machine ruffling techniques.

The shiny roses came from the remnants of a thrift store blouse. The darker ones are from a piece of thrift store fabric.

First you'll see how to machine sew a rose from fraying fabric. To start, cut strips of fabric about 12 inches long (vary the length to vary the size of your finished rose) and about 2-3 inches wide.

Fold the end of the strip under and then fold the strip in half. Put a little fold every inch or so and pin. Machine stitch a seam along the raw edge. You'll have a ruffle without fraying problems.

Trim off the seam allowance. Start rolling the strip, putting a dab of fabric glue every inch or so. When you're done, pin to hold until dry.

Your rose will look like this from the front.

Here is a variation for the problem of thicker fabric. I tried machine sewing the "pleats" but they looked too stiff. So, here is how to hand-sew. Knot your thread and run a stitch using long stitches. Pull the fabric down the thread until it is about half its original length. Knot the thread at the end. Proceed as with the first flower.

Next week hopefully we'll have some cool uses for these flowers.