Fabric Carnation Tutorial

On my blog, this has been a hit for two years now, so I thought I might share it here too.

This is a tutorial of how to make gorgeous fabric carnations!

This is what you need:
Light jersey with a lot of elastic/ stretch for an amazing look and a pair of scissors.

Cut a long, thin strip. I had a metre of the jersey but in order to make the strip longer I cut all around the piece of fabric without stopping and the above piece has about 3,70 metres. The longer the strip, the thicker the flower. Remember, it should be about 1 or 2 cm wide.

Start wrapping it around your hand. While doing it, pull the strip tightly.
Jersey tends to curl up and that would add up to the looks of the flowers and make them more beautiful.

When you roll it all up, take it off carefully, and holding it firmly, tie a knot around it with a previously cut short strip.

When you are finished, cut it as shown in the pic. Both sides.

When you cut it, you'll notice that not all strands are equal. So trim the flower on both sides.

A break in the steps for comparison. Here you can see what you'll get if you use a slightly wider and shorter piece of fabric (the pink one being a sturdier cotton).

When you finish trimming both sides, the flower will be left with the middle exposed, so you have to fix that too. Start by pulling the little strips to the other side but not very strongly because if the tie is not tight enough you might pull the strips off, and you also roll them up in your hands to get a nice round flower.

And ta-dah! Here it is!
Now you can take a bamboo stick (plastic stem, or whatever you come up with) insert it inside and make yourself a lovely flower. With a couple more of them you can make a bouquet :)
Or you can take a pin and make a brooch as shown in the intro picture.