Karlene's Workshop

How to make flowers from fairy skirt circles

Posted on 04 August 2009

I was inspired by these gorgeous felt flowers made by Koala Brains
and it gave me an idea of how to use up all those leftover circles you get after cutting out circular/fairy skirts.

I will show you how I did mine, with 5 petals. My method is a little different, after having a play around I found this was the best way with larger circles, in flimsy fabrics. The size of flower you end up with depends on the size of your circle.

1. Find centre of circle by folding in half, then in half again. Mark with chalk on the wrong side of fabric.

2. Mark a line from the centre of circle to the outer edge.

3. Mark 4 more lines from the centre evenly spaced around the circle. This will involve some maths.
360 degrees divided by 5 petals = 72 degrees.
I used a protractor to measure 72 degrees between each line.

5. Cut thread at least 20cm longer than the width of your circle and thread onto a needle. Secure thread at the edge of circle and sew/tack along line to the centre.

6. Leave a tail approx 10cm long, or if you have 5 needles available to use, just leave the needle on.

7. Repeat with other 4 lines.

8. Pull threads one at a time and stitch to secure in the centre with a knot. Be careful not to tangle the needles!

9. Secure and cut threads, turn over to right side. Ta da!

Now you can have fun with them by cutting some circles smaller and layering the flowers.

Make a fairy hair clip/barrette by attaching a hair clip finding, or a brooch by attaching to a pin-back or…