Somebody Stop Me! Fabric Frenzy

Here’s the long-awaited post on more fabric flowers with the Silhouette, tutorials included. (Sorry it took me so long. Has it only been a week since I taught this class?)

I spent last week preparing for my Silhouette Silly class at Heartland Paper, where I taught about fabric interfacing.  I played with a lot of flowers and a few types of interfacing, and now I want to share what I discovered and made.

First, let me give you a run-down on what I think the uses for the two types of Silhouette fabric interfacing and Contact paper are.

Use clean-cut interfacing for:
• Fabric projects not intended to be sewn with sewing machine or washed
• Cut more intricate designs
• Iron onto paper or other display (or for fabric print & cut)
• Stiff fabric flowers that need no edge treatment

Use sewable interfacing for:
• Clothing application, intended to be sewn on edges and washed
• Lightweight projects (flowers)

Use Contact paper for:
• No backing remaining
• Delicate fabrics (organza, tulle, etc.)
• Easily frayed edges (use Fray Check to avoid fraying)

Now let’s get to the show-and-tell!

First, here’s the headband we made in class. Using sewable interfacing and two pieces of coordinating fabric, cut one color into a large (3.5″), medium (2.85″), and small (2.1″) flower. With the second color, cut a large and a medium flower. I used an 8-petal flower for the large and medium sections and a 6-petal flower for the smallest section. Place them in layers, stitch or glue them, add an embellishment to the center, and hot-glue to a hair clip or headband.

Here’s another version of basically the same flower, but these are all with a 6-petal flower and each layer is slightly smaller than the one below it. Besides the blingy center, the other difference is I cut a layer of light-pink tulle to go on top of each layer of cotton. The tulle I cut with contact paper, five layers in all, the same size as the cotton layers.  One tip I like for giving a little dimension to these flowers is to stitch a loose “x” shape in the center and pulling it tight to make it pucker a little.  Then you can add the center button or gem.

Let me briefly describe using the interfacing itself with your Silhouette. It’s really pretty easy; I don’t know why I waited so long to try it. This is for both clean cut and sewable types of interfacing. You’ll get best results with a sharp blade and a sticky mat.
1- Design your project. I find it helpful to arrange the pieces inside a square or rectangle that has its cut lines turned off, where the rectangle represents the size of your interfacing.
2- Cut the interfacing to the size of your square or rectangle.
3- Cut your fabric to the same size as your interfacing, or slightly larger.
4- Place the rough side of the interfacing onto the back side of your fabric. Iron it onto your fabric (I used no steam, cotton setting) for only about 2 seconds. Repeat each section until it’s all ironed down.
5- Trim the fabric down to the size of the interfacing. It should now match the rectangle guide you made on your screen.
6- Peel off the paper backing.
7- Place the fabric, interfacing side down, on your mat to correspond with the placement on your screen.
8- Set your speed at 5, blade on 3 (pink cap for older blade types), thickness about 25-29 (sewable interfacing) or 28-32 (clean cut interfacing). Cut with your Silhouette.
9- Once cut, peel off the excess fabric from the mat, then carefully peel off the flowers.

Here are a couple more flowers with just basic layers. The black/white swirl fabric actually came from an umbrella case I saved when the umbrella broke. It’s a thin polyester-type material and I used the sewable interfacing on it with no trouble. I didn’t glue or sew these layers; I just poked a decorative brad through the center.

This is another large purple flower, but I attached it to an alligator hair clip instead of a head band. I layered two buttons, one clear, just for fun.

Now I have one more free file and tutorial for you. It makes the next two flowers shown below.

1- Download this 5-petal flower file I made in Studio.

2- Cut out 6 flowers (to the right) and strip out of cotton fabric ironed on to sewable interfacing.  (Instructions above.)
3- Cut out 5 flowers (on the workspace) out of coordinating tulle using the Contact-paper method.  (Instructions here.)

4- Lay down one layer of cotton and one layer of tulle (both flat).
5- Fold each of the remaining four cotton flowers into quarters. (Fold in half, then in half again.)

6- Arrange the folded flowers on top of the flat layers of cotton and tulle and stitch in place (one stitch per section is enough).

7- Fold the four tulle flowers into quarters and sew on top of the cotton folded layers.
8- At this point you can add some bling to the center to complete this flower:

9- Or you can move on to finish it with a fabric center. Fold the narrow strip of cotton in half lengthwise, roll it up, then roll it into the remaining half-folded cotton flower. Stitch or glue the two rolls together.

10- Stitch it to the center to complete this flower:

I made this white flower with same folded flower technique above, using sewable interfacing and a 6-petal flower.  I cut six of them, about 2.1″ each, on a 6×6″ square of fabric.  I folded four into quarters, laid them down on a flat flower, and stitched them in place. The center is made with the final flower rolled up and stitched to the center. No tulle.

Well, I hope the wait for this tutorial I promised was worth it. I know I’ll be visiting this post again to refresh my memory for the different flowers, but really just about every flower I’ve made has turned out pretty nice. Probably any simple flower you use will work for any and all of these. If you have any more questions about interfacing, please ask!

If you click on the Fabric label on my blog sidebar, you’ll see the other fabric projects I’ve made.   Most of those posts at this point are fabric flowers, with or without interfacing.

Here are the two links you’ll find helpful for using Contact Paper instead of interfacing for your fabric flowers.
Cutting Delicate Fabrics with your Silhouette
Fabric Flowers!  (Scroll down about halfway through the post to get to the tutorial where I cut red cotton flowers using Contact paper.)