Tutorial on How to Make a Cloth Strawberry

Here's a little tutorial on how to make a cloth strawberry. You can opt to make a flower instead by not stuffing the strawberry and using it as a 'petal'. Four to six petals sewn together make a very adorable flower. My flower has a cotton filled center so that it can be used as a pincushion. I do not suggest making a felt strawberry as felt tends to be a bit too thick. Something thin like cotton (in fact, I always make cotton strawberries) is much better.

On with the tutorial!

Step 1: Draw and cut out a circle from your fabric. Fold this in half and then cut along the crease so that you have two halves.

Step 2: Fold one of the halves in half, so that you have a quarter of a circle, with the face of the fabric on the inside. Sew along the straight edge, leaving the curved edge open.

Step 3: Turn it inside-out. The face of the fabric should be showing (mine is the same on both sides). Now run a small, relatively tight gathering stitch along the open edge, and do not tie it off as we will do this after stuffing. You will already see your strawberry taking shape!

Step 4: Stuff the strawberry with cotton. You can also use very finely cut up bits of fabric if you don't have any cotton. Just make sure it's well shredded. If you are making the flower, skip this step.

Step 5: Pull the gathering thread tight, this should seal up your strawberry. Stitch it securely so that it doesn't come open.

Optional step 6: Make some leaves to add to the bottom of your strawberry. If you are making the flower, just connect these petals (unstuffed strawberries) together and place something in the middle. I used a little stuffed ball of yellow cotton.

And you're done!

Be sure to leave comments, I'd love to see any ideas and finished projects involving this!

How To Make A Cloth Rose

Here's a little tutorial on cloth roses. I used a pastel green patterned cotton, but you can use almost anything.

First, get your material. The length of it width-wise will have everything to do with how big and how puffy/gathered your rose is. I have used 21.5 inches for mine, since that's the length of the little square I have and I'm making this for a mini hat.

Next, fold it 1.5 inches on one end and 2.5 on the other. Make sure to pin this all along the length to keep a clean edge. If you want you can use fabric chalk to mark the line, but I usually just skip that step and cut along it. The folded fabric should have the underside showing (mine is patterned on both sides, so it doesn't matter) with the front face of the fabric on the inside of the fold.

So you should have a strip of fabric that is folded over, 21.5 inches long and 1.5 wide at one end and 2.5 wide at the other. Basically it tappers from 2.5 to 1.5 inches.

Next we're going to sew the edges All except for the 1.5" edge, leave that open so we can turn this inside out once it's sewn. You have a 1/4" seam allowance and I usually trim it a bit after sewing to make sure there aren't any chunks messing up the way the fabric lays, but that's up to you, and probably won't even be noticeable. I'm just picky. :)

So we should have this now:

Turn it inside-out so the face of your fabric is showing. It should look like this:

Now do a small gathering stitch for the 1.5" end. I usually do this by hand. 

Finally, time to do some serious gathering. I usually try and gather half the fabric, so I went from 21.5" to a 10.5" when finally gathered. For a tutorial on how to do a gather, look here. I only use a typical straight stitch for this, and do it by hand, but again, it's up to you. Do not sew more than one line of thread in. Only use one thread straight across, or the bottom will be too stiff and it will make your rose look weird. Make sure your gathering stitch is running about 1/5" or so away from the edge as you sew (the seam edge, not the folded edge-- that will be the top of the petals).

Fold the gathered 1.5" end and stitch the bottom a few times. After that it's just a matter of tucking and stitching. Roll the fabric and stitch, roll it and stitch. Keep doing so until you get to the end.

Then stitch the bottom a bunch of times so that it's nice and strong. Try to tuck and sew in any little bits into the center to keep it clean. 

And tada! You have a cloth rose!

Sweet Lolita Rose Bow

Originally planned to be made for a mini hat, but I was suddenly spurred to make a bow instead using the pink cotton rose with a matching bow. Adorable, isn't it? The lace is one of my favorites. It's handmade by an elderly woman who has crafted lace for a long time, and the quality is incomparable. It doesn't fray at all. It is sturdy, but baby-soft and the pink ribbon embedded is gorgeous. It is a satin ribbon and I normally prefer grosgrain, yet this one is of such nice quality with seamed edges that I'd be a fool to not use it.

Tutorials?

Been thinking of making a tutorial on cloth roses and ribbon roses, maybe bows as well. I know there aren't a whole lot of good ones out there for the crafters, and they're pretty quick and easy to put together.

Speaking of such, here's an example of one which will be used as a centerpiece for a little sweet lolita hat:

I've had a field day with this particular fabric. It's a soft, sweet pink with delicate white vines that have hearts on them. 100% cotton and very good quality.