felt flowers

Morning ladies.  I've been on a bit of a felt flower making kick recently.  I think I showed you the beginnings recently?  I also said that I had some acrylic felt and some wool felt but didn't know which was which as I couldn't tell the difference.  Well, halfway through making the flowers I found my wool-felt stash.  Completely separate from the acrylic felt and feeling oh so sof.  So I can tell the difference!

Do you want to see the first batch?  They start off like this, with different layers of petals cut from different colours.

I layer them up and add a couple of buttons.  I thread wire through the button and then sew through all layers of felt at once by threading the wire into a chenille needle.  I also thread a button on the back to hold the wires in place without risk of it ripping the felt.

Once that's done, I use my gizmo to coil the two wire stems so they fit around a common or garden skewer.

I push the skewer up into one of the holes on the rear button and stretch the wire down so it holds the skewer tight.  I didn't take photos of any of this, but I have more flowers ready to skewer, so if you want a tutorial, I can do that.

The skewer/wire is then wrapped with floral tape to make a nice, neat finish.

I spent hours cutting out various colours and sizes of flowers, then spent a while layering them up in nice combinations.  I used the templates (but not the tutorials) from How Joyful's Camelias and Red Brolly.  Red Brolly embroiders her flowers.  I started to do that, but wanted something quicker so abandonned it.  I have one half embroidered that I will finish and use as a brooch.

There are 12 flowers here, 2 little ones and 10 big.  I have another 8 cut, layered, and buttoned, just waiting to be skewered!