Make a 3-D flower applique

I'm going to show you how I made this flower on my tshirt dress (see previous post).

First, take a strip of fabric you want it made from and draw 5 (or 6) 'U' shapes with a fabric disappearing marker to make petals. The longer the petals, the bigger the flower, these are about 2.5" long.

Now sew along all your lines, securing the threads at each send of the 'U's.

Now cut carefully around the petals leaving a small amount of fabric around seam.Turn them all inside out and then pleat the ends and sew to secure.

For the middle of the flower, cut a piece of thin cardboard the size circle you want. Now cut the fabric bigger than the cardboard, enough to turn the edges under. Now very carefully with a hot iron, iron the edges all over the cardboard circle. This might take a bit of patience and be careful not to burn your fingers. Once all ends are ironed down, slip the cardboard out and iron again reinforcing the edges and turn over and iron flat. You should have a fairly neat circle now with all edges tucked under. Put aside.Now secure all the petals to your dress/shirt/skirt/pants that you are sewing it to either by hand stitching or a couple of machine stitches. You will want the ends to overlap to be sure they will hide under your middle circle you just made.

Now topstitch your circle center on the middle of the petals and you are done!

These would look so cute on so many things...even purses and totes! If you want to make it into a pin, simply sew it down to a piece of coordinating felt and trim the felt on the back around the circle stitch. Then hand sew onto a craft pin.