I love making fabric flowers. And felt is my favourite. That might be because they are so easy to cut into the desired shapes or those beautiful and variety of colors they come in or that lovely texture…!! I’m yet to figure out the reason! But I just love to work with them.

There are majorly three types of felt that are used for crafting.

Synthetic (man made artificial felt made of polyester, rayon etc), blended wool felt (blend of wool and rayon) and 100% wool felt.

The more wool that’s contained in the felt you buy, the more expensive it would be.

Craft or acrylic (synthetic) felt is pretty stiff and gives you crispy cut. Blended wool and 100% wool are nice, soft and nubby.

Depending on the type of your project, you can choose your felt.

Here I’m posting a tutorial for making these beautiful fringed felt flowers in simple steps. You will definitely enjoy making them.  And the best thing about this flower is that, you don’t need any special tools to make them. Just felt and a few regular crafting tools..!

Supplies you will need :

Felt (in desired colour)

Ruler

Scissors

Glue gun

Fabric marking pen (optional)

Fringing scissors (optional)

Bead or pearl or any other embellishments (optional)

Steps:

1. Cut out a strip of felt that is 1 inch wide and 8 inches long.
2. Now fold this strip into half (width wise; now you get a strip that is 1/2″ * 8″)
3. Glue the open edge by applying a thinner line of  glue at the edge.
4. Start cutting equally spaced slits from the folded edge towards the opposite side (glued edge).  And stop at approximately 1/8″ from the glued edge. Ensure that you don’t cut through the glued edge.
5. Now, roll the strip (you can use a tweezer or a slotted quilling tool). I just do it with my hands.
6. Glue them together. Keep rolling and apply glue as and when required.
7. Finish rolling and glue the edge neatly
8. Now, cut a small circle out of felt and glue it to the bottom.
9. Open up and fluff your flower using your hands.
10. Your fringed felt flower is ready!

You can also a add a button or bead or any of your favourite embellishments at the centre.

Now you can attach this flower to any of your accessories. Brooch, a barrette or alligator clip.., and even to your shoes or t-shirts, hats etc..!

I generally use them to make baby hair clips.

Check out my collection of baby hair clips in my facebook page below:
https://www.facebook.com/TheCutieBeautie/

You can make a variety of flowers using the same procedure.

Depending on the type of felt used, the length and width of the fringes, angle of cut and even the way the strip is rolled, you will get different flowers.

For the above flower, I rolled two strips simultaneously (yellow and pink; I glued the folded strips together first before rolling). Also, while rolling I glued the second layer slightly below the previous layer. Thus forming an inner curve (as in the picture) at the backside of the flower.

Similarly different effects can be achieved by:

• an  angular cut (a 45 degree cut)
• by gluing the second layer slightly above the previous layer (forming an outer curve at the back; this gives a slightly concave centre for the flower)
• using multiple colours one after the other or together.
• and even different types of felt.

So just go ahead, explore and enjoy making a variety of these lovely flowers..!!