Felt Flowers II

Last year--about this time, I made a felt flower wreath...you can see it here.

I made it for my daughter's 6th birthday party and it was fun & whimsical.

Ever since, I have been thinking about wanting to do another round of felt flowers.  

I love felt and I have a stash of several really good quality pieces in deep earthy fall colors.

In these kind of gray days of winter, I kept wanting to see a pop of color, here and there...

I thought what better place than on me!--pinned to the lapel of my gray wool coat...But I wanted to do something a little more sophisticated than what I did last year and spent some time poking around the internet, trying to find some new ways to make new forms.  

Some of the ideas I came across were a little too time/work intensive for me 

(i.e. cut and glue out many, many petals...uh-uh...) 

I decided to stick with the overall concept that I had done last time, 

but with a change of color palette and the way I cut them, 

I feel that I was pretty successful in trying to achieve a slight more elegant look...

I did some variations, but this is where I got the main idea.

The main idea is to cut a strip of felt approx. 30 inches long by 2 inches wide.  

You make a series of cuts to about 1/4 inch of the base line all the way down the strip.

You can then gather with a garter stitch or roll strip around itself--hot gluing as you go to secure.

You can round the ends or cut them at angles...or leave them as it.  

I hot glue a pin back to the back of the flower and 

then cover it up with a little heart cut out of a contrasting color.

Not at all difficult to make, 

and they add that exact pop of color I was looking for!