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How To Fold Fabric Flowers

Hi!

Aside from cutting and piecing fabric into quilts, I love the possibilities that manipulating fabric through folding and then piecing also provides in quiltmaking, and that reminded me this week of a technique we found for how to fold fabric flowers.

I originally saw this in “Fantastic Fabric Folding” by Rebecca Wat, years ago, and since then I’ve used this pretty folded fabric flower in a bunch of different projects, including my “Sashiko Sampler” quilt.

Today I thought I’d share a quick tutorial for how I fold these pretty fabric flowers.

I used a 6 x 6 inch square of fabric, which gives a 3 x 3 inch finished folded fabric flower.

(A plain or tone on tone fabric, or something with a very small print works best, so you don’t lose the look of the flower in a busy print when it’s finished.)

Fold in half with wrong sides together and finger crease the fold.

Open out and fold in half the other way as well.

(You may find it easier to fold these flowers on your ironing board, and you can press as needed easily then.)

Open and lay right side down.

Fold up each corner to the centre point marked by the crease lines and finger press.

Turn the square over so the folded in corners are facing down.

Now fold each side up in turn, as shown, to meet the centre point marked by the first creases.

Finger press these creases as well.

Your square with the four sides having been folded up.  You can now use these crease lines as a guide for the next step.

Fold in two adjacent sides as shown using the crease lines you just made.

Line up the bottom edges, then flatten the top corner and fold as shown in the next step.

The folded corner.

The bottom edges align, as do the sides with the folded sides of the block.

The top forms a little flap as shown.

Fold in all four sides until you have a small square as shown.

Press it well.

Now carefully open out the folded corners from the underside of the block and press well.

You will now need to sew these folded blocks together (if you are incorporating them into a pieced block) before opening the petals out.

When your blocks are sewn together you can open out each petal as shown.

(When sewn together, the seams will catch the centre point of each flower petal, so they will open out with a fold sewn in as well.)

The finished flower.

Open out all petals and with a matching thread, hand stitch the tip of each petal to the quilt top to keep them open and secure.

(You will not need to sew the middle down – it will stay in place once the petals are secure.)

 

And there you have it – an easy way to fold fabric flowers!  Grab a practice square of fabric and give these a go today.

Be sure to leave a comment below and let me know what you think of these.

 

Enjoy your week!