Making Flower Pins

I thought with pretty good certainty that the last corsage I would ever pin on was at Senior Prom in High School.

But I was wrong.  A few weeks ago I visited the Quilting Cottage in American Fork, Utah.  I love the Quilting Cottage, which is not only a quaint little store, but they have a wonderful selection of fabrics.  While there, I spoke with Wendy, one of the women who works there…

She was making ribbon flowers pins for an upcoming wedding.  The pins look a lot like the ones they sell at Anthropologie, but hers are a fraction of the cost.  They were so darling I would happily wear one.

Wendy was kind enough to teach me how to make them.  Here’s what you need:

• 2-4 yards of wire ribbon (depending on how large and tight you want your flower) (I used one and 1/2 inch wide ribbon.)
• quilting thread or other strong thread
• small amount of felt
• hair clip or pin (or both)

1.  Pull on the wire of one side of the ribbon to ruffle.  Ruffle the entire length of your piece of ribbon.  Not all wire ribbon is the same.  Some are more fragile, so pull gently.

2.  To start, fold your ribbon back on forth a few times.  Using quilting thread run a stitch through the ribbon several times to secure.

3.  Start wrapping the ribbon around.  Secure each wrap by stitching all the way through the layers in a star pattern.

4.  Once it is large enough to be difficult to stitch through all the layers, secure by stitching to the previous layer.

5.  When you come to the end of the ribbon, fold the the corner of ribbon back inside to hide the raw edge.  Stitch into place.

6.  Cut a circle out of felt to cover the back of the flower.  I cut a second layer of felt in a wide strip and secured it with a zigzag on each side.  That way I could easily slip in onto a hair clip or a pin.

7.  Stitch the felt into place on the back of the flower using a blind stitch.

I love how this flower turned out.  I used 4 yards of fabric for this flower, and made it fairly dense.  It looks just like the peonies blooming in my garden right now.  And it was fast and easy… my kind of one evening project.  I’m off to make several more as gifts right now…