Fabric Flowers

I've recently entered my daughter into a local baby contest (for fun of course...I don't plan on making an appearance on Toddlers & Tiaras!) But I wanted her to have something to wear that no other baby would have. So I took a white onesie and added some fabric flowers to it. Here's how to do the flowers...it is so simple and a cheap way to dress anything up!

I made three flowers in all, and improvised with the width of the fabric. I did 2 1/2", 1 1/2" and 1". You can change the length of the strip of fabric depending on how big or small you want the flower to be. My biggest flower here was a strip of fabric about 10-12" long. Once your strip is cut, fold the fabric in half wrong sides together (like below) and sew on the raw edge side. Make sure you keep your thread nice and long on the ends when you  start and finish sewing...you'll see why in a minute. Also, set your sewing machine to have a long length stitch - I did mine 6.0.

See how my stitches are long? This is key to ruffling your fabric! Now take one long strand of thread and hold onto it while pushing your fabric towards the middle. Do the same thing on the other side.

Now start rolling the strip from one end to the other. It will turn into a flower! I safety pin the end of the strip to the rest of the flower to make sure it stays rolled up...this is temporary.

And you're ready to hand stitch the bottom together so your flower stays together. I'd use a thread that matches but this was already in my needle and I thought you would be able to see it better anyway! I start where my safety pin is and then take it out. With your needle, just go back and forth various different ways so that the flower stays  together.

And walah! You have yourself a cute decoration for anything you like! I just attached my flowers to the shirt with a safety pin because this is temporary but you can hand stitch it in as well.

Here's the outfit all together! I made the shoes as well but the pattern has a copyright - you can get the shoe pattern at makeitandloveit.blogspot.com or makeitandloveit.etsy.com. They are called Abigail Booties and they are simple as well! I make them in one day with a baby girl on my hands and 2 hours without!!