Fat Quarter Friday - Rose buds

Welcome to this week's Fat Quarter Friday tutorial. Please feel free to use this tutorial to make your own rose buds to use or give as a gift, but please do not make them to sell without my permission. If you pass this tutorial on please link back to this blog. And if you make any, I'd LOVE to see them!

Now, I know that at this time of the year we all like to see real flowers, but I've always felt somewhat uncomfortable with the mass grown, flown thousands of miles varieties we get in the UK. Anyway, these ones are sweet and you can make them out of Moda fabric whilst drinking wine in the garden.

You will need:
3 circles of fabric per flower. I used a coaster as a template. One fat quarter will make about 7 buds.
Florist's wire (quite a thick gague as these are quite heavy on the stem).
A bit of craft glue.
Some green wool or embroidery floss.

To make them up:

Get all your fabric bits ready beforehand. I'm going to make some more in red, but as I was doing this last night I didn't have time to do two sets.
Trim your wire to about 22cms in length, using wire cutters.

Fold your first circle in half, wrong sides together. Fold one edge in by about 1/3, and the other by about 2/3. Use small dabs of glue to keep in place if necessary.

Dab a small amount of glue down the centre and place the wire on the glue, about 1 cm from the top edge.

Roll the fabric around the wire, starting at one end and finishing at the other end. Dab glue to keep in place.
Fold the next circle down about 3/4. Place over the first piece of fabric, with the centre of piece 2 at the join of piece one. Make this piece ever so slightly proud of the top of the bud.

Fold the two sides down to match up with the edges of the first roll of fabric.

Roll one side around the bud, then the next side, pinching at the bottom and holding in place with a dab of glue.
Repeat the above with the third circle of fabric, keeping open edge as close to the bottom of the bud as possible.

Pinch tightly at the base to form a bud shape.

Unfortunately, this is where my batteries died in the camera. Wrap green wool or floss around the base, covering all the open edge. Tie tightly in place.