Kanzashi Flowers and New items

I have attempted my first four Kanzashi flowers, two were completed (semi) successfully. The others did not go so well, one is already tossed the other I will share below and one is now on a coin purse.

I got for Christmas "Kanzashi in Bloom" by Diane Gilleland. Overall this is a good book with good descriptions and pictures and a good number of ideas. While I usually have no problems doing new sewing tasks I had a lot of trouble with sewing my petals together, I think the round petal directions are missing some information, I am actually going to see if I can contact the author (she has a very nice website) and ask if I am just missing it totally or if the directions are lacking what I would call a key component.

I finally got one completed this was after viewing several Youtube videos, a few multiple times. For me the trickiest part of this was sewing the petals together and the location of this in relation to all the layers. My fist one did not work based on the directions, the stitch was not going through all layers, the result it fell apart pretty much completely on the back, then the flower as a whole no longer held it shape.

Here was my first attempt, above the petals will not hold their shape in the left view, which is the front, looking at the back all the folds have not been stitched down as they were too far from the sewing line. This is the step I found to be off in the directions, I had to trim back farther to catch the folds in the stitching, the second flower below was more successful.

For the blue flower I also used less petals, only 6 instead of the 8 I originally tried. This also shows the back view with a fabric cover glued down to hide the stitches and also protect the flower petals from coming undone. This is also a good base to add to something, like bag, hairpiece, etc.

I found I had to do more cutting then the book described to get an accurate sewing placement. This then made the flowers smaller then the books described they should be. I think I worked around it and a few tips from the Youtube videos I was able to complete my flowers. I also did a second stitching from the back to help make the flower lay flat.

This is the latest one I did, and the one that ended up on the coin purse. This was a trick I found on Youtube video that had you string the petals directly onto a needle, this way you can also gauge petals are the same size, I did not pin these petals as they went straight to threading.

The supplies are quite basic for simple flowers items most sewers would have on hand, fabric, scissors, thread, needles. I did need to buy a low temp glue gun, I just got a cheapy at Michaels as I have never had a need for a low temp glue gun. I gathered my supplies and happily started ironing and folding, I thought I will be making loads of these in no time. Alas, it was not so simple, but with any new task I think sometimes you have to make some errors to fully understand the process and improve upon that.

Also being a sewer the thought of gluing fabric is not a comfortable one, I imagined I could/would sew these parts, however I think for some of the construction a glue gun will be loads and loads easier, as long as they are durable and can withstand some wear and tear I too will be gluing fabric.

This is my fist completed project I will keep for myself to test the gluing of the white start button and the durability of the flower staying in place. This was constructed entirely of batik scraps, from this pillow set I made a few summers ago, you can see that blog post and pillows here. Hooray for scraps!