Yellow Flower

I stumbled upon a gigantic yellow flower on Pinterest that goes along with the outfit below. 

 I love looking at all the clothing outfits on Pinterest... maybe it might inspire me to finally rid myself of sweatpants!  

The created outfit is found on Polyvore.

  I quickly headed over to see where the flower is from, kirnazabete.com. I about died when I saw the price!  335 dollars!? Yikes, that must be some flower!  Maybe it has gold dust sprinkled between the silk petals? :)

Lanvin Flower Brooch - kirnazabete.com

For about a dollar's worth of fabric, I tried knocking it off.  The original is made from washed silk.  I couldn't find yellow silk in our local fabric store, so I went with 100% polyester yellow.

 ( I know, a huge step down from silk)

I traced a silk petal from a previous store bought flower and on paper enlarged it by hand into various sizes.

I mostly used the larger petals.  To give the petals texture without having to sew much, I carefully burnt the edges and then held each petal over the flame until it crinkled.  There is something so fun about burning polyester....but if you do this, be sure to keep some water nearby.  

For the center of the petal, I used a 10 x 1 inch strip of the same fabric.

  I also burnt the edges and center of the strip to add texture.

Next, I stacked each petal until it looked the way I wanted it to, and then ran a thread through the center.  

For the center, I rolled the fabric and stitched it in place. 

I was still curious how the silk would burn, so when I was at the store, I picked up red dupioni silk to make a similar flower. All I can say is silk really stinks when it burns.  It smells like burnt hair, not very pleasant. 

I burnt the edges carefully, and started a couple of petals on fire. Yes, water nearby is very important!

 The silk petals lay flat, so to give them texture you have to pinch and sew in place.   

For the center of red rose, I took smaller petals and folded them into thirds. 

 There are three small folded petals in the center.  

The flowers were somewhat time consuming, but really, it wasn't too bad.  I had the excuse to catch up on Season 2 of Downton Abbey while I made them. {Love that show.} Nicole introduced me to Season 1 when I was down with my appendectomy.  I was hooked from the first episode!

See you soon!