felt dandelion

Thanks so much everyone for leaving lovely compliments about my felt dandelions. As promised I'll show you how to make one here:

You'll need some light yellow felt and some dark yellow felt; a pipe cleaner, some green wool or florist's tape and some green felt.

First off cut a piece of the dark yellow felt into a rectangle 8cm by 2.5cm and the light yellow into a piece measuring 16cm by 2.5cm at one end and 3.5cm at the other. Snip cuts into each piece but not right down to the bottom edge:

The finer the fringe the nicer the flower I reckon although you can't go too thin as the felt will just break.

Take the pipe cleaner and wrap wool around it - florist's tape would be better but I didn't have any:

Then take the dark yellow felt and wrap it around the top of the pipecleaner:

You may want to secure the beginning with a bit of glue.

Wrap the light yellow piece around the top of the dark yellow and sew it all together a bit to secure:

Now you have a problem - you have a fat flower and a too thin stem and you need to put on your calyx. I decided to wrap some green felt under the petals like so:

again you need to secure it all with a few stitches.

Measure around the flower and cut a piece of green felt the same width. At this point I cut out a piece like this:

and I wrapped it around my flower but I didn't like the effect compared with a real dandelion (sometimes I can be a bit of a perfectionist - but only sometimes):

So I cut out a fringey bit like so:

and sewed that on instead and it came out like this:

I think I prefer the first one but it's too late now! Who cares anyway - it's only the underneath of the flower for goodness sake.

Then using this pattern cut out a leaf or two and attach to the stem:

This flower is one I made the other day and I bodged the calyx on this one too. If someone finds a better way to make and attach the calyx please let me know.

Fluff out the petals and give it all a bit of a trim if you wish and that's it:

So there we are you can make a whole vase full of these to compliment all the ones outside on your lawn.

I thought I'd share a comment that Rowan left in my last post. She said: "If they were rarer people would pay a lot of money for those little plants which flower and flower non-stop all through the summer and have such pretty edible leaves". How true.

Comments

[Jodi]

Dear Simmy,
I love the beauty of the dandelions even more seeing the bit by bit process of how they're made. They're sort of Van Gough-ish, (if that's a world) Did you make all the other little animal bits (on the table) in the photo as well? All so lovely.

Jodi Lenz

[kristin]

lovely!! thank you for sharing with us!! :)

[Siri]

We're cutting out the pieces right now! Thanks for sharing this. I would have cut piles of little tiny strips and then tried to wire them together and would have had a mess!

[Amanda]

Thanks so much for posting this! I can't wait to try it!

[Marie]

You make it look so easy. I have always loved dandelions...I have never been able to understand why people don't like them. I think they are beautiful as flowers and I love them when they go to seed....what fun blowing on them and seeing where they go ...

[melanie ashton-hosseini]

Hi Simmy,
What a creative woman you are, your site is really inspiring...so glad I found it.
The dandelion is beautful..I cant wait to give it a go.
keep it up you're amazing!

[melanie ashton-hosseini]

Hi Simmy,
What a creative woman you are, your site is really inspiring...so glad I found it.
The dandelion is beautful..I cant wait to give it a go.
keep it up you're amazing!

[Natalie]

Hi Simmy

I love the dandelion, it looks so pretty. My girls hate it when we mow the lawn and the dendelions go away!

Peace

Natalie

[Bitter Betty]

Oh these dandelions are sooooo beautiful. They almost make me happier to see the ones that ARE EVERYWHERE in my poor suffering garden. Great work as usual, dear Simmy.
(I have been looking for a picture of the Hailey Mills dress so I can be on the lookout for a pattern but I'm not sure which it might be.)

[Jennifer]

I have always loved dandelions, and welcome them in our lawn. I encourage my son to make wishes and blow the seeds into the wind. My husband has finally realized that the battle is over -- indeed, if we'd paid for the plants they'd be thought precious by everyone....

[Tracy]

Hello! I found my way here via Vick's Turkey Feather. You have a beautiful place here! I immediately sighed over your fab Burne-Jones banner...Your felt dandelions are a super idea--and great tutorial. I must show this to my yound nieces who will get a kick out of these! DH & I have given up the battle of the dandelions in the garden, preferring to see the beauty in all things...Happy Days! :o)

[Ellen]

Thanks for sharing this. And for the dyeing info. My children were thrilled to learn that they could make colors with a 'weed'. Now we're eyeing those weeds with more appreciation...maybe we shouldn't mow them? Hmmm.

[shannon]

sweet! I love dandilions. It would be nice to have these as a bouquet at the table when one is sipping some dandilion wine.

[kristin]

wow. i'm just now catching up on your blog - you have been up to some fantastic projects. these felt creations are stunning. what a beautiful project. wonderful!

[manela]

so beautiful
looks like a really one...
:)
manela

[Diana]

many thanks!!! i like this flower!!

[therese]

So lovely! I just linked to this for a Softies 101 section. So summery!

[Ro Araujo]

beautiful
thanks!!
Ro Araujo - Brazil