Sometimes after you are done sewing a project, you end up realising that you bought too much fabric and are left with scrap pieces. If you are like me and overestimate how much fabric you needed, it seems a shame to throw away scrap pieces sometimes, especially if they are too small to be used for clothing but are still quite a substansial piece. Fear not - these pieces can still come in useful to make something pretty! I like to use my fabric scraps to make handmade flowers, which always end up colourful and can be used to embellish a finished project or as a cute little brooch. In today's blog on Calico Laine, I'll be walking you through how to make one of your own, so that those scrap pieces you can't bear to throw away can finally be used up! You will need: - 2.5" wide strips of fabric in various lengths (I recommend strips from 3" to 15" long. The more colours you have and the shorter the strips are, the more colourful your flower will be!) - A reel of thread (Try using our Gutermann Sew-All threads or our Moon threads) - A hand sewing needle - A sewing machine - A piece of felt (I suggest matching it to the colours of your strips) - A hot glue gun - A brooch bracket Step One Collect your strips together and put them in the order that you want them from the centre of the flower outwards. Sew them together end to end and press your seams flat. Step Two Fold your strip in half - you can use pins to do this, or you can just fold it in half as you go. Sew a zig zag stitch along the raw edges (this includes the two ends of the strip). Step Three With your stitch length and thread tension as high as you can set them on your machine, sew along your strip's raw edges again. You should find that your strip will gather as you sew along it. If it does not, you can always gather by hand or use a gathering foot on your machine instead. Step Four Choose which end of your strip you want to be the center of your flower. Start folding the strip over and over, securing the raw edges together with stitches as you go (Although you can do this with your machine, I recommend doing it by hand as the repeated folding can make it too bulky for your machine needle to pass through safely). Step Five You might find that the layers of fabric do not want to stay bunched up together, but try and keep the raw edges together and flat, and remember to stitch them together as you go. Once your flower is as big as you'd like it to be or you run out of length, stitch the end of the strip to the center of the flower where all of your stitching is. Step Six Cut your piece of felt into a circle that is big enough to hide all of your stitching on the reverse of the flower. Heat up your hot glue gun, then use a liberal amount of glue on the reverse of your flower and press your felt circle onto it. Apply more glue to the center of your felt circle, then press your brooch bracket onto it. Once everything has cooled and set, you then have a finished fabric flower that you can use to adorn anything you like! If you decide to have a go at making your own fabric flower, be sure to upload a photo to our Facebook page - we love to see what our customers come up with!