Creating A Traditional Rusched Flower

Info about the The traditional ruched flower is not only great for costumes but also for dresses. You might want to make a ruched flower because it gives your costume a little bit of softness, it is super easy to do and it will just make your costume amazing.

Supplies:

Fabric, lace strips or blanket binding
Needle
Thread to match
Straight pins
Scissors or clippers
Hair clip or pin backing, optional

Directions:

Choosing Your Materials

For our demonstration, we are showing you options of fabric strips, grosgrain ribbon, a lace strip, or blanket binding. Fabric strips work well because you can match your costume or the trim on the costume. Also, you have more choices for variety with fabric. Blanket binding works well because it has a finished folded edge. Both the fabric and the binding will have a folded edge and has a little more bulk to it. Choose the fabric and color of your choice and that goes well with the costume.

Cutting the Material

For our example, we are using fabric so that it matches the outfit. We cut a strip about a foot and a half long and about four inches wide. Fold the strip in half lengthwise. Then, round off the corners on the open edge.

Sewing the Bow

Because the thread often breaks on this, you definitely want to double thread the needle so that you end up with four strands of thread with which to sew. It is best to use a long needle with a large eye for this. Start sewing the strip on the folded edge and continue towards the open edge. Sewing about ½� from the edge sew the needle in and out starting from the folded edge of the strip to the open edge and down the open edge to the other end, turn and continue to the folded edge. Make sure that you catch both layers on the open end and that you gather as you go. If you find you are more than ½� from the edge back it out and start again.

When you are done, the strip will turn on its own and make a circle. Check the gathers. Some may be really tight and they will need to be adjusted. You do not want the gathers too tight but you do want lots of them. If any of the gathers are too tight, loosen them and even them out. At this point, you want to tie a strong knot so that you do not lose all the work you have done if the thread breaks. You do not have to cut the thread, just continue sewing with the same thread.

The next step is to roll the gathered edge starting from the folded edge. Roll it a little bit and then anchor the gathered edges of what you have rolled by sewing in and out through the gathered and rolled fabric in several different directions. Then, continue rolling the fabric strip along the gathered edge and anchor the gathered edge again by sewing all the way through that rolled edge. Again, continue rolling the gathered edge until you reach the other end and anchor it again for the final time. If while rolling this strip you notice that you missed a section while gathering it, just grab the piece up with your needle and kind of gather it right there and then continue rolling the strip. If at any time, the rolled strip becomes too big to sew all the way through the rolled edge, the just sew half of the way through and anchor it to half of the roll. Continue sewing around the edges of the back of the flower to reinforce the integrity of the flower so that none of the flower slips out of the roll. It is a good idea to tie off the thread several times during this whole process so that if the thread breaks you do not lose your work.

Turn the flower over and look at how it turned out. You can flatten it down if you like or if it does not seem tight enough, turn the flower over and do a little more work to it. Stitch into the base of the flower and tighten up what you have done by stitching in and out tightening it up as you go. After you have sewn around the base then stitch into the base and out of the base a couple of times. Then wind around the base several times very tightly and then again stitch in and out once to anchor the stitches and tie it off. When you turn it over you should see that it has a tighter look to the flower.

These flowers can be very time consuming. If you are doing several flowers, time the first flower and allow at least that much for each flower.

These flowers work for a lot of things besides dance costumes. They are used for hair pieces, vintage dresses, vintage hats and a lot of other things. Their use is only limited by your imagination.