Made By Lex

I made these last week but didn’t have time to post them until today. You all know how I love tone on tone color palettes. I made these three separate flower pins in a cream/white palette. I did them so you could wear all three at once or put them individually on something else.

This one is a beautiful linen that I scored the remnants of recently. It has a gold sheen on top of it and it’s the softest linen. I added some beads to the middle then a few strands of strings hanging down.

This one I used a raw edged silk with a vintage pearl earring in the middle of it.

So lovely….

I added this crochet-like trim to this shirt then clustered the three pins together. I absolutely LOVE the way these came out and can’t wait to switch it up on something else.

Jessica at Oh, So Happy Together made some really cute flower pins recently for her shop. Check them out!!

I was inspired for this by a shirt I saw in J. Crew. Funny that I’ve never gotten a J. Crew catalog until yesterday. What have I been thinking??! They have some GREAT ideas.

Here is a way to refashion a shirt, again. You can cut off the bottom of the hem to do the flower so that way it is already finished. I cut off this pink one.
And this blue knit one that I got in my fabric exchange packet. (thanks rebecca!!)

Cut them about 16- 20 inches and about 2 inches wide. But vary them slightly so they look nicer and not so cookie-cutter.

I chose this palette because these are muted colors, and are almost all a neutral. I think when you thrown bolds in there or prints, that’s when things start to look crafty and home-made. I think this color palette looks like something you would buy in a store.

Now to ruffle your fabric. You can do it by hand, but you all know how I do it by now: set your length to the longest stitch and tighten your tension to the highest number. Just run it right through and it will automatically ruffle. Here’s what I’ve got.

Now to flower the ruffles. Since I’m not going to be washing this, I’m not going to sew it. I’m going to use my best friend, hot glue. Just wind the flowers up gluing as you go. Mold them to the way you like them. Here are all my flowers done.

Now we’re going to glue them onto the fabric. Just start with one in the center and glue it well.

Get a couple more, gluing as you go. Also glue around the sides of the flower so they are sticking together at the bottom and on the sides. Smash them up together nice and close so it looks full.

Here’s how they all look together. You can trim some if they look to high.

Now turn it over and trim the fabric backing. Make sure the flowers slightly overlap so the fabric won’t show from the top side.

Glue on two pins for extra security.

Here it is, in all it’s flowering loveliness…

Voila! Here are a couple styling ideas. I love it on this plain grey T.

Here it is on one of my favorite jackets.

It also looks nice in the center of a garmet, like this sweater.

I like it on a pin because you can move it around. If you sewed it on a shirt, it’s not going anywhere. But this way, the possibilites are endless. Some other ideas I had are on a purse or hanging on a chain necklace. Also, you could throw some vintage jewelry on the flowers, too.

Add any ideas to the Flickr pool. Enjoy!

I’m so glad you all liked the flower pins so much. Here is the tutorial for them.

Get a strip of fabric about 37×7.

You are going to cut out a bunch of these petals. Here’s what they look like. You really don’t need a template. Real flower petals all vary, right? I also don’t use any fabric stiffner because I like the movement of the fabric, again, like real flowers.

Here’s what the petals look like open.

Start by making larger ones and get progressively smaller. Not too small, though. For a large flower, you will need about 15 petals. Begin stacking them as shown.
Here’s what it looks like when they are all stacked.
Now get a needle and thread and pull the first stitch through the middle.
Stitch a small ‘x’ so everything is in place well.
Now that everything is secure, we are just going to form the flower more. I fold it in half and stitch it through.
Then after that I fold in half again and make another stitch through.
Here’s what it looks like after those steps.

After that, tie it off in the back.
You can add to it whatever you want to attach it. You can buy pins and glue it on, you can use a safety pin, a barette, whatever you want. You can also add fun things to the center like a pearl, a diamond, a fabric center, a button- anything!

Here’s the pink one I did.

I really like the fabric I used for the white one because it has a texture to it that reminds me of real petals.

What do you plan on doing with them??

My daughter had this idea for a big flower on her shirt. So I made one of these for her an then decided to try it out in some other ways.

My sister, Ana, helped me out modeling them.
I love these as hair pins.
On a scarf.

I think it’s conventional to put it with a pretty cardigan or on a blazer, but I also love the way it looks on a more rock n’ roll shirt like this one. It’s more unexpected.

Here it is on a leather purse.

I saw something like this in a high fashion magazine, and it’s definitely more daring, but I LOVE it on the side of a leather boot.

At this point, I know all of you are saying, “Get over the ruffles! All you do is ruffles!” Well, I happen to love them and am not going to stop ruffling. But I decided to offer a differnet perspective. I got this shirt at Target in the maternity section. It was an XXXL but I couldn’t resist the color, softness and the $1.20 price tag.

What you need to do is get another t-shirt you like and use it to cut out a pattern. Tuck in the arm sleeves of you shirt and cut around it. Save the scraps!

Here’s how mine looks. Now you need to sew the sides of the shirt back together.

Now we need to reattach the sleeves. The might be slightly larger than your new armhole, so you can gather or pleat them at the shoulder.

This is how mine looks. I also cut the neckline open more because I wanted more of a scoopneck. Remember you don’t need to hem jersey so cut away!

Now that our shirt is all ready, it’s time to doll it up. Using your scraps from the sides and the bottom hem, but out as many little hearts as you can.

This is how many I got.

I am going to cluster mine on one side of the shirt. So I start out with one and I do a zig-zag stitch dow the middle of the heart. A tip here is if you have some lightweight innerfacing, add it to the back of the shirt before you start sewing more added support.

Just add more and more, layer and layer them and here’s what mine came out like.

I was inspired by a shirt from J. Crew and am so happy with the way it came out.

Up close heart petals.
I think it would look great with these vintage pearls, jeans and some knee-high boots.