Haarblume

My favorite part about Germanic languages is the ability to squish as many nouns as possible into one megaword.  Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft translates to "Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services."  Wut?  My favorite was always "Geschirrspülmaschine," meaning dishwasher.  Isn't it fun to say?  My stepdad's favorite joke to tell, (and he tells it often), is:  How do you say 'bra' in German?  Itkeepsemfromfloppen.  Get it?

Um, but I digress.  The point of this post is to talk about something with which I'm sure most of you are familiar:  Hair flowers.  Or fascinators, as they are one-in-the-same.  I think.  According to Wikipedia, fascinators have only recently come back into style.  Maybe Carrie Bradshaw had something to do with the come-back?  

Anyway, I never thought I was going to embrace the wedding flower/fascinator trend.  I don't know if I thought it to be too "fashion forward?"  (lol?) or if it had anything to do with the fact that I know my mom would laugh at it, but I just never felt that I'd want to wear one, especially on a day where all eyes will be on me.  *gulp*

But, really, they're EVERYWHERE.  Come on, tell me you can't open a wedding magazine without flipping to a page that showcases a beautiful feathery flower affixed to the top of a fake bride's head.  By fake bride, I mean model.  Everything looks pretty on models...

Even so, I was intrigued.  I had seen so many pretty hair flowers that I started to imagine myself wearing one with my veil.  I even added a cute little flower to the picture I drew of myself for the banner on my personal blog. 

See?

I decided I'd go ahead and make one.  If I don't like it, I don't have to wear it amirite?  I turned to woman whom everyone turns to should they need a DIY tutorial, Martha.  I remembered that she had a fabric and paper flower feature a few months back.  I know a few of the Bees have already blogged about their fabric flowers, but I figured I'd join in the fun.  Just because I really like how mine turned out!

I'm not going to write a complete tutorial.  They're very simple and all the instructions can be found at marthastewartweddings.com.  

I chose to use the garden rose template, which calls for you to cut out many flower-shaped layers and stack them all together.  I went to JoAnn last week and used a 50% off coupon on a yard of red silk dupioni fabric.  It had just the right amount of sheen and structure.  The only downside is that it frays very easily.  

The first flower I made used the medium sized template.  

I layered all my layers up, pinned each petal through the entire stack of fabric and cut them all at once.  Martha doesn't tell you to do this, but she's probably not as lazy as I am.  This saved a ton of time.  

Mr. Doxie resized these pictures for me, and the quality got a little bit wonky.  Sorry.

It took about five minutes to cut all the layers out.  Make sure your scissors are sharp!  I separated all the layers, then stacked them back up and sort of staggered them.  I didn't pay much attention to the template when cutting, and one side ended up with petals much smaller than the other.  I made sure to put each layer opposite of the last, so that my finished flower would be even.

Assembling the flower is really as easy as folding the circle in half, tacking it with a few stitches, then folding it in half again, and sewing the seam shut with a few stitches. 

It took about three minutes with a needle and thread before my flower was finished.  It was oookay.  A little small, a little boring.

I don't want a huge take-over-your-head sort of flower, but something a little bit larger than that.  It was probably about three inches across.  Cute, though.  Maybe I'll gift those to the bridesmaids for their hair.

I tried again, this time using the large template, and adding more layers.  I want to say the first flower was nine layers of fabric?  I didn't count, but that sounds about right.

Attempt #2 had 17 layers of silk.  I also purchased some red tulle* because I thought it might give it a little more dimension.

My camera battery died before I could get a picture of the finished product on its own, but Mr. Doxie did snap a few shots of it in my hair!

I apologize for my messy hair, guys.  

My cheap little camera really doesn't do it any justice, but I think the flower looks great.  The silk is so pretty; it really makes it look like it was expensive.  But!  With my 50% coupon, it only cost about $3.00 to make.  

Now I have to make the veil to attach it to!  My mom hasn't seen it yet, and I'm pretty sure she's going to scoff, but I don't care.  It's very pretty, and it's going to look great with my dress.

Did  you end up wearing or using something that you never though you would?

*When I went to check out at JoAnn's, the kid who rang me up told me that my "tulley" didn't qualify for my coupon because it was already on sale.  Really?  How do you work at a fabric store and pronounce it "tulley?"