Make a rag rug FLOWER POSY

Create colourful textured blooms using leftover fabrics

2022-06-01 -

These rag rug bouquets are sure to bring vibrancy to any room of the home and make a wonderful handmade gift. Crafted using various fabric scraps, this is the ultimate stash-busting project. It’s easy to create gorgeous textured blooms that will last a lifetime using this shaggy rag-rugging technique. Try making seven different-sized flowers for each bouquet, or simply supersize the whole bunch.

YOU WILL NEED

Round object, 5cm in diameter Hessian Marker pen Sewing machine and thread Fabric Fabric scissors Rag rug spring tool Twigs/ wooden sticks (30cmx6mm diameter) for the flower stems Glue gun

TRACE THE FLOWER BASES

Place the round object on the hessian and trace around it to form a circle. Move the object so that it overlaps the first circle by around 1cm and trace round it again, to form a figure-of-eight shape. Repeat seven times, leaving at least 4cm of hessian between each figure-of-eight shape and the next, and between the figures and the edge of the hessian.

HEM THE HESSIAN

Use a sewing machine to work a zigzag stitch around the drawn figureof-eights to hem the hessian. Leave your stitch width at the default setting, but adjust your stitch length to be shorter.

CUT OUT THE PETALS

Cut your fabric into strips that are around 5x8cm in size (you can vary the length and width of the strips for different effects). Lay 10 cut strips, one on top of the other, and use scissors to shape the ends of the bunch of strips so that they are either rounded, pointed or heart-shaped. Different shapes will give different looks to your flowers.

RAG-RUG THE HESSIAN

Fill inside the stitched figure-of-eights with shaggy rag-rugging. Keeping the spring tool closed, from the top of the hessian, weave the pointed end down into a hole in the hessian and up through a hole two strands away. You should now have two strands of the hessian on top of the lever. Squeeze to open the spring tool. Place the corner of the short edge of the fabric strip into the opening and release the lever to clench the rag. Holding the hessian still with one hand, pull the spring tool back through the hessian so that half of the rag is on one side of the strands of hessian and half is on the other.

REPEAT FOR ALL THE FLOWERS

Leaving out around one strand of hessian between each fabric piece and the next, repeat with this method. Fill the shapes in any order you like (in lines or randomly, for example) but make sure to rag-rug your pieces close together so you get a nice full flower. Rag-rug all your flowers before cutting into the hessian as this helps keep the strands intact.

CUT AROUND THE BASES

Once all the flowers are rag-rugged, cut around the edge of the stitching of the rag-rugged figure-of-eights to separate them from the sheet of hessian. Cut as close to the stitched hem as possible without cutting into it.

ADD THE STEMS

Lay the rag-rugged figure-of-eights shaggy side down on a solid surface and place one of the wooden flower stems or twigs on, so the end is within the base of the figure-of-eight. Glue around the edge of the stitching and around the wooden stick, then fold the figure-of-eight to sandwich the stick into the hessian. Press all the edges to secure them together and fluff up the rag-rugging to cover the fold. Trim if necessary.