Staff Tips & Tricks: August 2007 Archives

Moniqa is our Graphic Artist. She is one of the most creative young ladies I have ever known, and I have known a lot of creative ladies! Moniqa creates purses, tops and dresses for herself and these wonderful flowers. We all marvel at them when she wears them to work. She'll pin them to her top or coat, but usually we see them on her handbags. She designed the handbags herself, too.

Here's a link to the pattern, but I wanted to give you a little instruction to go with it here.

• You decide a set number of petals to cut from any fabric you like. Felt, suede and faux suede will not unravel. Silks and other interesting woven fabrics will, but if you can stand it, the raveling can become part of the design.
  
• There is a template for the stigma, or center of the flower.
• You will clip little fringes half-way through your strip of fabric and roll it to create the center.
  
• Hand stitch the bottom of the roll to hold it in place.
  
• The bottom layer of petals are the larger size petal template. Lay them in a circle overlapping them slightly and hand tack them together. Do the same for the smaller top layer of petals.
  
• Push the sigma through the middle and hand stitch the whole flower together picking up each petal layer and securing it into the stigma.
  
• Add a little fabric or felt circle at the back either with glue or hand stitching.
  
• Now you can add a pin back or create a necklace with two pieces of ribbon. Make several flowers and create a fantastic bracelet!

Remember, these are only guidelines. You can make the flower larger. You can make the stamens shorter, longer, thicker, thinner. Add leaves. I think you get the drift. Try my No Rules rule: just start cutting and see what happens. I think that's how Moniqa came up with this project in the first place.

Have fun!
Kristl

P.S. The green flower is created from Dupioni Silk and the indigo flower is wool felt.

AKA "pick-a-knit" rule.
I recently googled how to measure knit stretch and every configuration there of in hopes of find some info on how to accuratly measure the percent of stretch of knit fabric to insure that our customers are getting the most accurate product info. I could not find the info anywhere. By some good will of the internets gods, I stumbled across a forum discussing the "Pick-a-Knit" rule which guided me the rest of my way. Here is a simplifed location to get your info to determine the stretch of your knits.

1) Determine which direction is the stretchiest, this is the direction you want to measure. Typically, across grain is the stretchiest, but if I say it is a fact, there will be an exception. So test to be sure.

2) Grab a ruler or measuring tape and hold it on your knit in the direction of stretch. pinch the fabric at the Zero mark and at the 4'' mark and pull. Pull till you feel resistance, if you pull farther than that you are distorting the fabric. Make a note at where the resistance starts. you can use any spanse of measurement, 4'' is just a decent base measurement to use to make sure you are getting a true stretch

If you were able to pull the fabric 1'', 1''/4''=.25, than you have 25% of stretch. 2'' is 2''/4''=.5, 50% stretch.
You can use this equation:

• base number (we used 4'' above): Y
• inches of stretch: X
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I really hope this helps and that I explained it in a way that is easily understood. If you have any questions, please let me know
Happy Sewing,
Tara