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Crafty Friday: Suffolk Puff Flowers

Oh how we love Friday! 🙂

Phew! Another busy week for us all at Karen Delahunty Sewing & Knitting Centre, lots of alteration fittings, sewing machine demonstrations going on as well as the usual hustle and bustle of the shop. Here we are again though, ready to share another lovely tutorial with you.

​​This week we’ve been making these beautiful little Suffolk puff flowers – aren’t they sew sweet? We think these would make lovely handmade gifts for any occasion. Sew them to a cushion cover to make a lovely home-ware piece, add a headband or hairpin to make a beautiful hair-piece. You could even sew them to bags or blankets or attach them to false stems and create a bouquet that lasts forever! The added bonus is that absolutely anyone can make these lovely little flowers with ease.

What You’ll Need

  • Fabric Scraps or Fat Quarters
  • Buttons
  • Threads
  • Needle
  • Ruler
  • Card
  • Compass (Or any round object to draw around and use as a template.)
  • Pen

How to Make Suffolk Puff Flowers

  1. Draw a circle template on to your sheet of card at the desired size. If you’re using a round object, place on the card and draw around. Cut out when finished. This will be your pattern.
    • TIP: If you want to layer your Suffolk puffs, make two patterns, one larger circle and one a little smaller.
  2. Pin your pattern to your fabric and cut out. Cut as many as you wish to make.
  3. Thread your needle with thread that matches your material, tie a knot at the end. Using a running (or straight) stitch, sew around the circle about 1.5cm from the edge of the fabric.
  4. When you reach your starting point, gently pull the thread to gather the fabric – you may have to do this a couple of times to get the desired amount of gathering. When you’re happy, back stitch (or tie) the thread and cut. Repeat this for all of your circles.
    1. TIP: If you’ve decided to give your Suffolk puff flowers a second layer, you’ll want to attach that now. Lay the larger circle so that the gathers are facing you, place the smaller circle on top – again with the gathers facing you and stitch in the middle to hold them in place.
  5. Choose a button for the centre of your Suffolk puff flower. Thread your needle with coordinating thread and tie a knot at one end.
  6. Decide where to place your button and when you’re happy, stitch the button in place. When you’re done back stitch (or tie) your thread and cut.

And there you have it, your very own Suffolk puff flowers!

To make our Suffolk puff flowers we used our ditsy floral print cotton lawn, we also used our fab cotton and linen blend and our textured yellow cotton lawn.
You could also use any of our fabulous Fat Quarter’s.
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We hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and (as always :-)) we’d love to see any that you have made too, so feel free to send those to us via social media or our email address karendelahunty@outlook.co.uk

Happy Crafting and Weekend-ing!