Felt Poppies

Whether you want a fistful of poppies to bring a bit of sunshine indoors or to hand out for Memorial Day and Remembrance Day, these sweet little flowers are easy to make and delightful when done 🙂

Note: The original post, Poppies A Plenty, can be found HERE.

Materials:
wool or wool blend felt
green woven fabric
3/8″ plastic beads
6″ pipe cleaners
embroidery floss

Directions:
Using a Mason jar lid (2 3/4″ circle) draw a circle on felt using a disappearing marker and cut out.

Fold the circle into quarters and make a small snip in the middle of the circle. Do it both directions so there is a small cut “x”. This needs to be just large enough to pass a covered bead through.)

Place a bead on the end of pipe cleaner, and bend the pipe cleaner about 1″ down. Twist the end of the pipe cleaner around the long piece of pipe cleaner so the bead is secured.

Using the Ripe and Tear method described HERE, for each flower ripe a strip of fabric 3/4″ x 15″ from the green woven fabric. Also, cut one square 1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ for each flower.

Lay the pipe cleaner on the backside of the square of fabric with the bead in the center.

Wrap the fabric around the bead. Using 2 strands of matching floss, wrap the thread firmly around the bead 2 or 3 times, then tack in place. Holding the remainder of the fabric against the pipe cleaner, tightly wrap the fabric against the pipe cleaner in a spiral fashion. Tack at the bottom of the fabric.

Using a running stitch and 2 strands of matching floss, sew around the “X” in the middle of the felt. Do not tie off and leave the needle attached.

From the backside, push the fabric covered bead through the “X”. Make sure the four tabs made by cutting the “x” remain on the backside.

Gently pull on your running stitch, gathering the circle to the pipe cleaner directly below the bead. Keeping the running stitch gathered, tack in place. Sew the flower to the pipe cleaner, making sure your stitching stays between the tabs and the gathering stitch.

Wrap the green strip around the base of the flower. Make sure the top of the strip covers the gathering line. Stitch around the flower every 1/4″ – 1/2″. After the first round is complete, angle the strip so it overlaps the strip above it by half. Tack about every 1/2″, going through the pipe cleaner on an angle downward. At the end, leave a 1″ tail that you wrap around the bottom edge and tack in place.

If you would like, you can leave your flower looking like this.

However, if you would like to give your poppy a more traditional crinkled look, dip the flower in water, making sure the felt is thoroughly soaked.

Remove from water and squeeze out all the extra water. The petals will be wrinkled and stuck together.

Hang the wet poppies upside down, allowing to completely dry.

 

Once dry, “fluff” the flowers, relaxing some of the wrinkles. If there is a real funky bend to one, simply re-wet, squeeze and dry again. Your poppies are now ready to use how ever you like.

Note: If you’d like to make your poppies bigger, simply cut your circle bigger and use 2 pipe cleans, and use longer pipe cleaners.