Warm and Natural rolled no sew roses tutorial and Plaid Pumpkins

 Hi guys! I have been making some stuffed fabric pumpkins for our church's upcoming Fall Festival. I made these with vintage wool fabric, jute twine, burlap leaves and roses I made from Warm and Natural .. which is a quilt batting I believe. I am not a fan of orange pumpkins. I wanted to make something that had an (to quote Martha) "autumnal feel". I got this vintage plaid and checked wool yardage at an estate sale for not much. You could surely use whatever you have on hand or buy something new!  I made the leaves from a burlap coffee bag fabric and free hand stitched it on the sewing machine.

I hot glued on the leaves and the finished rose. I wanted to make cream felt roses, but all we have in town is a Walmart and their felt selection is limited and not high quality..no cream. So I found the Warm and Natural in the fabric section. *lightbulb*. I got a 1/2 yard for $3.49 plus tax. It is 90" wide so cutting it into 4 inch squares, you could make 88 roses for that $3.49! I also got the jute twine there, but in the hardware department. It is $1.97 for a regular roll..and in the craft department it is a lot more..probably because it is hemp there and meant for jewelry. I don't care if it is itchy jute twine when I am using it for crafts!

 Here is the how to's. Pardon the lighting..I took these last night. Cut a approx. 4" square. Now let me say these directions are all over the net. I do a few things differently though from what I have seen.

 Round off the corners..

 Start at the edge and cut a approx. 1/2" -3/4" spiral to the middle stopping a 1/2" or so from the center edge.

 Here's were I change it up. I cut the spiral into scallops on the outside edge every inch or so..no need for exactness!

 (Now pardon my atrocious fingernails!) Start at the outside edge and begin tightly rolling about an inch or so..and add a dab of hot glue. This will be the flower center.

 Continue rolling and hot gluing at the flat edge about every third scallop.. a little dab will do ya!

When you get towards the end, I use a bit more hot glue and flare the petals out a bit by attaching them at an angle to the rest of the rose.

Keep the bottom edges of the rose flat.

  Add a bunch of glue to seal those flat edges.

 And cover the glue with the last bit of the spiral.

 I like a more open rose, so at this point I go back and slit the outer petals at the low points of the scallops..it makes them look more like individual petals and not just a roll.

 I then go in at the slits I just made and trim off the square corners by making a small V shape..because I am picky!

All done and ready to glue onto something! You could also make these with felt, scrapbook paper, sheet music, book pages, old maps ..you name it! The Warm and Natural is my new fave though and I plan to experiment dying some of it next to make different colored flowers! With 88 roses per 1/2 yard, you could use these to make a gorgeous rose covered wreath! Hmmmm.... Til next time! Julia