Tattered Fabric Roses

I love jewelry- a lot. I rarely wear it (only on Sundays) and I have tacky 90 year old grandma pretty funky taste so I feel guilty buying it and spending any $$ on it when I know I’m only going to wear it 3 times if at all. I love the bib necklace trend with rolled roses and I am super excited because I know I can make them and not have to spend a dime to get a pretty new necklace. Guilt free jewelry, what’s not to love?

I haven’t actually made my necklace (edited to add- *made it here!*) yet since the roses are so fun I can’t seem to stop long enough to apply them to anything. I thought I’d share how I make the tattered rolled roses so you can make a bunch of your own. I made 15 in one hour. EASY and no sew. These would look great on bags, pins, headbands, you name it and would make a great gift.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started-

• 
• Strips of fabric about 1 1/2” – 2” wide by however long. About 1 1/2” wide for velvet and corduroy and about 2” for cotton and silky stuff. Mine were 44” long because I used new fabric and not scraps, by all means use scraps if you’ve got them.
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Bar Pin backs

Loosely fold your strip of fabric in half and tie a not in the very end. Don’t worry about the selvedge edge or anything like that. We’re being casual. Keep the fabric folded in half with your fingers and roll it a few times tightly around the knot. Apply a tiny dot of glue to your fabric once your center knot is as big as you want it to keep your knot in place.

When you have it rolled a few times around you can start to twist the fabric. I hold the knot in my left hand pinching the tops and bottom between my thumb and forefinger and twist and roll the “tail” fabric around the sides with my right hand. I like them pretty tight.

When the rose gets a bit bigger it might try to move around on you so just apply a little dot of glue here and there to keep things from migrating. I only had to use 4 dots of glue total for this rose, don’t get carried away with the glue or it won’t be tattered… it will be gloppy. You don’t want gloppy. I did use more for the satin roses, just don’t go overboard.

When it gets to a size you like, or you run out of fabric, check the front and back and decide which one looks prettier. I was surprised at how often I liked the back side better. Add a little glue to the “tail” and tack it to the ugly side of the rose. Cut off any left over “tail”. Group them together and add a pin back and you can put them on anything.

That’s it! So easy.

If you want to mix it up a bit you can add tulle or satin to your fabric flower to add texture. Here’s how I did it-

Follow the same steps above for a normal rose and when you get about half way done, dot a little glue on your rose “tail”. Open it up and set a strip of tulle about the same width as your fabric to the inside of your tail.

Fold the tulle up inside the tail fabric and just keep going with the twisting and rolling. Finish it off like the other flowers when it gets big enough and you’re happy with it.

You can tell by looking at the light grey and light yellow cotton that they were the first roses I made. I got better after the 4th one so don’t stop if your first one looks a little wonky. That’s just shabby in disguise. If you want them smaller cut smaller strips and stop rolling sooner, if you want them bigger cut wider strips and roll until the end of your strip. Glue on pearls if you’re feeling extra sassy. Have fun and go forth and play!