Silk lotus flower: The silk lotus flower is easy to construct, but looks very luxurious. You can make it in any size, but pick fabrics that tend towards stiff, like silk taffeta, or dupione. You can singe the edges of the petals with a flame (the flower here is singed), or just leave the cut edges raw. Also, after you master the basic technique, you can experiment with different petal shapes.

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Cutting the petals: You will cut five units to construct the flower. Begin by cutting squares, measuring the size you want the flower. In our example, I’m using a 3” square. For the demonstration, I’m using paper, so you can see the process.

Fold the square in half.

Fold one side up in thirds.

Fold the other side up.

Fold the entire unit in half lengthwise.

Cut as shown.

Open it out, and one unit will look like this.

For the next step, you will have your five petal units, and a piece of crinoline.

Crinoline is a milliner’s interfacing, and is also customarily used as a base for fabric and ribbon flowers. If you don't have crinoline, use any stiff interfacing fabric.

To begin, hand stitch a circle in the center of one of the units, 3/8” around.

Draw this row of hand stitching up tight, and sew the center of the unit to the crinoline.  The rows of stitching on the subsequent petal units will also be gathered, and sewn to the crinoline.

For the next four petal units, you will sew progressively larger circles before stacking each unit on top of the previous one. Since I’ve made the squares 3”, I’m using coins to show the progression of the sizes of these circles. Notice the largest circle, is 1/3 the total diameter of the petal unit.

Making progressively larger circles of stitching does two things--it reduces the diameter of each petal unit as the flower progresses, and creates padding for a larger flower center.

Unit two is hand sewn, and stitched to the first unit, through the crinoline.

This is what it will look like—the nub of fabric in the center of the first petal unit, will be contained inside the nub of fabric in the center of the second petal.

As you are sewing the petal units to the flower, make sure the ripples in the petals are evenly distributed around the flower—you can pull the petals one way or another and hand-tack, to achieve this.

Petal unit three is sewn and stitched to the first two units.

Petal unit number four is stitched and sewn to the developing flower.

The final unit number five, is stitched and sewn to the rest of the flower.  Note the center of the flower—the nubs of fabric in the centers of the units, will pad out the final center, giving it a slightly rounded shape.

Turn the work over—you can see where it is sewn to the crinoline.

Trim the crinoline close to the stitches.

And here you have the finished flower.  Fluff up the petals to give it life, and you’ll have  a lovely flower!