I found an off-cut of fabric in my craft cupboard ages ago. I thought about making some kind of bow for a while, but wasn’t quite sure where to start. I tried finding a simple tutorial online to start me off. Most of the things I learn to make start by following a tutorial (usually on a stitch or technique) and then I start playing around with it once I’ve learned the new stitch/technique.
I couldn’t find anything I wanted in particular… I then decided to Just Play. I didn’t have a lot of fabric at first so I wasn’t that worried about getting things wrong or making too much of a mess. I didn’t have much to lose!
At the time, I wasn’t feeling very well. It turned out I had bronchitis, and had had it for almost a month when I started playing around with the idea of making a bow. Because I was so unwell I wanted it to be as simple as possible!
I started by cutting a rectangle of fabric that I folded in half length-ways (right-side to right-side) and stitched around the edges, leaving a small gap at one end for turning right-side out.
After turning it right-side out, I made tiny little stitches along the long edges in a sort-of loopy way. I’m sure it has a proper name but I don’t know what it is! I’m still learning how to sew but usually end up just making things up as I go along! Hopefully you can see what I mean from the photograph!
I also sewed closed the small gap I left for turning. I then made a gather stitch down the middle of the rectangle and then pulled it together, tacking it down to hold. I didn’t like it much at first because I thought it looked a bit messy in the middle. To solve that, I simply cut a small piece of felt and wrapped it around the middle.
It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it was a start…
T. M. Crafts. 