I made this bouquet for a friend at work who is having twins, my colleagues and I wanted to give her a gift when she left to go on maternity leave. I made all the elements from ideas I found online (the links are all below). But I love the ideas you see of presenting baby stuff as cakes and so on and thought it would be nice to try making a display she could enjoy before the babies arrive.
So first of all, what’s in the bouquet
2 Snuggle Swaddlers – I looked at lots of different versions but I used this pattern from Lotta Jansdotter. I used the pattern but put it together intuitively as I got impatient with the instructions.
4 Burp Cloths – having asked around a lot I made them about 24×12 inches. I used a metre of Bamboo towelling (which I bought from ebay) as it dries fast and quilting cotton from my stash.
2 Hats – ahem, well I found a size guide but then just freestyled the pattern.
2 Butterfly rattles – not my best sewing, but hopefully fun! Pattern from Sew Mama Sew Butterfly tutorial
2 Dummy Clips – I bought the clips from Amazon and just sewed a strip of cloth put the clip on one end and soft velcro on the other.
12 Dribble bibs – again there are lots of bib patterns out there, this was the one I used and I thought it was great Bandana bib
So on to Bouquet assembly:
If I wasn’t worried about getting sticky tape on the fabric this would be easy, but I needed to come up with non sticky ways of making all the items into flowers and leaves. The methods below are all variations on a theme using
- Fine string
- Wide straws
- masking tape
- Pipe cleaners – or chenille sticks as they seem to be sold as!
When I’d made all my elements I put them in the vase and just as I got it perfect the whole thing fell over, so before you start please weight the vase! I used loads of plasticine, and pushed a few holes in it with the end of a wooden spoon. Then the first straw stems I put in I squished in with more plasticine so that it became stable. 
First the ‘leaves’ which are the swaddlers, the steps are in the picture mosaic below.
- Put a long piece of string across the front
- Fold over
- Draw the string together and tie with a knot that wont slip.
- Put the ends of the string through the straw.
- Put a stopper of masking tape between the 2 threads coming out the end on the straw and tie again.
Next the burb cloths which are quite large and bulky so take a bit of manipulating.
- Fold the burb cloth in a zig zag
- Tie together in the centre
- Hold the centre and gather up into a flower shape and tie it there
- Hook a chenille stick through the string at the base.
- Add a straw to add stability.
- Tape the end of the chenille stick in place.
Next the hats, I wanted these to look like poppies, this required a slightly different technique as the hats are round.
- Stand hats up
- Push centre down all the way
- Add something to the centre, I hunted around for something which wasn’t a choking hazard and used these little bows.
- turn up the other way and loosely tie the lump in place
- Loop a chenille stick around the string in the centre and add a straw.
- Gather the edges of the hat together and tie in place
Butterflies and Dummy clips
These easily just looped with string or a chenille stick and I added a straw as with the other items.
Last but not least the roses which are the dribble bibs. I apparently forgot to take pictures of the method for these – I have no idea why. So I have replicated the method with a spare cut bib shape I didn’t use. The key thing is to anchor the stem with the chenille stick so that the rose doesn’t fall off the stem.
- Turn over a couple of inches of the chenille stick
- Place at one end of the bib
- Fold over the end and the top of the bib and begin to roll (I would actually do this with two hands not on the table)
- Continue to shape and gather as you turn until you are nearly at the end
- Use the Velcro fixing of the bib itself to hold the rose closed. You might have to dig around in the centre a bit to do this.
The rest is just flower arranging!
The Pumpkin Room 
