Sadie here, blogging from the beyond. Now, about a year ago, Helen was trying to make the traditional asagao, or morning glory petal shapes.....there are two of them, and Helen would have loved to have figured out either one of them, but she couldn't. The only thing left to do was to to make up her own. The petal she came up with is quite unorthodox in the kanzashi world, as it requires folding a square of fabric roughly into 3, like this....
...Be sure that the raw edge isn't too close to the folded edge. Helen used 2.5 inch squares of vintage kimono silk for these, just to give you an idea of the size. Now, fold your rectangle in half.....
.....and now pinch it in the middle and secure it with a hair pin, or something.....
Make two, and get them to be about the same size and shape. So, now you can sew or glue them together, whichever works for you at the moment, and then cut off the excess fabric, of course, the way you would with any kanzashi petal. OK, now hot glue the two petals together at their skinniest point.....this is just to help make the final assembly easier....
OK, stage 1 is done. Now, cut a little fabric for the center. You may want to cut it on the bias, but it is not always necessary. Helen used a strip of fabric about 1.5 inches wide, folded it in thirds, and secured it with hair pins....
OK, now find a part you like for the bow tie center and drape it LOOSELY over the bow.....
...and glue the strip to the back of the bow accordingly.....
....and now glue the other end onto the back....
and cut it.
OK, now is the point where I have to apologize, because I wasn't around to supervise. Helen forgot to take a picture of the next step, which is to glue down these raw edges and glue the pin end of blank tie tack to the back. You need to use a tie tack finding with a very small pin base....it should look a little like a nail. Sorry about that! All right, next, cut a small oval of fabric for the backing, probably sticking with the same fabric you have been using.....
The oval can probably be skinnier, but you can always take away! Now stick the center of the oval through the tie tack pin.....
....and glue the fabric onto the pin base and also glue the edges down, making sure your backing doesn't extend too far, because we don't want it to be visible. Now is the time to make the oval skinnier if you need to. The backing covers raw edges and also protects and reinforces the pin.....
....and voila, there is your bow tie lapel pin!
