How to Machine-Embroider a 3-D Flower

Jennifer Stern, contributor

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Here's my "Make It Pink" Confederate Rose.

Jen Stern

The center of the rose is made up of three individual buds.

Jen Stern

Take time to carefully trim around all the individual petals and leaves.

Jen Stern

Here's my "Make It Pink" Confederate Rose.

Photo: Jen Stern

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I first saw these amazing flowers at a Pfaff convention a few years ago. They were beautiful then, but they're even better now because Pam (the owner and designer of Pam's 3D Designs) has been busy refining her technique. When you try to push the envelop and think outside the machine-embroidery box, the results can sometimes be a little off. Happily, this is not the case with these flowers. It was a pleasure to embroider the petals and leaves and assemble the Confederate Rose. It's not often that I work on a project where I get to whip out my glue gun and wire-cutting scissor-I had a blast making this bloom. I hope you enjoy it too, plus it's a great way to Make It Pink! Here's the best part: You can try it for free. Click here to download a zipped folder containing the design files. Be sure to check out Pam's 3D Designs to see a full line of embroidered flowers, butterflies, and much more!

Here's what you'll need:

• The Confederate Rose downloaded and transferred to your embroidery machine
• A 5 x 7-inch hoop
• Three pieces of poly mesh stabilizer
• Two shades of pink for the petals
• Two shades of green for the leaves
• Fray Check
• Sharp scissors to trim away the stabilizer
• 22- and 26-gauge wire
• Wire cutters
• Floral pearls (double sided)
• Florist tape (I love it because it stays put without a sticky mess-I bet you could wrap it around your thread to help keep it from unraveling!)
• Glue gun

This is a great project to work on while you're working on something else. Set your machine up and let it run, stitching out the petals and leaves. This take a little while, and since there is only one color change per hooping, you'll have plenty of time to accomplish something else at the same time! (I love multitasking!) Later, after the embroidery is done, you can relax on the couch and watch TV (or listen to TV) while you're trimming all the stabilizer away.

Before you start trimming, dot the edges of each section with Fray Check. That way you can get really close to the stitching without worrying about raveling or cutting the stitching and ruining the petal.

I started taking pictures early in the morning...I didn't realize that there was dew on my cutting mat that I left outside overnight!

Make three bunches of double-sided pearls. Cut three pieces of 22-gauge wire approximately 12 inches long. Fold each bunch of pearls in half and twist one end of a piece of wire through the fold.

These double-sided pearls on a stem look like mini cotton swabs. I found them in the floral department of a craft store.

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Comments (6)

VictoriaNorth writes: Terribly sorry for the inconvenience. Both links should be working now.
Thanks,
Vicky
Posted: 8:58 am on July 30th

Joycee007 writes: The link to the design files still does not work. Does anyone have the patterns for this flower they could share?
Posted: 1:02 am on July 29th

natwill writes: I would love to try making these flowers but the link for the zip embroidery file and the website for Pam doesn't work. Hope you will post again with the fix for the links!

Posted: 5:16 pm on July 27th

DJSherline writes: Will this be posted again? I'd love to try 3-D flowers w/machine embroidery. I know your email address is posted here, but I'm not sure it's there for the rest of us to use.
Posted: 5:58 pm on November 4th

JenniferStern writes: Hi Penny, I apologize for the delay, the design will be available in the post soon. If you can use .pes format, shoot me an email and I will sent it to you. info@jsterndesigns.com. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Posted: 12:59 pm on September 27th

Pennysilk writes: Where can I find the embroidery file?
Posted: 11:44 am on September 27th

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