How to Make Ric Rac Flowers

I was in a vintage shop in Nottingham a few years ago and I had ten minutes to make up my mind about a dress with a fabulous tassel print skirt or I'd miss my train. The dress needed many repairs and I have a rule I never buy anything I don't know how to fix when I buy it. It prevents me from gathering a to-be-fixed pile. The solution must also be inexpensive and the materials easy to find*.

Spoilers: I bought it.

I came up with the ric rac flower method. It worked so I rolled it out to other clothes.

 

This cashmere cardigan was perfect except for a large ink mark. The blue organza Grace Kelly inspired dress had small holes and fraycheck stains on the top half. The yellow and black 1950s dress was almost thrown away by the shop because of stains and small holes. 

This made them affordable. The cardigan, which must have been once only once or twice as it was completely free from bobbling, was bought from a charity shop for £5, a small fraction of the price if bought as new! The two 1950s dresses were also about a third of their usual selling price. And the best thing is, if you choose your colours carefully, the flowers look like they're meant to be there. I'm frequently told the blue dress looks much better with splashes of red and new red buttons.

Here's how to make ric rac flowers:

1. Get your item of clothing. For me, it's almost always a dress.
   
2. Before you go ric rac shopping, decide how many flowers you need. I do this by placing small round objects like coins or glass pebbles on my dress but you could easily draw some circles on paper and pin them on. If I’m covering stains or repairs, I place these circles first and then add some extras dotted around to give the effect they are meant to be there and not hiding imperfections.
3. For each size of flower, work out how much ric rac you need for each. You can do this by cutting a long thin strip of paper the same width as your desired ric rac and folding it in a spiral. Cut off the excess, unravel your strip of paper and measure it. Add on 1cm per flower for tucking under raw edges and multiply this up by the total number of flowers you need. For the 30 red flowers on the blue dress, I used 12 metres of ric rac. Each of my red flowers is about 4.5-5cm in diameter and uses 40cm of ric rac including the 1cm allowance at the ends.
4. Buy ric rac. Choose colours which pick out the colours in the dress or completely contrasting colours for a dramatic effect.
5. Measure and cut your ric rac into the lengths required for each flower. Seal the ends with dab of clear nail varnish and leave to dry. Make sure the ends don’t touch anything or they will get stuck. I find hanging them over a wire coat hanger or drawer handles works well.
6. You can do the next two steps while the ends of the ric rac dry. If the dress fabric is thin, you might like to make a base for your flowers to reduce the risk of the dress fabric tearing or puckering when machine sewn. I used a piece of raw silk I bought in a charity shop on the blue organza dress. The silk is strong but not as stiff as cotton. Fabric from an old scarf or handkerchief would also work well. Cut circles slightly smaller than your finished flower so they will be completely covered by the ric rac.
7. Pin the circles to the dress and use invisible stitches around the edge of each circle to secure. At this point you might want to try on your dress to check the placement of the flowers when worn.
8. I find it easier to pin and then tack each flower before finally machine sewing all flowers. This reduces the risk your dress snags on the many pins or that you run out of pins.  Pin the end of the ric rac to the centre of the circle. Fold it round so the end is covered. Keep pinning the ric rac in a spiral outwards until you have covered the base circle. Tuck the end underneath and pin.
   
   
9. Tack along the ric rac spiral to secure and remove all pins. The ric rac flower should be flat and not pucker the dress underneath.
   
10. Repeat steps 7) and 8) for all flowers.
11. Set your sewing machine up for a medium-small straight stitch. You may want to test the tension sewing a small leftover piece of ric rac on a test scrap of fabric.
12. Machine along the ric rac spiral starting from the centre. Go slowly and manually turn the wheel for sharp corners, particularly in the centre of the flower. I stop when the needle is in the fabric, take up the foot and change sewing direction often to make sure the stitching follows in a smoother circle.
13. Repeat step 11 for each flower.
14. Use a needle and thread to bring all loose thread ends to the reverse side of the fabric and tie off neatly.
15. You're done. Dance!
    
    
    
     
    
    
    
    
    

* I recommend checking out markets or eBay rather than haberdasheries in department stores if you're making more than a few flowers. Last time I looked, 5m of ric rac was £3 at John Lewis, the equivalent of 60 p/m. I bought the yellow ric rac at 5p/m and the red ric rac at 25 p/m from two different stalls at my local fabric market. It adds up if you're buying 12 metres per dress.