How to make Kanzashi 2 – Pointed petal hanakanzashi

Back in April, I showed you how to make round-petaled kanzashi flowers. Kanzashi are formal hair accessories often worn with kimono. Hana-kanzashi, or flowers, are a popular motif, often made by tsumami – folding small squares of fabric. Today I’d like to show you how to make pointed petals, which can be sewn together to make this elegant 5-petaled flower, and many other flowers. The finished flowers can be glued or sewn to clips, combs or hairsticks to make kanzashi, or used to embellish clothes, make pins and brooches, and so on…

For this project you’ll need:

• Fabric – you can use any fabric, but light cottons or silk are easier to work with. Use thin fabrics for small flowers – bulky fabrics will be difficult to fold small.
• Ruler, and pencil or tailors chalk
• scissors
• needle and thread
• button, bead, or scrap of fabric to finish your flower.

Rule and cut 5 squares of fabric. They should be as perfectly square as you can make them, and all the same size. You can make the squares any size you like – the finished flower will be around the same size as one square.

To fold a pointed petal, start with a fabric square, wrong side up, and fold it diagonally in half, so the right side of the fabric is outermost.

Fold the resulting triangle in half, then fold the top corner of the triangle down to the bottom – turn over and fold the other corner in the same way.

Fold the right-angle point of the triangle back so it touches the long side, as shown, do this on both sides. You can now stitch the base of the petal, and trim off the excess fabric.

Make 5 petals in the same way, then sew the bases of the petals together the same way as a round-petaled kanzashi. Finish by sewing a button, bead, or bit of fabric in the centre of the flower.

You can make flowers with any number of petals, or even combine round and pointed petals to make different flowers.

You may also like:

1. Japanese fabric flowers – how to make kanzashi
2. How to make moulded leather flowers
3. How to make a Kusudama