Origami Hibiscus Flower Shirt Embelishment

A few weeks ago, I mentioned this sweater from Old Navy that I had fallen in love with. The price tag was a bit much for a thin cardi (I'm totally cheap, fyi), so I decided to take the idea and make it my own.

My mom let me go through all of her fabric origami books, looking for the square flower that they had used. Turns out, it's called a Hibiscus flower. I love, love, love the shape.  Turns out, that while a bit time consuming, they are pretty simple to make. Right up my alley! 

As soon as I find the book (which may just be out of print), I'll post a link to it. Sorry kiddos, no tutorials on copyrighted patterns :)

Anyways, I bought a cheap deep v-neck short sleeved shirt from the afore mentioned store and hauled out my fabric scraps (the nearest fabric store, aside from a quilting store, is a 1/2 hr away, so no new fabric for this project). After fiddling with a few fabrics in varying weights and colors, I decided to use a light weight light blue shirt fabric. 

Regular weight cotton or linen was too bulky for the size flowers I wanted (about 1"x1") and looked a little too quilt-y. Eyelet and other open weaved fabrics started to look messy the more folded up they got. So, lightweight (very very thin cotton, lining fabric, light shirtweights, silk, etc) fabric was the only way to keep the form with out the bulk. And keep the flowers from looking like a wearable quilt. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

I used three strands of embrodiery floss and used running stitches to tack down the flowers. It created a great x in the middle of the flower, just like the ON sweater. I think this step was the most time consuming, but I love hand stitching, so it didn't bother me.

After 5 days of working on and off (probably two hours total, not including the trial and error up to getting the right look), I finished the embelishments, attached them with more embroidery floss and wore it today.

No compliments and the hubby thought it was too much, but I love it!

I really need a tripod - this was the only way I could get a shot of me wearing the shirt! Don't mind the mess of my crap room...