Clover Fabric Sakura Flower Tool

I love crafting gadgets - especially those from Clover (like their Chinese knot tool).  So of course when I found a craft store in the basement level of the Kyoto Tower building I had to look for their Clover brand section.  It was pretty much all over the floor (duh, it's a Japanese brand) - they make sooo many more products than what I see imported my local Californian stores!

But I restrained myself and only bought three sewing tools.  You might be able to find these or something similar in the US, but I had not seen the small versions before.

This tool makes cute little fabric flowers! Sakura / cherry blossom shaped!

A quarter for scale.

You stick a triangle of scrap fabric in the clamping tool. And in advance please excuse my napkin backdrop and crappy photoshop batch edit. :P

Cut the fabric down to size.

And then use a bit of knotted thread to sew in and out of each numbered hole.

Once done, pop it out of the tool - perfectly even stitches!

Pull the thread and you've got a petal.

Don't bother cutting the thread, just continue the next petal on the same one.  Repeat until you have five petals.

And then sew the first and last petal together and knot it in the back.

Perfect little flower!

Attach it to whatever you like.

And add a button or piece of felt to cover the middle.

 Halloween/SF Giants hair clippys!

It's a great little project since it uses such small pieces of fabric, and I have SO MUCH fabric scrap around the house. Now, obviously you can make these flowers without a tool.  Just cut small circles and sew them in half.  But I really like the tool because it takes a lot of the measuring and thinking out of the project. I don't have to worry about not cutting the circles the same, or not sewing evenly, because the tool is rather fool-proof.

Fool-proof, but not cat proof! Sewing with a cat is nearly impossible! He keeps trying to attack the thread! Crampin' my style, Konbu - go play with Sak!

Nyaaan.