How To Make A Rosette Style Hair Bow

Yet another bow tutorial, are you sick of these yet? I think I’m getting sick of making them but I’ve got one more after this that I promised before I’ve crossed them all off my list 😀

Today I’m making an rosette ribbon bow. That’s a mouthful!

Below you can see the results, mine is on the left and the one that inspired it is on the right, it’s an AP one. I don’t generally condone replicas etc but this bow is maybe 6 years old and I don’t think they’ve made any similar for quite a while. I don’t wear black as much as I used to so I wanted a similar design in several other colours.Funnily enough this bow was the first piece of brand that I ever got, it was a gift from my friend Sandy many years ago and though we’ve lost touch I still think of her when I wear it. She was my Lolita big sister back when I wore it and I really wouldn’t be where I am today (personally, professionally or style wise) without the example she set for me.

I love this style as it can be worn in so many ways!

You need:

Thick ribbon
Medium ribbon
Thin ribbon
Felt
Bobby pin
Tulle
Needle, thread, scissors etc

The three ribbons I’m using:

First cut 2 lengths of the thick ribbon, these need to be around twice as wide as you want the finished bow to be.

Fold the ends into the middle and stitch up both of them. Pull the stitches tights so it ruffles them into a bow.

Lay them crossed in the middle to form an “X” and stitch in place like this:

Now make another bow out of the middle ribbon in the same way:

And stitch it on top…

At this point you really should wrap a piece of the small ribbon around the middle to hide all of the stitches but I forgot so I had to do it later. Clearly my brain was too distracted by the chocolate I was eating at the time, don’t eat and craft it’s serious business.

So pretending you did that, make an upside down V shape with a long piece of large ribbon.

Put a V of the middle ribbon on top of it.

And then a V of the small ribbon on top of that.

Stitch them all together at the top.

Then stitch your bow section of top of that!

The back doesn’t need to be neat because it will all be covered.

Now we need the tulle puff which pokes out the back. Cut a long thin piece of the tulle.

And do a running stitch down one of the long sides. Pull the thread taught so it forms a big ruffle, if you tie the thread to where you began it should curl around into a rosette.

Something like this:

Mine was way too big so I grabbed the non-stitched end and trimmed it.

Stitch or glue the tulle on the back of the bow and then add a circle of felt over the top to make it much neater and finished. No one is ever going to see the back of mine so I just tacked it on. I also cut two slits into the felt to slip a bobby pin through. I usually wear this in my hair but the original was a brooch back so it could be worn anywhere. Completely up to you which you prefer, if I had more of the little metal brooch things I would have used that because then it’s so much more verstile.

Now seeing as I forgot to add the thin ribbon around the bow to hide the stitches before, I had to go back and do it now >_< Craft fail.

Last thing to do is cut all of the ribbon ends into little points

And that’s it! Obviously not as good as the original but still quite pretty and in colours I wear much more often. Now that you know the basic techniques you can make rpetty much any ribbon bow you could possible thing of.

Hope you enjoyed this and on the off chance that Sandy ever reads this: I miss taking photos at pretty buildings with you big sister!

Violet

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