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Marisa Reyes
Tips for flower pounding on fabric
Enjoy blooms from your garden year-round when you create botanical prints with flower pounding. In addition to these charming gift bags, you can make towels, tablecloths, shirts and even socks. This simple process starts with fresh flowers, a hammer and fabric made of natural fibers, such as cotton, linen, bamboo or hemp. Watch the video above and read the simple steps below to learn more about the flower pounding technique.
What you will need for this project
Materials
- Fabric item made of 100% natural fibers (We used 5×7 and 8×10 100% cotton gift bags)
- pH neutral detergent (We used Mrs. Meyer’s brand)
- Washing soda, or sodium carbonate (We used Arm & Hammer™ All Natural Super Washing Soda)
- Alum, or aluminum potassium sulfate for mordant (We used a generic brand of Alum found in the spice aisle)
- Fresh flowers and foliage
Tools
- Small bucket
- Tweezers
- Hammer
- Cutting board or other flat surface for pounding
- Barrier cloth (We used an old pillowcase, but you could also use scrap fabric or a paper towel)
- Cardboard
- Iron and ironing board
- Sheet of paper
Step 1: Prepare the fabric for flower pounding
To ensure the fabric absorbs the color pigments from the flowers, use an all-natural fiber, and follow two preparatory steps:
- Start by scouring the fabric, which removes oils, waxes and impurities that might interfere with dye absorption.
- To scour, soak the fabric in a mixture of 1 teaspoon of pH-neutral detergent and 2 tablespoons of washing soda in 1 gallon of warm water. We soaked these bags for about five minutes before hand washing and rinsing until the water ran clean.
- Next, soak the fabric in a mordant solution, which helps bind the dye to the material. To do this, mix 1 gallon of hot water with 2 teaspoons of alum in a bucket and soak the fabric for 2 hours.
- Then, in a separate container, dissolve 1 teaspoon of washing soda in ½ cup of hot water and add it to the alum solution.
- Let the fabric soak in the mordanting mixture for at least 8 more hours, then wring out the fabric and allow it to dry naturally without rinsing.
- Once it’s dry, iron the fabric flat.
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Step 2: Create your design
Now it’s time to arrange the flowers in a design that you’ll be imprinting with a hammer. You can find some of the flowers that worked best for us at the bottom of this article.
- To begin, place the fabric on a hard surface, such as a cutting board. (To prevent the dye from bleeding onto the back of the gift bags, insert cardboard into the bag to separate the layers of fabric.)
- Arrange the flowers face-down on the bag and cover them with a barrier cloth. We’re using an old pillowcase above, but you could also use scrap fabric or a paper towel.
- Delicate flowers, such as Johnny jump-ups, easily transfer their color when pounded. However, flowers with dense centers, such as marigolds and coreopsis, tend to create a muddy design when pressed whole. Removing the petals and arranging them in a pattern results in a cleaner design and better dye transfer.
- Hammering stems and flowers separately gives you the freedom to mix and match, so you’re not limited to using the exact flower and stem together.
- When working with leaves, place them face up: This helps the veins and textures imprint clearly on the fabric.
- To make sure the dye spreads evenly and the details transfer to the fabric, pound softly with the hammer starting at the outer edges and working toward the center.
- You might have to go over it a few times. In the photo above we’re pulling back the barrier cloth to check the progress of the transfer and adjust any flowers or leaves that may have shifted during hammering.
Step 3: Finish & set the flower print
- Let the flower print dry for a few minutes before gently removing the plant material. If left for too long, it becomes harder to separate from the fabric.
- In the photo above we’re using tweezers to carefully peel away the flowers.
- Next, heat set the flower print by laying a sheet of paper over the design and iron on a low setting.
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Plants that work great for flower pounding
We found that fresh-picked blooms provide the best color intensity, and some flowers contained more pigments in their petals, making them better at transferring vibrant colors. Additionally, some flowers experience a color shift during the transfer process, like you can see above. Here's a short list of flowers we've had success with:
- Balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus)
- Blanket flower (Gaillardia x grandiflora)
- Coreopsis (Coreopsis spp.)
- Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus)
- Garden phlox (Phlox paniculata)
- Gloriosa daisy (Rudbeckia hirta)
- Hibiscus (Hibiscus spp.)
- Johnny jump-up (Viola tricolor)
- Mandevilla (Mandevilla x amabilis)
- Marigold (Tagetes spp.)
- Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis)
