Make Your Own XMTS Dandelion!

**Kinetikat** · 16th February 12, 05:30 AM

Hi all,
was bemoaning to myself the fact that if I ordered the official XMTS fake dandelion, I'd probably end up paying something horrrrrible in import tax on top of cost and shipping, and while looking for a nice dandelion image to put on a t-shirt for myself, I stumbled upon this:

http://simmy.typepad.com/echoesofadr...dandelion.html

It's dead chump easy, and looks pretty damn good in the photos - I'm going to have a stab at making one myself in the next few days, and will post photos of my own endeavours as I go.

Happy dendelion-ing!

:ootd:

**cessna152towser** · 16th February 12, 06:00 AM

I would expect you will not be hit for any import tax. I have imported kilts and kilt related items to Scotland from Canada, USA and Pakistan on a number of occasions and apart from two heavyweight kilts, none of my other items were ever held by the Royal Mail pending payment of an import duty. The X-marks dandelion is a lightweight low value item which would probably be of no interest to Customs and Excise. Ironically it is produced for us by an English based company so your dandelion will have made a return trip across the Atlantic Ocean and may have actually visited the premises of our forum owner which certainly gives it claim to be an "official" dandelion and worth the premium. I own three of our Xmarks dandelions, wear it with pride.
By all means though, feel free to make your own. The non-commercial link provided by you would appear to be a reasonable starting point and indeed I have met several members who were wearing artificial dandelions which they had either made for themselves or had sourced from other than our supplier.

**Chas** · 16th February 12, 07:03 AM

If you want, you could PM me your name and address and I will send you one - free.

Regards

Chas

**Harold Cannon** · 16th February 12, 07:50 AM

I find it hard to find good quality artificial plant badges in general. I haven't found dandilion yet and even holly which is my clan plant badge is hard to find. I seems that you can't find it unless it looks fake or is covered in glitter for Christmas.

**Kinetikat** · 16th February 12, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by Harold Cannon

I find it hard to find good quality artificial plant badges in general. I haven't found dandilion yet and even holly which is my clan plant badge is hard to find. I seems that you can't find it unless it looks fake or is covered in glitter for Christmas.

I agree absolutely, Harold! Wild flowers and foliage plants like holly seem to be the most difficult to get hold of if you want a really good quality product.

**Kinetikat** · 16th February 12, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by cessna152towser

I would expect you will not be hit for any import tax. I have imported kilts and kilt related items to Scotland from Canada, USA and Pakistan on a number of occasions and apart from two heavyweight kilts, none of my other items were ever held by the Royal Mail pending payment of an import duty.

Lucky you, in that case! I ordered £12-worth of tee-shirts from a US-based online store once, and when they eventually arrived (after a mystifying and very long delay), there were HMRC stickers all over the package, and I had to pay the fees before the Post Office would release the goods. Total (engraved on my memory)? £58.

Since then, I've heard (though this may be apocryphal) that Customs just select (a) anything that looks big and expensive, and (b) a random sampling of the rest. I had the bad luck to be part of the random sampling, I guess. Could happen again, so I'm very careful generally about not buying from abroad.

Hmm, I'm beginning to sound like a HMRC-hater!

**Kinetikat** · 16th February 12, 11:06 AM

OK, guys, it took about 40 minutes in total, as I had the materials to hand.
Yellow felt (though as I only had the cheapy rainbow pack of felt from Tesco, I only used 1 shade of yellow instead of 2)
Green felt
Green pipecleaner
Yellow and green thread
Dab of superglue or PVA

If I may apologise at this point for the quality of the photos - took them on my phone and it's really rubbish.

Stage 1:

Cut your strips of felt to size, and snip a deep fringe in one side. DO NOT cut too far down, as this interferes with the structural integrity of the strip when you're wrapping it round.
If you're using 2 shades of yellow felt, the darker shade goes in the centre of the flower, lighter on the outside.

Here's my first yellow strip, out of focus but suitably snipped:

Stage 2:

Now get your pipecleaner - the original maker wrapped the pipecleaner with wool... I happened to have a bright green one and really couldn't be arsed with all the wrapping. Do as you wish with your pipecleaner. Then get the first yellow strip, snipped into fringey dandelion petals, and glue it to the last half centimetre of the pipecleaner. Really do glue it, I didn't and spent the entire build having the stalk depart at unexpected moments...

...like this...

Stage 3:

Next up, wrap the first yellow strip tightly round the pipecleaner, and stitch in place using yellow thread. That is, stitch the felt to itself, not to the pipecleaner. Now do the same with the second yellow strip. One that was done, I stitched quickly round the bottom edge of the whole flower, securing several layers together with each stitch, as I could foresee unravelling-petal problems in the future if the glue happened to give way (say, if it rained - I know it's a remote possibility in Scotland, but still!). The photo is a bit fuzzy but you can see the dimpling from the stitches.

OK, so your petals are done. Congrats, you're half way there! If you 'fluff' the petals out by flicking them with with thumb and forefinger while holding the stalk, they should look like this:

Stage 4:

Now it's time for the underneath of the flower. This is apparently called the calyx, and in our case at least, is composed of two small strips of green felt. The first, which makes the downward-curving part, looks like this:

Just cut a narrowish strip of green felt, and wrap it round the base of your petals; this will give you the length you need. Then just snip the little curves in as if you were making a collar for Kermit the Frog.

When the bottom strip is cut, sew it round the bottom of the petals with the points pointing downwards, like this:

Stage 5:

The original maker of these felt dandelions was a bit vexed with her design for the upward-pointing bit of the calyx. I took a look at the real dandelion next to her felt one, and came up with this:

Measure the green felt strip as for the previous one, and snip irregular pointy blades into it, as if making a fuzzy felt lawn. I found this (as per the pic) worked OK, but it was a bit too regular and pushed the petals upwards too firmly, so (unpictured, I do apologise) I simply went along the strip and snipped out a blade every now and then, making a much more irregular array. I think this looks more natural.

Once the upper calyx has been wrapped around, stitch into place. It should look more or less like this:

You're finished, or almost - I clean forgot about cutting out and attaching the dandelion leaf, but that's easy peasy.
The end result of all this hard work:

Ta-dahh! Though why Photobucket and the forum software refuse to put it the right way up, I'm not sure.

I'm pleased with it, though I do say so myself. And it's super-easy as well, which just adds to the pleasure.

Have fun!