What is a cockade?

A Cockade is an ornament, which is mostly circular shaped, worn as a badge on clothes or a hat decoration. It is made of fabric pieces or ribbons folded or gathered in the desired shape

How to make cockades – 5 ways

Cockade 1

You can make the above-given cockade by taking a fabric piece (preferably satin fabric ) cut in the dimension 50 inches long by 2 1/4 inches wide. Fold this piece by the middle – press to keep it in place so that cut long edges are together.

Using a sewing machine make loose gathering stitches along the long cut edges 

Gather the fabric. Gather using a gathering foot or a ruffler foot for fast gathering.

Shape it into a cockade. You can fix this on a piece of felt or vinyl.

Cockade 2

To make this cockade cut 3 inches of ribbon, well, a lot and a piece of felt (2 inch square or the size you need).

Mark a circular shape on the felt.

Fold the ribbon pieces as in the picture above.

Arrange the pieces on the felt piece on the periphery of the shape you marked and use fabric glue to affix them in place. When one circle is completed make more ribbon folds in a different color and affix them inside

Cockade 3

To make this cockade cut ribbon pieces 3 inches long and then fold it as in the picture below. 

Fold this again by the middle so that you get a pointy ribbon shape.

Arrange along your circle felt piece.

Affix another felt or the back of a vinyl piece on your cockade. You can affix your label or whatever. Here I glued some sequins.

Cockade 4

To make this cockade, you need a base as usual and 3 or more long pieces of ribbon (depending on the layers you intend to create)

Follow the pictures for the folding of the ribbon for this cockade. At all points you will have to use a glue stick to keep the ribbon folds in place.

Take more ribbon pieces, shorter in length than the previous one and arrange inside, folding them the same way.

Take another piece of ribbon and gather to form a flower shape.

Cockade 5

This is an easy way of doing a cockade, similar to how the first one was made, but with gathered lace. 

Just gather lace to form a circular shape.

You can affix your circular paper label or a fabric flower in the middle.

You can make other ribbon flowers or ribbon roses and use that like a cockade. Check out the tutorial to make ribbon flowers ; to make ribbon roses.

Related posts : Rosettes are perfect for making cockades – checkout the tutorials : Make your own rosettes 

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