This is a perfect project for using up pretty bits of yarn.

I love to make them with handspun and/or single ply, but they would work well with plied wool yarn as well.
Attach a bobby pin or hair elastic for a one of a kind hair decoration.  Or add a brooch pin, even stitch them right to your finished garment for a sweet embellishment.  Stitch a piece of wool felt to the back for stability and you have a pretty button!

Materials:

• Various scraps of WOOL yarn in desired colours
• Scissors
• Felting needle (any size, I prefer 38 stars)
• Hair elastics, bobby pins, brooch pins or button shafts as you choose
• embroidery floss or thread for finishing
• green roving and felting mat if you intend to make leaves OR green commercial felt

Instructions :
1) Choose a length of yarn (length will depend on size of blossom in mind).
18" will make a quarter sized blossom.
Start a spiral, keeping the yarn flat as you wind.
2) Using your felting needle, slide it carefully into the side of your spiral.
Take care not to bend your needle, as it may snap.
Also, mind your fingers!  This craft is sure to give you at least a couple of good pokes!
Sliding it carefully in and out at various points around your spiral, you should hear and feel the "shh" sound of fibers locking as you withdraw your needle.  At this point you simple need to tack the spiral together well enough to enable you to continue to wind it while maintaining a flat plane. (pardon my dye stained fingers!)
3) Continue to wind and tack until your spiral reaches the desired size.
4) When you have your blossom at the size you need, use your needle in the same manner as above, this time going carefully and intentionally around the whole spiral with firm stabs that reach to the center to stabilize the piece.
Avoid stabbing the needle right through and out the other side, as this will leave 'tufts' of fiber on your finished piece.
The tail is best slipped behind the piece and carefully felted down against the back (stabbing at a perpendicular angle to the piece in this case, careful not to go through the front).
Use your needle to tidy up the shape and any errant tufts.
When you are finished you should have a spiral that holds together like one solid piece.

5) Finishing: 

• for hair pretties, stitch the spiral securely to the hair elastic
• for a bobby pin, use a strong adhesive and place a dab on the back of the spiral, 'smoosh' this in to the fibers and let dry.  You will use this 'pad' you have created to adhere the spiral to the bobby pin plate so that you are attaching adhesive to adhesive.
• for a brooch, stitch the spiral to a locking bar pin or other
• for a pendant, either stitch or adhere to a bail (use adhesion suggestion as above)
• for a button, stitch a piece of commercial felt to the back t ensure the spiral functions as one solid piece for buttoning.  Stitch to garment or button shank.
• make leaves with roving and needlefelting, felt to the back, OR cutout leaves from commercial felt and stitch to back.

Have fun!
This tutorial is provided freely, but it does represent hard work on the part of the designer and author. 
No part of it may be reproduced without the author's permission.
It may not be reprinted or reproduced for commercial purposes or for profit.
If you use items created from this tutorial for commercial purposes, credit to the designer would be appreciated! 
Copyright, Lori Campbell/ Beneath the Rowan Tree, 2010 ©