Easy, easy way to make stems is to cut your fabric (I cut mine 1 1/8") on the bias, fold in the middle lning up raw edges and after drawing a line where you want your stems, stitch 1/4 inch from the raw edge of our your strip, stitching on this line, then fold the folded edge of your strip over the sitching and raw edge and top stitch. Hope you can picture this, if not let me know and will post some photos.