Posts Tagged ‘ how to ’
I was looking at this little cardigan, wondering how these beaded appliques happened. Since, you know, I haven’t seen them anywhere.
Like this one:
Ah! It’s a backing, like a Bedazzler backing,
hooking in the stone PLUS a bead on a wire on the bottom prong, the kind of wire not unlike an earring or a charm.
Now I know why I haven’t seen these anywhere. You have to make them yourself…
I often lean on elastic ruching to get things to fit better, because my sewing sometimes takes shortcuts.
Like adding dimension to long t-shirts and tops. And taking up mermaid skirts without hemming. And sucking in the backs of dresses that don’t have much shaping.
It’s really easy to do. You need thin elastic or elastic cord, pins and a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine.
First, figure out where you want the ruching to go and how long you want it to be. You can do this by stretching the elastic out, or by measuring with a tape. Measure out elastic in that length, plus one inch so you’ll have half an inch on each end.
Pin the elastic at the top point, sticking pins in perpendicular to the elastic you’ll sew. Pin the elastic at the bottom end. Now match the middle of the elastic to the midpoint of the fabric and pin.
Keep stretching, matching the middles…
…and pinning a few times until you’ve secured the elastic in place.
Set your machine to a middle-wide zig zag. My machine uses a 1-5 scale; I use the #3 setting.
Drop in a few stitches, stretch the fabric and elastic and sew slowly until you’ve secured the whole piece.
Voila!
(I tell you this, though, knowing I ended up putting darts in the back of my dress remake. Didn’t want to lose my waist.)
My new dress-from-dress came with its own belt. I didn’t want to lose the belt, so I added some belt loops which are super easy to make.
All you need is crochet thread or embroidery thread in a color that matches your dress, a sewing needle with an eye big enough for the thread and a crochet hook. (Though you can also do the crochet on your fingers if you have no hook.)
Start the crochet with a long thread tail several inches long. That’ll anchor the loop to the garment.
Crochet, counting the stitches, until you have a length that’s double the width of the belt, plus two stitches. Mine needed 32.
(If you’re using your fingers, make a slip stitch, leaving a long tail of thread. Stick your index finger in the loop at the first knuckle joint.
Loop the thread over your finger and wrap the loop over the thread.
Tug on the loop until the stitch tightens.
Repeat until the crochet’s long enough.)
Leaving another long thread tail, cut the thread. Pull the tail through the last loop to secure the stitches.
If you want loops on both sides, make another one the same way.
Now thread the big needle with one of the tails.
Then you sew the loop in. Some people anchor the top and then the bottom. I like the kind where the loop hangs down. So I poke the needle through from the right side and pull one tail through, and then do the same with the other end.
Even better if you can catch the seam allowance.
I knot them tightly on the back and voila!
That’s it.
Then, should the belt get lost or something, the crocheted loop will cut out easily without harming the dress.
Clearly I’m scared to cut the purple silk dress because I keep inventing other things to do instead of it.
Like posting this fitzfab tracing technique on Burdastyle. Drafted some more posts about all the red and white dresses I thrifted for spring, how to fix a brown print dress so it looks like me. Totally getting stuff done. Just not the one thing I should be doing.
Now I tell myself Mister’s taking up the kitchen — the only spot in the house where I have enough space to cut —making chili.
How do you conquer your fear of ruining fabric and just dive in?
I didn’t want to cut this Cynthia Rowley tunic pattern because I wanted the other size options, perhaps for other ladies in my life. With only five pieces, two of them bias strips, I thought I could do it.
The straight lines were easy enough to mark and connect with a yardstick. But the underarm curves on the dolman sleeves, the neck? I don’t really trace with chalk, and drawing through the pattern lines with marker threatened to weaken them.
Time to start engineering. I weighted the pattern on my kitchen floor, using cans and jars. Started tracing the lines.
When I got to the curves, I started gently peeling the pattern back, slowly, a bit at a time, and then making a marker dot on the fabric at the pattern line.
Fold back a touch more, make another dot.
As the underarm curved more, I dotted more frequently.
When all the pattern was folded back, and the curve was visible on the pattern, the work was done.
Voila, a curve good enough to cut confidently.
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