Dec Roses Scarf Tutorial

Winter means a lot of accessories, and among all those...scarves is my favorite. They can perk up any plain outfit, come in bazzillion styles and colors and are so easy to make. And if something is easy to make, I have to make it. So I did. This super soft bunch of ruffles. I love it and I thought you would like it too so I'm sharing with you how to make one.


Supplies:

Knit Jersey Fabric : 15 inches ( length) x 60 inches ( width)
Elastic thread
Matching thread


Construction:

1. Cut two strips from the fabric of 7.5 inches X 60 inches. If your fabric is not 60 inches wide than just cut multiple strips to make that length. Don't worry about cutting the strips evenly, since it will all get ruffled eventually a little variation in width won't be noticeable and most probably look good.

2.

Now take one strip and shir it in the center. To do this you need to fill your bobbin with elastic thread and use the regular matching thread on top. I did two rows but since all the fabrics shir differently you will need to vary the number of rows based on when you get a decent ruffle in the fabric. If you don't have any experience with shirring here's an excellent shirring tutorial to jumpstart you.

If you cut two smaller strips instead of a 60 inch wide single you need to join them before you shir. The good news is that you don't need to do anything special for that. Just overlap the two strips 1 inch and continue shirring like it was a continuous piece. Because the final piece would be very ruffled, the join would be invisible. Since the knits don't fray, it would be okay in the wash too.

3.

Repeat the above step for both the strips.

4.

Now place one strip over the other ( Wrong sides together). The wrong side is where the white elastic thread is showing. Our goal is to hide this thread, so it doesn't show up whatever way you wear your scarf.

5.

Sew a seam of half inch at the starting point ( shown by the arrow), go back and forth 2-3 times. Trim the extra thread.

6.

Sew a half inch seam every 5 inches. Go back and forth like you did in step 5. Trim any excess thread. What these small 'tacks' do is hold the two layers together so the elastic thread won't show. But sewing these only at the intervals would maintain the stretch in the scarf that was given to it by shirring.
7.

Sometimes, due to unpredictable nature of shirring, your strips may turn out to be different lengths. If that happens, just turn the extra part from the longer strip over the smaller ( As I did in the image above - look right above the arrow) and sew a tack at this point.

8.

The scarf is ready! wear it, gift it, show it off!

Variations:

You could do a number of things with this basic idea. Here're a couple that I could think of.

1. Use strips of different widths

2. Cut fringes after shirring

3. Use different colors for both the strips

4. Use 4 strips instead of 2 and shir 2 layers together.

5. Join different colored small strips instead of making a single long one


I may try some of these ideas myself at some point...but for now, ball is in your court. Go wild!

Roses in December Ruffled Scarf

So we were packing for this upcoming trip and I thought it will be cool to have some accessories for myself. I had a half-baked idea of a shirred scarf in my head and a just perfect jersey fabric at hand but there were still a few kinks that I couldn't think of a way to get around..that is..until now.
Once I thought through the design and felt confident, I left the piles of clothes to be packed on the bed, handed the munchkin her favorite toy, and got to work ( sounds familiar...eh).
It was an easy-peasy scarf and if I weren't interrupted by my bunny who now wants to "Sew clothes" it would take me about 20 mins...I think.
The scarf is super soft and very ruffley...just the way I wanted. I wore it to work and what to do you know...I even got compliments :). My colleague told me the scarf looked very nice, she even asked me where I bought it. I tried my best not to look smug when I told her "I made it"...lol.
Incidents like these totally make my day...and ohh..almost forgot.. the tutorial is in the works and will be here very soon.

Tutorial: Devil's advocate Hat

This is a tutorial I did as a guest post on Bear Rabbit Bear last month. Just republishing it her in case you'd missed it earlier.

Devil's advocate baby hat:

Supplies

    * Knit fabrics: Take 2 pieces of same fabric or two different fabrics – use up those scraps that are too big to throw away but too irregular to make into a dress, top etc.

    * Print out the pattern [PDF page 1 and page 2], tape the two pages as shown and cut out both pieces of the pattern (total of 3 cuts – piece 1 spans both pages and piece 2 is on page 1. Once you cut out all the three pieces, tape both parts of Piece 1 by overlapping the small part over the bigger part, up to the line on page 2.

   1. Fold each fabric in two layers, then fold one more time. Place each pattern piece on fold and cut. So now you have two pieces of #1 and two pieces of #2.

Note: Just Ignore the joint in the center...its there because I didn't have enough fabric, but if you cut the patterns on the fold, you shouldn't have it.
2.  Sew together pieces of #1 along the cone, bunny ears side, leaving just the bottom straight side raw, right sides together. Sew together pieces of #2 along the semi-circular side, right sides together.

This is the place where my camera died and I couldn't take pics of the rest of the process, so I continued
with another hat next day.

   3. Now join #1 and #2 by sewing along the raw edge, right sides together. Leave about 2 inch opening.

   4. Using the opening, turn the whole thing inside out. Use a pencil or point turner to poke the ears out on fabric #1. Push the fabric #2 inside fabric #1.
   5. Slip-stitch the opening shut.

   6. Tie two knots with the 'ears' of Fabric #1. You may have to adjust these knots a bit to give them the right look. The knots also give you some control over the size of the hat so you can make it fit the child's head a little better.

If the hat is a little big, you can turn some of the bottom out to fit the head of the baby. The best part is that these hats don’t have a any inside seams to bother the baby skin. Enjoy your little devil's advocate...he'll soon be coming up with some tough questions.