sewpony: Tutorials

How to make: An origami collar

December 13, 2013

After I published my dresses in our The 12 Days of Christmas series, I explained that I had photographed the steps along the way whilst constructing Isabella's origami collar. A few of you left lovely comments saying you would love to see the tutorial, so I decided not to delay (just in case you also plan on making this collar for a Christmas dress)!

As I said in my original post, I was inspired by VINK's gorgeous collar that I pinned a while ago here. I have since done a bit of spying over at VINK and found out that she is a Belgian blogger who speaks English and is very friendly. Her name is Linde and she gave me permission to post this tutorial inspired by her collar. She also, at my request, added the 'translate' button to her blog, so now you can read her blog. The translation is very poor (and sometimes funny), but for me, it still gives me an idea of the post content. This collar might look really tricky, but it actually was very simple to construct.

Please note: This tutorial is for construction of the collar and attaching it to the bodice, not for the entire construction of the dress.

Materials:
Paper
Pen
Scissors
Collar fabric - I used white quilting weight cotton and white cotton voile lining
Thin fusible interfacing
Iron
Pins
And of course the dress you are attaching it to!!

Method:

Begin by taking your front bodice piece of your dress (or complete front of dress if it is not separate) and a piece of printing paper. Follow the photo steps below to create your collar template:

Now it is time to cut your collar pieces. You will need your outer layer collar fabric, under layer collar fabric and thin fusible interfacing. Note: when ironing your interfacing to your outer collar fabric, make sure you iron it to the wrong side of the fabric so it won't be seen.

The remaining steps of the construction of the dress depend on your pattern. I used the Tinny dress pattern by Straightgrain which has an invisible zipper at the back and neck facing. I modified the pattern by drafting sleeve facings as I wanted a sleeveless dress. Using this pattern, these were the steps I took to complete my bodice following on from the last step picture above:

- with right sides together, sewed two dress bodice backs to bodice front along side seams;

- installed invisible zip;
- sewed on neck facing;
- drafted armhole facings and sewed on;
- sewed side seams.

Because the collar is secured into the shoulder seams, it is not possible to stay stitch the collar down under the collar as you would with a regular collar. Instead, I sewed several small hand stitches from the back of the dress through the bottom of the collar to hold it flat around the neck opening.

I hope you like my tutorial and I would love to hear if you use it to make your own origami collar! You can see more photos of this dress here.

fur vest

How to make...A faux fur vest

July 29, 2013

I made this faux fur vest a month ago as part of Juliette's Secret Squirrel outfit - and remember,

Secret Squirrel is nearly ready to say hello again...check back here or at StraightGrain to find out where he travels to next - on August 1st! SUBSCRIBE TO SEWPONY HERE FOR MORE PATTERN INSPIRATION.

I hoped to post a tutorial on how I made it soon after, but my pattern took over and the tutorial got put on the back burner. So now that my pattern is finished, I have had time to put this together and hope you like it! (It took me a while with super slow internet at the moment...Grrr...Vodafone!!)

I love this vest. It is so soft and cosy. I bought the faux fur from GJ's Fabric in Brunswick, Melbourne. It is acrylic but really soft. It was about $27 per metre from memory, but luckily I only needed 30cm (it was 150cm wide bolt) to make a little vest for Juliette. I wanted my vest to not quite meet in the middle (front), so I have written up the tutorial for such a vest.

You will need:

Faux fur - I only needed 30cm to fit my three year old
Lining fabric - the same amount as fur
Paper and a texta
A t-shirt for tracing
General sewing supplies, including a heavier duty sewing needle - I managed with one suitable for sewing denim

Garment construction:

NB: If you use your iron close to your fur, it will singe!! So take care when pressing lining (or just don't worry about pressing ironing to be safe!

Firstly, begin by choosing a reasonably fitted t-shirt that fits your child.

1. Turn your T-shirt inside out and fold down the centre and trace around your T-shirt - lining up with the vertical edge of your paper. Add seam allowance. *I did not add seam allowance to the hem as I wanted my vest to be cropped, rather than long.

2. Lay paper over your traced back piece and draw a front piece - I lowered the front neckline by 3 cm. You will see I also shortened the hemline of the back (and so also the front) by 3cm.
3. Create a curve at the top and bottom of your centre front. I used a French curve, but you can just draw this freehand.
4. Cut out your pattern pieces.

*You will not be able to cut your fur on the fold, so cutting of the fur is a little unconventional.

5. Place your front piece on your fur (wrong side) with pile facing downward. Trace with texta.
6. Flip front piece over and trace your second front.
7. Place your back piece on the fur and trace as you did for front.
8. Flip pattern piece directly over without leaving a gap so you can complete tracing the other half of your back piece.

9. Cut out your fur pieces. When cutting, carefully cut the weave of the fur and not the pile. You can achieve this by using sharp scissors and holding the blades close to the weave. By not cutting the fur, you will not end up with blunted edges and seams.

Your fur pieces will look like this:

10. Cut out your corresponding lining pieces:

11. With right sides together, sew your shoulder seams (forgot to take pic of sewing fur shoulder seams together, but I think you can work that out! Just try to push the fur out of the way of the seams as you sew). For lining - press seams open as shown.

12. With right sides together, sew fur and lining together as indicated by aqua line.

13. Sew arm hole curves on both sides as shown.

14. Turn your vest right side out: Reach up into vest from back and pull front through to back. Repeat for opposite front.

15: Sew side seams: you will be able to pin the lining, but it is too awkward to pin the fur. Sew up along lining and then along fur as shown below.

17: Continuing with vest inside out, sew hem, leaving a gap on one side to turn your vest right side out.

18: Turn vest right side out through gap and hand stitch gap shut. Turn both the lining and fur edges under as you sew.

And you are finished:)

I would love to hear if you use this tutorial to make a vest. Just leave a comment and I will come and have a look!!

sewing for children

How to make a scrappy gathered skirt

May 18, 2013

Today I made this sweet little skirt for Isabella. It is a very simple project - one for beginner sewers. It takes a bit of time to put together but there are no complicated techniques.

It is gathered at the waist with one row of elastic. The skirt is lined - with the lining peaking out below the hemline. The hem is edged with two rows of ric rac.

You will need...

1. Scraps of fabric for outer layer - you will need them to be the skirt length you like plus 5cm. You will need enough to allow for a skirt that is about three times your child's waist circumference in width.

2. Lining- I lined my skirt. Again you will need the desired length of your skirt (I added an extra 2cm than my outer layer as I wanted my lining to peak out the bottom). You will need the same skirt width as your outer layer - approx. 3 x waist... but cut your lining after your outer layer is assembled. For example, Isabella's waist measurement was 57cm, so I used 180cm in length of lining. You don't need to buy 180cm of lining though. Fabric is usually 115 - 150 cm in width. With a seam, you could achieve the required amount for Isabella from twice the skirt length (ie. 45 x2), so you would need 90cm off the roll of fabric.

3. Some 2.5 mm width elastic (You will need 10cm less than your child's waist circumference).

4. Ric rac - 3 x waist measurement again.

5. Pins and safety pin.

How to make...

1. Measure your child's waist. Isabella's was 57cm.
2. Measure the skirt length you would like: measure from waist to finished hemline - add 5 cm (this includes 4 cm for waist and 1 cm for hem). I wanted Isabella's skirt to be 40 cm long so I cut 45 cm strips of fabric.
3. Cut several pieces of fabric at differing widths at 45 cm in length. Iron your pieces before sewing.

My cut pieces looked like this...I paid little attention to matching colours/patterns.

Start sewing your pieces together down the long edges (with right sides together). Neaten each seam.

Repeat this process until you have a strip of pieced fabrics that will look something like this. My length of fabric now is 180cm (So a little more than three times Isabella's waist circumference).

Ta da! Hope you like it!

Linking up with Sew Country Chick and also taking part in Skirt Week with this one at Crafterhours.

Magnetic pegs

How to make...fabric and paper covered magnetic pegs

February 26, 2013

You will need:

Magnetic strips - mine were from a generic craft store - on a roll and then cut
Scraps of fabric/and or paper
Wooden pegs
Mix of PVA (wood glue) and water (I mixed 1 part glue to 3 parts water)
Extra PVA

1. For fabric pegs, start by immersing scraps of fabric into glue mix (this stops the fabric from fraying and also gives it a cardboard texture.

2. Allow fabric to dry (if you are living in Melbourne at the moment, this will take about 10 minutes in the sun!).

3. Trace around peg shape and cut with sharp scissors.

4. Put PVA along one side of peg and stick cut fabric or paper, stick magnet on other side (make sure you test the correct side of magnet to paste by placing on fridge).

I used this method to hold magnet in place while glue set.

Super quick and easy...you are done!

I think they make a sweet little housewarming gift...

Or, you could just keep them for yourself!

P.S. I am so excited with the feedback I have had from my dress pattern. And as a little aside, it has had over 1,800 views and since I posted it on my blog four days ago. Yahoo!