If you’re me, you come away with a sewing project.

The only Costume Proper in the store that particularly interested me was only available in Small, and that ain’t me. So I went back to the car…but the gears started turning. There had been a green velvet cloak that I might have bought to wear over the unavailable costume, and maybe it was worth buying… I can’t reconstruct how I got there, but on the strength of that cloak and the fact that I owned suede ankle boots and a leaf pin I’d only kept because it was reminiscent of the ones the hobbits get in Lothlorien in the movies, I concocted a plan to be a wood elf.

I went back in and got the cloak; there were elf ears but they were the kind that’s a big production to put on and were also a sickly yellow color so I passed. That evening and the next day I accumulated brown tights, an antler headband (since I didn’t have ears), plus two yards of tan faux suede (found in clearance!), a remnant of sage green heavy slightly-stretch cotton, and a large skein of brown cotton yarn.

Tuesday night I set to sewing. I made a coordinating face mask from stash elastic and fabric (a brown leaf-patterned batik and unbleached muslin), cut out and started sewing two drawstring belt pouches, and cut the entire 190 yards of yarn into 4-yard lengths. I tied the lengths of yarn into a bundle at one end, combed them out into equal 3 sections, and braided them, tying them off at the opposite end afterward.

I also set the headband to stretch a bit since one-size-fits-all headbands tend to give me a headache.

Wednesday I started the tunic dress. Some poking around online for “simple tunic pattern” had reminded me of the scheme of 4 tall rectangles, sewn into a cylinder for the lower stretch, and with the top edges sewn to make shoulder seams. The unsewn upper part of the rectangles becomes a sharp V neck and the armholes.

The width of the fabric went around me quite comfortably so I measured and cut what seemed like a suitably generous length, and cut it in quarters the other way. My approach to making sure it worked out was to sew the seams only far enough that I knew they would work, then try it on and extend them as needed. I did the center front and back and the shoulder seams first, and decided after sewing about an inch near the bottom of the armholes that I would insert a narrow panel in each side seam. With no stretch to the fabric at all, I thought an additional couple of inches around from the waist down would help my mobility a lot.

I cut those side panels that night, but the rest of the sewing happened Friday, when I was off work.

When I tried the tunic on after assembly I thought, well, it’s really bulky and unflattering but it will do. After that I sewed all the seam allowances flat and hemmed the armholes and bottom (I’d done the neck already), and threw it in the wash.

Then I turned my attention to the drawstring pouches. I finished them as planned and hung them from my braided “rope belt” by their drawstrings – to realize that would have them banging into my thighs every time I took a step. Not enjoyable. Also, they would be much more out of reach. So I cut two strips of the fabric and folded them in thirds, then made a loop out of them to sew to the pouches for hanging. That worked well. I had to thread them onto the belt before putting it on but that wasn’t as awkward as I expected.

Once those pouches were done, I was done. And rather amazed I’d made it in time for our big Friday night Halloween event!

When the tunic dress came out of the dryer I was pleasantly surprised at how well it draped, given that it has less shaping than a paper bag and no stretch to the fabric at all. Stitching down the seam allowances and washing it had somehow made it much less bulky. I did wish that I’d turned more fabric under at the shoulder end of the neck opening, but I’d already done an inch there tapering to the half-inch seam allowance at the center front, and I don’t know if non-stretchy fabric could do much bigger of a taper easily.

I accessorized with green and metallic eyeshadow and a tiger eye pendant, and the hubs and I went to a park by the river to take photos in the late afternoon.

That night I added a tree-patterned shawl secured with my leaf pin, and of course my face mask. I actually liked the face mask as a costume component because it kind of looked like I was going into battle. I had my phone in one belt pouch, and my keys and a pair of gloves in the other.

Suitably geared up for the Friday night festivities! No one had any idea who I was. In reality, or in costume. Such is life.

The post Last Minute Costume Construction appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Two of the fundamental construction ideas for this pouch came from So Sew Easy: the accordion-fold corner boxing method, and side tapering. I’m somewhat amazed that, in my decades of sewing, I only first encountered the accordion-fold method a year and a half ago.

I’m going to give the directions for the exact bag I made most recently, then some tweaks and variations for it, and finally the calculations you’ll need if you want to make your own custom size.

There are photos below from both of the two most recent bags I’ve made. I tried to pick the ones with the clearest demonstrations.

Sewing instructions

You’ll need lightweight upholstery fabric or something like canvas or duck, and a zipper that is at least 11″ long. Make sure the fabric is something your machine can sew through four layers of. This is a great remnant project.

1. Fabric preparation

Cut 2 pieces of fabric, each 11 1/4″ by 13″. The 11 1/4″ edges will be at the opening of the bag. Zigzag the edges of the fabrics.

Fold each piece of fabric in half, wrong sides together, to make 11 1/4″ by 6 1/2″ rectangles. Pin near the fold, with your pins parallel to it.

Now fold the loose sides of the fabric back up, resulting in a piece that is mostly right sides together but with a little accordion fold at the bottom. The original fold and the new ones should be 5/8″ apart, and the edges of the fabric should all line up together. Pin all along the edge; press the fold if desired (not shown). If this description and the photos are not clear, refer to Sew So Easy’s video.

2. Sewing individual pouches

Mark your sewing lines: you will be sewing straight up from the bottom for 5/8″, with a 1/2″ seam allowance, and then diagonally to a point 1/2″ down from the open edge and 1 1/8″ in from the side. The top 1/2″ will be open. Sew all four seams (either direction; I don’t mean to imply they have to come up from the base).

Why not sew a diagonal line all the way from top to bottom? The opening at the top is needed for zipper installation, and sewing diagonally through the accordion fold will cause the gusset triangle to pucker in the finished bag. (I tried it! Passing the savings on to you.)

Trim the seam allowance on each side and zigzag the new raw edge. Press seam allowances open near top; finger-pressing will do.

3. Connecting pouches

You now have two individual pouches. Turn each one right-side-out and choose which side will show, and which will be hidden against the other pouch. Hem the hidden sides: fold the raw edge down 1/2″ to the wrong side, with side seam allowances open so they are enclosed in the hem, and sew to secure.

Turn one bag inside-out again and nest them, right sides together. I find it easiest to slide one bag into the other if I pleat it in the middle to make it narrower, then spread it back out again once it’s mostly inside. Pin the hemmed edges together and mark the sewing lines for the pocket: the vertical seams are 4″ long and 2″ in from the side seams at the edge; then connected at the bottom with a horizontal seam. Sew.

Pull the inner bag out and turn the whole thing right-side-out. You should have 2 pouches connected in the middle via sewing that creates a flat pocket, with a raw (well, zigzagged) edge on each outer side.

4. Zipper installation

Line up the zipper so the top zipper stops are 1″ outside the side of the bag; any excess zipper length should be at the bottom end. Pin the zipper to one bag opening, wrong sides together, with the edge of the fabric lined up to the edge of the zipper tape. Keep the side seam allowances open so they get tacked down. Sew down the center of the tape. I typically use a standard sewing machine foot bumped up against the zipper teeth, with the needle moved toward the zipper teeth.

With the zipper closed, line up the other fabric edge and pin the zipper at one end (either one). Open the zipper and pin the rest, sewing the way you did the first side. If you zip the zipper at this point it forms a sort of trough between the sides of the bag, when the edges of the fabric point upward.

Trim the fabric edges as needed so they won’t protrude past the zipper tape, and fold the zipper to the outside of the bag. Make the fold in the fabric tight. Sew near the edge of the zipper tape to secure.

5. Finishing

Shorten the bottom end of the zipper if needed: sew across it a couple of times, a little more than an inch away from the bag side seam, and trim the extra length past your stitching (shown in previous picture).

Cover the raw end with a fabric tab: begin with a piece of fabric that was 1.5″ by 3″. Fold the long edges in by 1/4″ and then the short edges in by 1/2″, and fold the whole thing in half to make a 1″ square. Sandwich the end of the zipper inside so that your zipper-shortening stitching is hidden, and topstitch as close to the edge as possible on the non-fold sides.

(I make tabs slightly differently each time, and the one on the orange zipper is probably the tidiest one I’ve ever made! A wider tab on the green zipper shown for comparison – that kind is easier to put on the open end of a zipper.)

To fully match my bag, you’ll need a decorative bead zipper pull. I used three beads threaded on a head pin, with a lobster clasp attached via a wire-wrapped loop (not a good one, I didn’t leave an actual stem to wrap around). I added the clasp to the loop after shaping it and before wrapping the wire. Not my area of instructional expertise, so here are written instructions from Goody Beads and a video tutorial from Beadaholique.

Quick tweaks for your bag

1. If you need to piece your fabric, cut 4 pieces of fabric each 11 1/4″ by 7″, and zigzag all four. Sew pairs together along long edges at 1/2″ so you end up with two 11 1/4″ by 13″ pieces with a seam down the center. Press the seam allowances open. Note that you’ll be sewing through SIX layers of fabric at the accordion fold in this case.
   
2. In step 4, you could line up the zipper tape so it extends 1/8″ out from the edge of the fabric, and then not need to trim your fabric.
   
3. Often I also add a tab to the open zipper end in step 5. It increases the symmetry and gives you something easier to hold on to when opening the pouch. This is done in the same way, although working with the open zipper end is a bit fussier. I was ready to be done at that point, though, so I didn’t add one to this bag (but I did save a bit of fabric in the inner pocket in case I change my mind later). If you don’t need to shorten your zipper you can also skip fabric tabs entirely, which is seen in two of the five bags at the head of the post.

Variations

• Zipper tape to inside of bag: If you would rather have the zipper tape to the inside of the fabric, keep the two bags nested after step 3. The right sides of the unfinished edges of the bags will be facing each other. Line up and pin the zipper similarly to step 4, except right side of zipper to right side of fabric. Sew down the center of the zipper tape on both sides, then turn the whole bag right-side-out and topstitch through the fabric and zipper tape to secure. For tape-to-inside zippers I prefer to topstitch very close to the fabric fold instead of near the edge of the zipper tape (I bump the regular sewing machine foot against the zipper teeth with the needle centered), but it is a matter of taste.

• Single pocket pouch: It you only want one pocket, cut only one piece of fabric, and skip step 3 entirely. Install the zipper with the bag right-side-out to have the zipper tape show, and with the bag inside-out to have the tape (somewhat) hidden. If you have directional fabric you may want to piece, as in the first tweak above, regardless of how much fabric you have to work with.

• Lined pouch: I have not made a properly lined bag, just one where two layers of fabric were treated as one. If I were to try it, I would start exactly the same way but with 4 pieces of fabric instead of 2, and without zigzagging anything. After constructing the individual pouches I would connect lining to outer fabric of each pouch in place of hemming the hidden side of each pouch in step 3: put lining inside outer (or vice-versa), right sides together, and sew along that edge at 1/2″, with the side seam allowances open so they’re caught in the sewing. Turn the whole thing right-side-out so the lining is nested inside the outer fabric, wrong sides together. Get your seam allowances and so forth tidied up, press, and topstitch close to the seam. Then use the zipper installation to connect the lining and outer fabrics at the other half of the open edge, treating them as a single piece of fabric. Basting or zigzagging them together along the raw edge before installing the zipper might make it easier.

Sizing your own bag

If you know what finished measurements you want for width, height, and base breadth, you can calculate the fabric size needed and where to place the seams. Once you’ve constructed the individual pouches the only thing that will change in the rest of the instructions is the measurements for sewing the pocket that connects them. The important consideration there is to have something that connects them through at least half of their width and height. If you make very small pouches you might not be able to have a pocket, but you should still make two seam lines down from the open end, about a quarter of the way in from each side seam.

Choosing your size

When deciding bag size, note that the sides of these bags are theoretically tall, narrow triangles – but in practice, the contents will settle and the long triangle edges will bulge outward, converting some width into breadth.

The combination of that with the intentional flattening of the bag as you go up from the base means you need a generous amount of ease, and the fuller you want to pack the bag, the more ease you need. The marker pouch I describe above has finished measurements of 9″ width and 1 1/4″ breadth. I made it for Tombow brush pens, which are 7 1/2″ long. I’d previously made them a bag with 8 1/2″ width and 1″ breadth, and once the bags were over half full the pens were quite tight in there. The extra base breadth means they won’t reach half-full as quickly, and the extra width means when they get there it won’t be as snug.

I prefer a zipper that sticks out from the bag by an inch on each end, which requires a zipper at least 2″ longer than the finished width of the bag. This helps with the bag opening fully and also makes it easier to sew the zipper to the bag.

Fabric and seam measurements

The whole computation is based on this fact: the breadth of the base will reduce not only the height of the bag, but its width. If you want a 6″ wide bag with a 1″ base, you need 7″ of width to start out with, plus seam allowances. For a 5″ high bag with a 1″ base, you’ll need 11″ of fabric to start, plus seam allowances.

I recommend a half inch seam allowance at the opening, because that works well with the zipper installation and getting the enclosed edges away from the zipper teeth by enough but not too much. You could use a smaller seam allowance on the side edges but that would be asking for absent-minded mistakes in my case, so I use 1/2″ everywhere. To keep things a little simpler below, I’ll assume that seam allowance instead of leaving it as a variable.

In sum, your fabric cutting measurements are:
width: finished width + base breadth + 1″
height: (2 * finished height) + base breadth + 1″

To fold the fabric and mark your seam lines, the important measurement becomes tuck depth, 1/2 of the base breadth. The term “tuck” refers to the accordion fold you make in step 1. After folding your fabric in half wrong sides together, you’ll fold each half back so that the original fold and the two new folds are one tuck depth apart.

Your seam will start 1/2″ down from the opening edge and (1/2″ + tuck depth) in from the side edge. It will angle outward until it is a tuck depth up from the bottom edge and 1/2″ in from the side edge, and then go straight down to the bottom.

If you work in metric would could probably round the half inch seam allowance down to a centimeter, but you might want to turn down a bit more than a centimeter on the enclosed edges (hence start your side seam more than a centimeter down from the opening edge).

Bag sizing examples

The dark bag with gold accents was the original Tombow bag, the one that turned out to be too snug. It is 5 1/4″ tall (per the enclosed edges – more like 5 1/2″ total because the zipper doesn’t carve off a full 1/2″ seam allowance) and 8 1/2″ wide, with a 1″ base. So my fabric measurements were:
width = 8 1/2″ + 1″ + 1″ = 10 1/2″
height = (2 * 5 1/4″) + 1″ + 1″ = 12 1/2″

With a tuck depth equal to the seam allowance, the seam calculations become very tidy:
start seam 1/2″ down from top and 1″ in from side
sew diagonally down/out until 1/2″ in from both bottom and side
sew straight down to bottom at 1/2″

The bag given in the instructions beginning this post was designed to the the same height but an extra half inch wide and with a 1 1/4″ base:
width = 9″ + 1 1/4″ + 1″ = 11 1/4″
height = (2 * 5 1/4″) + 1 1/4″ + 1″ = 12 3/4″, rounded up to 13″

The post Double-Pocket Standup Marker Pouch appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I have made two rounds of face masks now, using the face mask sewing instructions from Deaconess Health System.

The written instructions aren’t completely explicit – though the video fills in a lot of gaps – so I thought I’d write my experiences.

For the first round, each mask was made of two 6″ by 9″ pieces of fabric and two 7″ lengths of elastic. I pinned the elastics onto one piece of fabric before I started, just over 1/2″ in from the long edge, and sewed most of the way around with a half-inch seam allowance. That is more than the video shows, though the video says “one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch”, so my finished size could be as little as 1/4″ smaller than theirs in each direction.

After turning and pressing, I added pleats (more on that below) and sewed an eighth of an inch from the edge all the way around.

The finished masks were big enough for me, if a little snug on my ears (that extra seam allowance also shortened the elastics!), but not big enough for my husband. He could wear them, but they didn’t come over his chin at all if they were high enough on his nose.

Meanwhile I also received advice from someone using masks that making the two sides with different fabrics is desirable, because if the mask is removed it is quick and unambiguous to determine inside from outside when putting it back on.

My second round of masks was for my husband. I started with 7.5″ by 10″ fabric (1.5 inches taller and 1 inch wider), and for sturdiness, still sewed at a half-inch. I increased the elastics to 7.5″ apiece to accommodate the extra seam allowance. Really, the extra seam allowance is only needed at the sides, not the top and bottom, but it would bend my brain too much to keep track of changing seam allowances each time I turned a corner.

I had started with a prototype – quickly-sewn doubled fabric with pleats, elastic (that precious resource) safety-pinned on – and determined my original thought of increasing all the way to 8″ by 10″ was too much. It was making the fit more gappy.

For the pleats on the smaller masks, I made 3 on each end, trying to get them all even. I basically made it so that once you were within the elastic, all of the edge of the mask was part of a pleat, but pleats did not overlap. Each pleat ended up about 3/8″ wide, fold to fold.

On a larger mask I went up to 4 pleats, which are easier to do. You can mark the halfway point of the side of the mask with a pin, and the points halfway between that and the inside of the elastics, and make each pleat with the fabric between pairs of pins (or elastic and a pin).

I am curious to try out making a Ragmask, with more coverage and fit. From that page I found a good resource on the effectiveness of different homemade mask materials. The upshot: not as good as surgical (unsurprisingly), but still beneficial.

Good luck out there. I’m thinking of you!

The post Thoughts on masks appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

The original plan was a shearling coat, a hat with lamb ears, mittens, and face paint for my nose. I was lucky enough to find a remnant of faux shearling that matched the lining of an on-sale coat – though not so lucky that the coat had lined sleeves. I had to create and attach sleeves, which was simple but somewhat time-consuming: cut sleeve-shaped pieces and make them into tubes, then pin and sew by hand to the coat (by hand partially because it seemed easier and less visible, and partially because once I’m through with this costume I’ll take them back off and wear the coat for real!). Not my tidiest sewing job, but… it’s a Halloween costume.

For the hat, I took the general game plan from a dinosaur hat tutorial by Stitched by Crystal and a reversible fleece hat video tutorial by The Crafty Gemini: four rounded triangles and a band below. I decided to make a folded band instead of two pieces since my material was already thicker than theirs, and created ears to insert as low in the side seams as possible. The final hat is bigger around than necessary and a bit shallow for a real winter hat, but if I want to make myself a real hat it will be a good starting point.

I made an incomplete muslin and a complete muslin, plus one muslin ear. In my pattern piece photo below, the ear isn’t quite the final version – I rounded out the middle, so it not only tapered toward the point, but a bit toward the base as well.

The mittens were a lucky find that I expect to get a lot of use out of. The bell was a late addition when I worried (based on my hat muslin) that people might think I was a bunny. The bell was originally a Christmas bell with a handle, which unscrewed easily. The internet agreed that lambs wear their bells on red ribbons, so that’s what I used. It rang lightly with every step I took and really added to the costume. Though I had to move it out of the way when hugging people lest someone end up with a bruised sternum.

The lack of nose paint was a completely last minute change – I had applied it, and wiped it off with a napkin in the car on the way to the party because it just didn’t look right. Perhaps it just accentuated that my face was otherwise completely human?

In the photo at top, the straw caught in my fleece (so authentic!) was from a hayride I took at the party. (Though I may have patted some onto spots where it didn’t get naturally…)

One bonus shot: Earlier this month I made a couple of candy corns out of Petals to Picots’ crochet candy corn pattern. Easy and good! For the hanging loop, I folded a separate length of yarn in half, tied a bulky knot, and slid it into the magic ring before tightening. The knot keeps it from coming out, and if I decide I don’t want it I can push it inside or cut it off.

The post Halloween! appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

The animals are all basically snowman-shaped, with an optional front pocket (for treasures or lost teeth) and features designed by the creator. They require fleece and felt and a knowledge of whipstitch, running stitch, mattress stitch, and beginning and ending knots for hand sewing.

You can download my pdf stuffy pattern which includes the front/back, pocket, round- and square-end limbs, dragon wings/horns/ears, dog nose/ears, owl wings/face, and panda eyepatch. The simplicity of the overall shape lends itself to designing your own stuffy, though, or making variations on the ideas included – one of my students made a much cooler robot than mine, and another made an adorable panda, exaggerated like an animated character.

I’m putting this behind a cut because it got quite long. All photos can be clicked to bring up a larger version.

Step 1: Design, cut, and lay out your stuffy

What creature will you make? Pocket or no pocket? Realistic or caricatured? What color scheme?

While the shape and size of the mouth is important for expression, lots of personality comes from proportion and placement of the eyes.

Use fleece for the front, back, and pocket, and felt for anything that is particularly small or needs to hold its shape. In between, it depends on the effect you’re going for and the available materials – I used soft fleece for the owl’s wings, but stiffer felt for the dragon’s wings.

The dog’s tongue is a trimmed-down round-end limb with a pinch in the middle. The panda’s ears are also trimmed-down limbs.

For the tiniest features, some simple embroidery is easiest: the middle of the panda’s eyes, and the panda’s and dragon’s mouths, are made with little straight stitches.

If you have some form of digital camera on hand, photographing your laid-out stuffy is a great way to make sure you can sew all the pieces on in the right spots without driving yourself batty trying to keep them in place start to finish.

Step 2: Sew on features

Skill 1: Threading a needle and knotting the end

I like to sew these with a doubled length of thread, with the two ends knotted together with a couple of overhand knots. The overhand knot is the knot you start your shoelaces with. The photo below is just one length of thread for clarity, but to knot two you hold them together as though they were one.

The nice thing about a stuffed animal is that until you get to the very end, thread tails can be hanging off all over the place – they’ll all be hidden on the inside.

Skill 2: Whipstitch

Most of the stitching in these stuffies is whipstitch. All of the facial features, and chest buttons on the robot, are attached with whipstitch, and the pockets, limbs, ears, and anything else attached at the side seam are sewn to the front face with whipstitch before the front and back are sewn together. In the case of the pockets, that ensures the pocket doesn’t provide access to the stuffing (with the final mattress stitch it would be possible to catch only the pocket layer sometimes, so this is insurance). For the limbs and ears and things, it is basting so they are held in place while the final stitching happens. You could skip it, but it is quick and I especially recommend it to beginners as a frustration-saver.

Whipstitch is a simple “up and down” stitch – from the back, stitch up just on the outside of your applique piece, and stitch down about an eighth of an inch inside the edge. It looks nicest if your stitches are perpendicular to the edge (or diagonal, at a corner), which means the strand on the opposite side will move diagonally from stitch to stitch.

I recommend this whipstitch video from Shiny Happy World if you like videos.

If you know blanket stitch, you can use it for the applique instead for a different effect.

Skill 3: Tying off a length of thread

To finish a length of thread it’s all about the half hitch knot. To make a half-hitch, catch a nearby stitch or a little bit of fabric with your needle. Before pulling that loop tight, put your needle through it.

Here are two stuffy fronts, fully appliqued and basted and ready for the next step!

Step 3: Sew front and back together

Skill 4: Running stitch

We’re very close to the end now – these go from floppy flat things to actual stuffed animals pretty quickly. Place the back of the stuffy against the front so that what will be the outside of the finished creature is sandwiched in the middle. Make sure anything that should end up sticking out loose is away from the edges (I had to fold the dog’s ears in, for example). If your fleece is not the same on both sides take care that the back piece is going to show the same side as the front piece.

Use running stitch to sew front to back almost all the way around, about 1/4″ in from the edge. Leave 2-3 inches open, preferably somewhere around the bottom half of the stuffy. It is good to have all limbs/wings/ears be sewn in with the running stitch, which may limit where you can leave the opening. Leaving the opening somewhere around the pocket is okay. Definitely sew up the neck area with your running stitch.

Running stitch is the dashed-line stitch, a simple up and down along a line. The picture below shows a running stitch that is longer than what you want to make for a secure hold. Stitches about 1/8″ (4mm) long are great; a little longer is fine too, but make sure to pull them tight.

Incidentally, if you whipstitch the front and back together, there is too much give in the stitching and the stuffy will pull apart at the seams when you turn it right-side-out and stuff it. It’s not necessarily fatal, at least if you stitched sufficiently far in from the edge, but it is noticeable. You can see the difference in the dragon (my prototype; it also has a shorter pocket) versus the owl. The dragon was sewn up with whipstitch and the owl with running stitch.

If you know backstitch you can use that instead. It may be a little sturdier.

After you’ve stitched front to back, turn the stuffy right-side out and stuff it with fiberfill. Make sure to get the head fully stuffed before you put much stuffing in the body, so you can get at it.

Skill 5: Mattress stitch

Mattress stitch, also known as ladder stitch, is basically running stitch made from in between the two pieces of fabric, and it’s a wonderfully invisible, clean way to seal up the opening you left for stuffing. Start by bringing your needle out from the inside of the stuffy, at one end of your running stitch. You’ll take one straight stitch on each side of the opening in turn. One of the nice things about mattress stitch is you don’t have to tighten it as you go along – you shouldn’t wait till the end to tighten, and you may need to help the fabric go toward the inside as you tighten, but the work can stay loose near your needle, which makes it easier to see where you need to stitch.

You can see a lengthier ladder stitch tutorial on Squishy-Cute Designs.

Skill 6: Hiding the final thread end

Tie another half hitch or two to tie off your final length of thread, and then insert your needle directly next to the knot. Come out of the stuffy an inch or so away, pull the thread tight, and clip it next to the surface. It will disappear inside and the amount of thread within the stuffy will keep it from wanting to emerge.

Finally, enjoy your finished stuffies!

The post Hand-Sewn Fleece Stuffies appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

With snaps the complication was unevenness: the presser foot was too hard to get in position, so I took it off entirely. With buttons, at least in this case (I was sewing a thick pillowcase), the complication was that they needed to have shanks. Toothpicks to the rescue!

Pardon my lint!

There are three toothpicks under the button in this case; for a smaller button you could omit the center toothpick (this may give a shorter shank if the fabric pulls up between the two outside toothpicks, but the smaller the button the less likely you are to need a shank at all). I lined the needle up where it needed to be, placed the toothpicks, and then slid the button in between the toothpicks and presser foot.

It’s quick and easy, though I did secure the thread ends by stitching them all to the back, tying a square knot, and running them between the layers of fabric before snipping them.

Side note:
I made a batch of fabric baggies recently, and with the experience of using my original set for a long time I adjusted the flap size to improve them. I’ve updated the post with baggie sewing instructions accordingly.

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I realized that my current dress pants fit great right out of the wash, but as the fabric relaxed (mine all have a little lycra in them) they would sag down on my hips, ending up too low – they didn’t look or feel good and they became too long. I envisioned pants where the legs were made of the gently stretchy fabric but the waist was made from something with no stretch at all, and realized I could mimic that by stabilizing the waist with something non-stretchy.

So here is the technique! I did my first round of waist stabilization back in February, so I can attest it does work. It shows from the outside, but isn’t obvious, especially if you wear your shirts untucked as I do.

Acquire some narrow grosgrain ribbon, or another non-stretchy material.

1. Pin the ribbon to the inside of the waistband, just far enough from the top edge that stitching through its center will be below the top of any belt loops the pants have. You will have to pin from the inside of the waist but sew from the outside of the waist, so have the points of your pins sticking out on the outside of the waist or buried between the layers of the waistband.

2. Looking at the outside of the waistband, sew a straight line down the approximate center of the ribbon. It is more important to have it straight relative to the edge of the waistband than relative to the ribbon. When you get to a belt loop, sew a bit underneath it and then backstitch. Lift your presser foot, pull the fabric out a little (so there is a small loop of thread) and start stitching again past the belt loop, starting with a backstitch to get as close as you can to the belt loop (underneath if possible).

3. Trim the ends of your thread and the loops that bypass each belt loop. Complete!

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If you look at hem stitching with the end of the pants leg downward, it looks like the drawing above: a series of horizontal dashes with little slanted teardrops extending down in between the dashes. The stitching will pull out to the right. If you can easily see what you’re doing, you can pick away at the loose end of the thread – the left-hand end of where the blindstitch overlaps itself – until the loose end is attached directly to a dash, and pull from there.

If you can’t easily see what you are doing, as was the case with me this weekend (busy fabric, probably inadequate light), you can still pull out commercial hem stitch. There are four steps, shown in the diagram: first, cut the thread toward the left end of a dash. Second, pull the dash’s thread toward the right. It will probably get hung up a little (if not, keep pulling!). Third, pick at the teardrop to the left of your cut in order to free the dash thread. Fourth, pull the dash thread to remove the stitching as far as it will go!

When you can’t start at the very end of the stitching you’ll need multiple rounds of pulling to remove all the stitching, but it’s still very quick – especially compared to a seam ripper!

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They’re easy to make: four-inch-wide strips of fabric, joined end to end with 1/4″ seams, seams pressed open and then raw edges of strips hidden in two steps. First, press the strip in half the long way, wrong sides together, and then fold the raw edges into the crease and press again. Twist the strip and coil it like a braided rug, sewing the rounds together with a wide zigzag.

The direction of coiling shown above is easier, so that the main portion of the bowl is under the arm of the sewing machine. There’s more room to work that way for the next step.

When the bowl is nearly as big as you want, hold the flat of the bowl up at an angle to join additional rounds. Eventually the base of the bowl should be nearly vertical.

Once I got out to the end I turned around and sewed right back to the middle again, to make sure it was fully secure. There were skipped stitches and places where I was too off center to grab both strips, so going around a second time accounted for both of those.

I don’t have a formula for determining strip length from desired bowl size, but I did record the lengths that went into these bowls.

The rainbow bowl was the largest, coming from a 5 yard 4 inch strip. It’s also lopsided; like throwing pottery on a wheel, getting symmetry with these takes some practice. The bright stripey bowl was from a 3 yard 27 inch strip, and this brown striped bowl was from a 1.5 yard strip.

This brown striped bowl, on the other hand, was from a not quite 1 yard strip. The purple and green bowl was 3 yards 11 inches, and the pinkish floral was 3 yards 8 inches.

I also learned in my sewing that while Gutermann’s metallic thread isn’t bad at all – though it does have all the usual tangly problems – Sulky’s metallic is impossible. It gave me profoundly high tension without even putting the presser foot down and eventually I just gave up on it.

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A sewing machine never travels alone, of course, and so a tote was in order for the manual, foot pedal, and bobbins. I also wanted to have some way to track use, for maintenance purposes, and a small sewing kit included to start people off.

The main tote bag has two outer pockets, sized to hold the manual + quick start guide and a small notebook for record-keeping. You’ve seen that small notebook before, of course, though it has the addition of a “sewing machine log” banner across the cover.

Inside the main tote are a drawstring bag and the foot pedal/power cord for the machine. The hot pink shoelace drawstring was in my stash; I believe my mother tied a gift for me with it at some point.

The drawstring bag is the sewing kit. The bobbin box was left over from a large project I am now realizing I never blogged, but it originally held pre-filled black and white bobbins. I half-filled it with a different set of pre-filled bobbins plus the three that came with the Brother. It also seemed like a good place for the Brother’s spare needles. The small plastic box originally held pins, from the same older project, and now has safety pins and a few snaps and hooks and eyes. The pincushion has one hand-sewing needle and a bunch of pins that came with the seam gauge and silver marking pencil. And, of course, you can’t have a sewing kit without scissors and a seam ripper.

I used this machine as a backup once when my machine had to go to the hospital in the middle of a project, but other than that it’s hardly been used. I’m looking forward to it being enjoyed instead of sitting on my shelf!

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