Ricochet and Away!: ruffles

Showing posts with label ruffles. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Guest Post from Blooms and Bugs. . .

Hello Readers!

Today I have something totally new and exciting for your reading pleasure. Anshu from Blooms and Bugs has graciously offered to swap blogs with me today. Anshu is a pro at sewing and a mega-pro at working with knits and creating beautiful and fun clothes for little girls (and big girls like us!). She has an etsy store as well so I hope you will all stop by and give her some love.

Now just look at what she offered to share with us today. It is fashionable and thrifty way to turn a summer tee into a cute fall top. Now, I don't do clothing tutorials here on Ricochet and Away!, so this is indeed a treat worth savoring!

Enjoy,

When I looked Rikka's beautiful and well-maintained blog I just couldn't help asking her for a blog swap. She graciously agreed and here I'm, guest posting at Ricochet Away. For this post I wanted to bring you something that would be useful to almost everyone. You know how we all are left with Tees at the end of the summer, they look and fit great but they are half sleeved, so they can't be used during the fall and winter. By the time summer rolls back again, they're too short already. I have found myself with a pile of half sleeved clothes and wondering...Gosh!! these clothes are so nice, I wish I could use them somehow, until it hit me...adding sleeves shouldn't be that hard. After all, I do it all the time for the clothes I sew from scratch. Adding just the sleeves would be a lot more easier..and quicker. So here's a tutorial on adding sleeves to your little one's ( or your own) tees and then adding just a little more detail to bind it all together. I'm calling it Octoberizing that Tee because a full sleeved version will be just right for the weather in the beginning of fall and also because the colors are just right for October.

Supplies ( 2 year old size) 1 half sleeved Tshirt 1 XL Tshirt in a contrasting color ( or any knit fabric will do - using T shirt was much quicker because I didn't have to hem)

Adding the full sleeves:

Cut off the sleeves from the adult tee.

Lay the small Tee straight and place the sleeves from the big tee next to the small Tee sleeves. Make sure that both the Tee sleeves and the new sleeves make a straight line and overlap about half inch. Now measure from the shoulders of little Tee to the hem of sleeves of big Tee, this is how long your final sleeve will be. Compare it with the sleeve length needed for your child.If this is too big, increase the overlap to reduce the length. If it is too small you have two options - 1 You can pick open the hem of sleeves, this will give you one extra inch. you could do rolled hems on the sleeves later. Another option is to use T-shirt body, or a knit fabric instead of sleeves. This is not very complicated either. Just fold a knit fabric along the width and use it the same way I'm showing you using the existing sleeves. You just have to hem these sleeves...that's all. Once you have determined the correct length you have to determine the width. What we want to do is make an addition to the sleeve that is as wide as the existing sleeve's end in and then it tapers off following natural shape of arm. So you will measure the width using the hem of existing sleeve and add 1 inch to it for sewing margins.

Do the same for the other sleeve.

Now fold each sleeve in half along the width ( right sides together) and sew a seam on the side using up sewing margins. Repeat for the other sleeve.

Turn this tube of sleeve inside out. Now line it up with the real sleeve as shown above. Now gently slide the wider end of new sleeve into the existing sleeve. Straighten both the sleeves using your hand. Make sure the new sleeve is fitting the old sleeve evenly. Use hand basting or pins to hold it in place.

Sew a seam along the joint of the new and old sleeves to fix it in place. Note: It is easier to go from the neckline to sew this seam, at least it was for me. Repeat for the other sleeve. Ta da! Your tee has full sleeves now...smile!

Adding contrasting stripes at the front.

Cut two rectangles from the contrasting knit of width equal to the width of Tee and length = 5 inches. Place them one over the other and then onto the Tee at a position you like.

Pin or hand-baste these to make sure they stay in their place.

Now sew parallel lines along the hand-basting. Mine are about 5/8 inch apart. You can use your sewing machine foot as a guide to get evenly spaces lines.

Once you're done sewing, its time to cut. Cut between the seams, Making sure you're cutting only the extra layers and not the Tshirt itself. I used a small scissor to do this. Try to stay in the center between two seams but you don't have to be precise. We are taking advantage of the fact that knits don't fray. So we can leave the cut edges raw.

Congratulations! You have successfully Octoberized your Tee. Right now the orange is looking like a color-block at the front, but these knit strips will curl up in the wash.

So they look more like ruffled stripes of orange and white. For more pizazz you could use more layers, and also graded color layers. So when you cut, you will see colors of different intensity. I haven't done that but I think it would look cool.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

20 inches of duck canvas scarf...

"Modern canvas is usually made of cotton or linen, although historically it was made from hemp. It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as denim, in being plain weave rather than twill weave. Canvas comes in two basic types: plain and duck. The threads in duck canvas are more tightly woven. The term duck comes from the Dutch word for cloth, doek." [source]

It all began with my friend Keren from sew la vie! She has been sewing with knits lately so I wanted to pass on a cute ruffled jersey scarf that I had bookmarked a while back. This was the scarf I was thinking of:

This pretty scarf is from the
lovely blog, Make it and Love it.
You can find the tute here.

But, I sent this equally lovely scarf by mistake:

This pretty scarf is from the
lovely blog, Ruffles and Stuff.
You can find the tute here.

After I found out my goof-up of sending dear Keren the wrong tutorial, we both agreed that this flannel scarf was very cool and interesting. The only thing deterring us from making this lovely scarf was that it calls for a piece of soft flannel 10 inches by 14.5 feet. Yes, 14 feet long! Obviously one would have to piece together a few strips to achieve that length. Neither of us had that much flannel on hand. Bummer.

But that got me thinking. What about using a single layer of denim? I have yards and yards of denim! Would it be too heavy? Would it be too stiff? Would it irritate one's neck? More thinking. What if the edges were frayed to a soft and fluffy border? I had to find out. I couldn't sleep until I knew!

So I tip-toed into my craft room and was about to drag out my pile of denim when my eye spied the duck! I had a little remnant of wine colored duck canvas I paid $2.50 for at JoAnn's. That would be worthy of my little experiment. If it failed, I'd only be out a couple bucks and a good night's sleep.

Well, you can see by this tute that I enjoyed some success. Please don't judge me by my silly photo montage. I tried my best to stay out of this photo shoot. But my dear children were uncooperative, leaving me to fend for myself. I could not simply hang this scarf on the fence like I do when I shoot bags. You have to see it "on" to fully appreciate it. So, I had to feel like an idiot for 10 minutes in my back yard.

I can assure you that this scarf is very comfortable to wear and really fun to "play" with. I picked it up several times today just to try out all the different ways you can arrange it around your neck.

Hello, I'm the dork in duck! There I was in 90 degree heat in my Barbie pink lipstick trying to wrestle with a camera on a tripod in my back yard. I will tell you, it was no fun. Even worse is how embarrassing it is for me to be the "model".

Are you still with me? Good! Now here comes the tutorial portion of this post. Yay!

I started with a 20 inch remnant of duck canvas. Like most utility fabrics, it was 60 inches wide. I cut it into four strips that were 5 inches wide by 60 inches long. That used up every bit of my remnant.

After I cut the strips, I had to go to my high tech lab and construct a pleating gadget. I created this ingenious invention by cutting a 1.5 inch wide strip of card board.

I used it to measure out and press every pleat.

You can see from these pictures, that these pleats are not quite a simple accordion fold. I think they would be called box pleats. The Pleat Cheat 2000 was infinitely helpful in the pleating process.

I pleated and pressed each strip separately. Then, I attached them by over lapping the ends of strips. The end pleats of one strip tucking over and around the end pleats of the next strip. I did not sew them together. Then, I pinned it up nice and neat. I ended up just shy of 80 inches of scarf.

I made 3 rows of straight stitches right down center of the scarf. To aid the fraying of the edges, I snipped the edges of both sides. Then I threw it in the washing machine with some towels.

I had a stomach dropping feeling when I pulled the scarf from the dryer. As you can see from picture one, the fraying turned out great, but the scarf needed some work. With just a bit of fiddling I got it to look like picture two. With a little bit of steam iron, I have the finished product shown in picture three.

I hope you enjoyed this little crafty journey with me. Thanks so much for taking the time to read all this. I know, I ramble on sometimes! I'm long-winded by nature, and I'm trying hard to reign it in for this blog. Honestly, I am. :-)

While you're here, I hope you'll vote for your favorite tote from our Solids-Only Tote Challenge. We have 18 entries to choose from, made by bloggers from all over the world. You can find the poll HERE.

Happy Crafting and big hugs from Montana,

this is my craftgawker photo, fyi

A big thank you to Ginger for featuring this project:

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bias Ruffles: a godsend for ruffle addicts...

Everyone has a great tutorial on creating something with ruffles. Most of the tutes you see are for refashioning t-shirts or making ruffled skirts from t-shirts. Since t-shirts are made of jersey and jersey doesn't fray, creating ruffles is very easy. But what about woven fabric? It frays like crazy. You have to hem it or your ruffles will turn to fringe and you'll be shedding strings all over the place. There has to be a better way, right? Well there is! WOVEN FABRIC CUT ON THE BIAS DOES NOT FRAY!!!! After fighting with my narrow hem foot for hours trying to hem some calico to make ruffles, I came across this tute:

Squiggly Twig Designs showed me the light!
Bias strip ruffles were the solution to my
ruffle dilemma!

and this tute all about ruffles:

This is an informative ruffle tute by See Kate Sew.

Bias strip ruffle usage is not unheard of in the blogging tutorial world, but there isn't a lot out there.

Here are some of my favorites:

Micah C Micah Do has a great ruffled pillow tute!

Another pretty pillow tute by Midwestern {sewing} Girl

This beautiful skirt uses bias strips sewn in tiers
for a gorgeous effect. Kudos to No Big Dill for this beaut!

This cute pouch is made even cuter with a bias strip ruffle.
Find the tute on That's My Letter: "R" is for Ruffles.

You can find the tutorial for this phenomenal pillow
at Ameroonie Designs.

Here are a few things I've made using bias ruffles:

How would you like to see a neat-o torpedo little ruffle shortcut? Awww, that perked up your ears!
This is how I deal with rows and rows of cascading ruffles:

What you'll need to start:

fabric that looks the same on either side cut into wide bias strips (4"-6" is ideal)
sewing machine with a straight stitch and coordinating thread
hot iron with steam

The 1st step is to cut your woven fabric into wide bias strips. How long? Super long. I wouldn't start unless I had a strip at least 6ft long. Think about it, if you gather it really tight, you would probably only end up with 3 ft of ruffles.
This is a good video tutorial on how to attach strips of bias.

The 2nd step is to mark an off-center mid-line down the length of your strip. I did this by ironing in a good crease. For this tute, my bias strip is 4" wide and my off-center crease was 2.5" from the edge.

The 3rd step is to gather your strips along the crease.
Most people will gather fabric by sewing a long straight stitch and pulling one of the threads. I tried that, but my thread kept breaking. Other folks are lucky enough to have a ruffle foot for their sewing machines. I am not so lucky. Because I was frustrated and a bit lazy, I came up with my own gathering method. I simply pinch and pleat/fold my fabric as I am feeding it under the foot and to my needle. No special equipment needed. One step and I'm done. You can see that my ruffles are more like irregular pleats. This may bother you, but I've made peace with it. :-)

The 4th step is to fold and press your strip on your off-center mid-line. Like magic, you have a double row of ruffles. Now you can see why you choose your fabric carefully. The peach linen I used doesn't really have a right or wrong side.
Another thing you may have noticed is the seam where I connected two bias strips. The seams will show. I've made peace with that fact. You can too!

And that's it! You're done. Easy huh? Hmmm, still can't visualize why this is such a cool technique? Keep scrolling down and look at my little demo. If you're like me, you need to SEE it all played out in order to be properly inspired.

What could you do with 2 double ruffles?

Why, you could stack them up and make a quadruple row of ruffles!
Starting to see where I'm coming from?

How many rows of rufles do you see on my little handbag?

To make this purse, I made one long strip of ruffles and sewed them around a tube of fabric.
The ruffles literally spiral up and around the tube.
The arrow points to one end of my ruffle.

This arrow points to the other end of my ruffle way down on the bottom of the handbag.

Like looking up a lady's skirt, right?
I mentioned sewing around a tube earlier, right? Well, I sewed up one end of the tube using a french seam to hide the raw edges. The other end of the tube was folded over a few times and hemmed to finish the top edge of the bag. I sewed on strips of bias to the top and tied on the bamboo handles.

Because I believe one cannot have too many visual aids. I drew up this little sketch to show you how I started stitching the ruffles onto the purse. I began near the "bottom" of the tube and spiraled up to the top. I left enough unruffled fabric at the bottom to make a decent french seam and enough at the top to fold under a few times and hem to finish the top.

And so concludes yet another long-winded post by Rikka J!

Thank you for hanging in there with me!

Please let me know if I can make anything clearer for you.

I love that you are reading my posts and I have to tell you, it is so awesome to see my stats get better and better every week! Thank you so much for becoming a follower and telling others about Ricochet and Away! You all rock!

Happy Crafting and big hugs from Montana!

Be sure to check out the Retro Pillow Challenge!
It starts in September so you still have time to join in!