Friday, 8 August 2014

Scarf tutorial

So a lot of my sewing has been for others recently and I thought I would share a tutorial for my latest gift. This is a super easy and quick make but shows a bit more thought than simply going to h&m for something similar.

Sadly my photos for the first few (very simple) steps have disappeared into the ether!
My fabric was 150 wide and I cut a section 33(ish)cm section, using the width as the length of my scarf.  I just judged how wide I wanted it to be by eye and then leveled up the line with one on my cutting board for one nice swift cut with the rotary cutter. 

So now we're closer to having a scarf. You could of course cut this piece wider or narrower depending on your preference. Just remember to cut it a bit bigger (about 3cm) than you want your finished scarf to be as we will lose some fabric when hemming. 

Really this post should be named the 'hemming a scarf tutorial' as you could have worked out the first steps all by yourself. However the next steps are trickier. This tutorial is for hemming a scarf without a rolled hem foot. My machine doesn't have one, my mum's one which I have on semi permanent loan does, but it seems like a real faff to work out so I'm sticking with my method for the time.

First off, sew a line about 1cm from the edge all the way round the scarf.  This will give you a guide for the other stitching lines and will make the folding and pressing in the next steps, much easier.

Press the fabric in using your stitched line as a folding line.  The pressed fabric should have wrong sides together (mine has no obvious wrong side so this is irrelevant but if you're using a different kind of fabric you'll need to pay attention to this).


Stitch all the way round the scarf, as close to the folded edge as possible, preferably within a few mm.


Then trim as close to the newly stitched line as possible.




Fold the raw edge over, press, pin and then sew.  Take particular care when pinning and then sewing the corners.  I did not mitre the corners and just folded and stitched and they look good (at least I think so) probably because the hem is so tiny, however just be aware that there is an extra bulk of fabric at the corners which can cause them to flick out and ruin your neat edge.


And voila!  One finished scarf.  This probably takes about an hour and a half from start to finish (depending on the behaviour of your fabric).

*Warning* when switching between projects, where one is a synthetic chiffon scarf and the other is a cotton, ensure that the temperature of your iron has been adjusted for the synthetic!  I should have got three scarves out of my metre of fabric and I actually have two and a piece of fabric with some unattractive burn holes!  













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