Sew me a storm

A lolita sewing blog for those who seek to sew their own wardrobe and additional sewing projects.

[20dollarlolita]

Scallop Hems

Scalloped hems look like this:

 They’re a fabulous way to avoid using lace on your dresses. They’re also a nice option if you don’t have enough fabric to do a rolled hem. They’re especially useful if you’re sewing on calico.

From now on, “quilting calico” is what I’m going to call the non-premium quilting cotton collections (lowest price, but best selection of lolitable prints). This is because I don’t like using “cotton” to describe a kind of fabric, when cotton is a very versatile fiber that makes many different kinds of fabrics. “Calico” is technically a kind of fabric that refers to a low thread count, minimally processed fabric, but it’s the closest I could get without delving into a 30 word description.

Many people who make statements beginning with “handmade lolita only works if–” talk about the way that calico behaves as a garment fabric. It’s often said to drape poorly, which means that it’s stiff and doesn’t mold to a form very well. It makes larger, sharper creases when made into a shirt of bodice and worn by a human.

Handily, there’s a lot of ways around this.

One of the ways to get a calico to drape better on a skirt is to make sure some weight ends up at the hem. This can be done with lace, which also stiffens the hem somewhat and forces the fabric to behave like a more expensive fabric. Another way to get some more weight at the hem is to use a faced hem.

Faced hems are cool because they allow you to smoothly hem any shape of hem. For a scalloped hem, like my dress, facings are the only way to get a nice hem. They aren’t necessary on every kind of hem, but they’re a great tool to have in your skillset. This is especially true on flared hems, where turning up for a hem can lead to puckers on the inside. Faced hems are also great in any case where your skirt might be visible on the inside, because they look very neat. (Showing off your skirt inside doesn’t happen in lolita a lot, but if you get into theatre or cosplay or dance and have an onstage costume change or a very dynamic choreography with swishy skirts, they’re a good thing to consider)

You might also want to add a faced hem onto any lightweight, opaque fabric that you would like a little more weight on the edge of. The phrase “added weight” doesn’t sound like it’d jive with petticoats, but a little more weight on the hem can keep a dress’ silhouette in “lolita” territory, when too little hem weight can make the bottom edge flare out and send it into “square dance” or “rockabilly.”

Making lolita out of calico is basically the art of making calico behave like a more expensive fabirc. In many cases, that’s very easy. It’s mostly a matter of adding more fabric, more thickness, or more weight. Faced hems are one of the more involved ways of pulling that off, but they’re not difficult, they’re extremely useful, and look very professional.

Step zero of all calico projects is to prewash (they shrink, sometimes big time) with a good soap and a liquid fabric softener. If you’re confident in the print’s ability to not run, hot water’s a very good idea. When your fabric shrinks, it closes up the holes in the weave a little bit, which makes the fabric tighter-woven. A lot of fabrics meant for quilting have a sizing put in them to make them stiff. This is good for quilting, but for garments, we want it OUT. Liquid fabric softener can make a huge difference, and I don’t consider it optional. Liquid fabric softener actually penetrates the fabric and disperses through it, which dryer sheets and dryer balls don’t do. You can use fabric softener AND a dryer ball, but don’t skip the fabric softener part. EDIT: Don’t skip the fabric softener the first time you prewash it! After that, it’s only necessary if that’s your preference. Fabric softeners can shorten the life of your fabric, so it’s up to you if you use it every time, but it really makes a difference in the initial wash. Thanks to Anon who pointed that out!

While your fabric is washing, let’s have our geometry lesson: shaped, faced hems like scalloped hems require two techniques: turning curved seams, and facing hems. They’re both simple and look nice.

The only thing that makes scalloped hems tricky is that they require you to use curved seams. We’re going to have a 20dollarlolita geometry lesson for a second:

Part 1: The inside of a circle is smaller/shorter than the outside of a circle (image on the left). The outside of a circle is bigger/longer than the inside of the circle. This is really the only fundamental lesson here.

Part 2: When you draw your seam allowance on a curved seam, that seam allowance isn’t an exact copy of your stitching line. The curve in the middle shows what happens when your seam allowance tries to be an exact copy of the stitching line. The lines overlap or are different distances from each other, and you can’t sew a seam where your seam allowance overlaps your stitching line and stops existing. The image on the right is a better approximation of a realistic seam allowance. Just pretend that it doesn’t change thicknesses. Photoshop is hard sometimes.

Part 3: When you have your pieces with the wrong sides together, they lie flat. However, when you’re sewing, you turn the piece inside-out and put the seam allowance on the inside. Here’s where your problem starts. The outside of a circle is bigger than the inside of a circle. When you turn our circle right-side-out, you make the outside of the circle become the inside of the circle. However, the actual amount of fabric that you have in your formerly outside circle doesn’t change. There’s too much fabric for it to lie flat, and it will become lumpy. We don’t like lumpy lolita hems.

a+ photoshop

To fix this, you have to remove some of the fabric in the outside circle. When you cut little notches out of the seam allowance, you can turn them into an inside circle that doesn’t have too much fabric in it.

Geometry lesson done! Sorry to be boring, but too many tutorials go “just cut this and it goes flat” without explaining why it smooths out, and that bothers me.

So, step 1 is to look at your hem, and cut your hem facing:

Terminology: facing is fabric that you put in your garment, that shows with the right side pointing at the inside. It’s often used to finish a hem or cover a seam.

Face or face fabric is the fabric that will show on the outside or the right side of the fabric.

Face of your fabric or fabric’s face is the side of the fabric you want pointing to the outside. In my case, it’s the side with the print. Technically speaking, whatever side you decide is the front is the face of your fabric, even if it’s not what the manufacturer intended. You are the master of your own destiny in this case. Double-faced is fabric that looks the same on both sides.

Interfacing is what you put between the backside of the face, and the facing, for stability or reinforcement. Any questions? Confused yet? Moving on!

To save on the confusion, I generally try to say say “facing,” “front fabric,” or “fashion fabric,” and “interfacing,” when I’m writing for this blog.

As you can see, my hem facing is cut out of the same fabric as my skirt. You can also use a coordinating, but less expensive fabric. In this case, the cats on my facing are going sideways, because I ran out of fabric to make them go the proper direction.

The hem of the skirt and the hem of the facing need to match exactly, and the hem facing needs to be about three or four inches above the hem. My hem facing’s other edge is shaped sort of like my hem, but it would have been much easier to just make it a straight line above the scallops.

You’re going to need to finish your non-hem edge. I used an overlock because I have a serger. You can use a zigzag, or just press it down on the wrong side about 5/8". You don’t need to double-press, because the skirt will cover the raw edge when you’re done. This is why it saves you a lot of trouble to just cut the back edge of the facing in a straight line.

Step 2, sew the facing to the hem, just along the hem edge. If your hem has any corners, like mine does at the edge of the scallops, make sure your turns at the points are sharp. Whatever your hem allowance in your patterns was (mine was 3/8"), sew that distance as your seam allowance.

Step 3, grade your seam allowance. Grading is a really great precision sewing technique. Here, it means cut off half of the seam allowance on the facing side only.

The purpose of grading is to prevent the seam allowances from showing a bump. When you cut the edges of your seam allowance in layers, you make the whole seam smoother from the outside. In general, you want the seam allowance closest to the outside fabric to be the longest, and the seam allowance on the inside to be the shortest. This is why we cut the facing seam allowance shorter, not the outside fabric.

Step 4: If you’ve got inside corners at the edges of your scallop, notch them all the way up to your stitching line. Here, you can see that my original stitching line didn’t have a sharp enough point, so I sewed an extra line of stitching before I notched it.

If you skip this step, you won’t be able to fully turn the scallop to the front. You want to go all the way to the stitching line, but not through it!

Now, clip your seam allowances so you can turn them inside. Remember our geometry lesson up there.

The graded seam allowance is two different lengths, but you can clip them like they’re one piece.

Grading and then clipping saves you a lot of time, instead of doing it the other way.

Step 5, press and turn. Start by pressing them from the right side, like this. Take some time to prevent any lip-like folds at the seam line. Use the very tip of your iron and work it into the fold to flatten it out.

Then flip over your facing to the wrong side and press it flat with your iron.

You want none of the facing to show on the right side, and a little tiny bit of the front fabric to show on the back.

If your facing doesn’t sit 100% flat at this point, troubleshoot it until it does. You don’t get a better chance to fix it than this.

Step 6 is understitching, AKA the best secret trick ever. When you understitch, you sew your seam allowances to your facing, about 1/8″ from your seam line. The purpose of understitching is to keep your facing on the inside and your outside on the outside. Right now, our facing is all hidden in the backside, and not showing at all on the front. With time, facings like to shift so that the seam creeps forward, and makes the facing visible. It’s not a good look. Understitching stops that, and it’s necessary for any garment you want to wash more than once.

The best way to understitch is from the outside, because you can really see where you’re sewing line is going. You can’t actually see the seam allowances, but you don’t need to, because you can feel them through the fabric. On the left is my front side of my dress, and on the right is my facing. All of the seam allowances are pressed towards my facing. With my index finger, I can feel that there is no seam allowance on the left side. If I feel a little bump, I know to stop and move it to the right before I sew over it.

You really don’t want any stitching to touch your front fabric here, which is why you want to do this from the outsides.

When you flip it over to the wrong side, you can see your seam allowance sewn up all nice and neat. The top line of stitching is my seam. The bottom is the understitching.

Go slow, stop often, and keep one finger monitoring your front fabric and feeling for any pieces of seam allowance that might have gotten shifted to the improper side. The facing side should feel chunky and the face fabric should feel thin and smooth. And don’t worry, as long as your finger stays touching the fabric, even lightly, you can’t sew over your finger because your presser foot will stop you. It’s actually incredibly difficult to sew over your finger (despite what Project Runway tells you).

Step 7, press it again. Get it all arranged so it looks good, press it from the back, and then the front. Get your facing smooth all the way to the other edge. You want to get it so it looks perfect, because you’re about to fix it like that forever. Pin the top edge of the facing so that it’s smooth and not going anywhere.

You can see my little line of understitching here.

Step 8, using an invisible stitch of your choice, sew that facing down by hand.

Doing 7 other steps of sewing and pinning and then still having to hem it by hand has always felt like the punch line to a joke I didn’t get to hear, but you’ve done so much work that you don’t want to wreck it with a line of machine stitching visible on the outside.

(unless your facing edge is perfectly even and straight, and you decide to hide that stitching line with some lace, but that’s Technically Not The Right Way To Do These Things)

I use the flat catchstitch/cross hem stitch, because I’m really fast at it and it’s very easy to regulate my thread tension. Any stitch that looks invisible from the outside will work. You can use a blind machine hem, if you’re confident in your machine’s ability to do it (but I’m not confident in mine).

If you need a refresher on the flat catchstitch and/or want to go down 20dollarlolita memory lane back to 2014, here’s a post on hemming stitches.

And there you go! Shaped hems are a great way to add detail and interest to an otherwise plain dress or skirt, without having to buy 5 yards of lace. You can stick a ruffle behind it for some extra cuteness.

You can use this faced hem technique on any hem you want, no matter what shape.

[mylolitahandmade]

*^* my new hat handmade!! I made it for my birthday coord! n_n/

[20dollarlolita]

Scallop Hems

Scalloped hems look like this:

 They’re a fabulous way to avoid using lace on your dresses. They’re also a nice option if you don’t have enough fabric to do a rolled hem. They’re especially useful if you’re sewing on calico.

From now on, “quilting calico” is what I’m going to call the non-premium quilting cotton collections (lowest price, but best selection of lolitable prints). This is because I don’t like using “cotton” to describe a kind of fabric, when cotton is a very versatile fiber that makes many different kinds of fabrics. “Calico” is technically a kind of fabric that refers to a low thread count, minimally processed fabric, but it’s the closest I could get without delving into a 30 word description.

Many people who make statements beginning with “handmade lolita only works if–” talk about the way that calico behaves as a garment fabric. It’s often said to drape poorly, which means that it’s stiff and doesn’t mold to a form very well. It makes larger, sharper creases when made into a shirt of bodice and worn by a human.

Handily, there’s a lot of ways around this.

One of the ways to get a calico to drape better on a skirt is to make sure some weight ends up at the hem. This can be done with lace, which also stiffens the hem somewhat and forces the fabric to behave like a more expensive fabric. Another way to get some more weight at the hem is to use a faced hem.

Faced hems are cool because they allow you to smoothly hem any shape of hem. For a scalloped hem, like my dress, facings are the only way to get a nice hem. They aren’t necessary on every kind of hem, but they’re a great tool to have in your skillset. This is especially true on flared hems, where turning up for a hem can lead to puckers on the inside. Faced hems are also great in any case where your skirt might be visible on the inside, because they look very neat. (Showing off your skirt inside doesn’t happen in lolita a lot, but if you get into theatre or cosplay or dance and have an onstage costume change or a very dynamic choreography with swishy skirts, they’re a good thing to consider)

You might also want to add a faced hem onto any lightweight, opaque fabric that you would like a little more weight on the edge of. The phrase “added weight” doesn’t sound like it’d jive with petticoats, but a little more weight on the hem can keep a dress’ silhouette in “lolita” territory, when too little hem weight can make the bottom edge flare out and send it into “square dance” or “rockabilly.”

Making lolita out of calico is basically the art of making calico behave like a more expensive fabirc. In many cases, that’s very easy. It’s mostly a matter of adding more fabric, more thickness, or more weight. Faced hems are one of the more involved ways of pulling that off, but they’re not difficult, they’re extremely useful, and look very professional.

Step zero of all calico projects is to prewash (they shrink, sometimes big time) with a good soap and a liquid fabric softener. If you’re confident in the print’s ability to not run, hot water’s a very good idea. When your fabric shrinks, it closes up the holes in the weave a little bit, which makes the fabric tighter-woven. A lot of fabrics meant for quilting have a sizing put in them to make them stiff. This is good for quilting, but for garments, we want it OUT. Liquid fabric softener can make a huge difference, and I don’t consider it optional. Liquid fabric softener actually penetrates the fabric and disperses through it, which dryer sheets and dryer balls don’t do. You can use fabric softener AND a dryer ball, but don’t skip the fabric softener part. EDIT: Don’t skip the fabric softener the first time you prewash it! After that, it’s only necessary if that’s your preference. Fabric softeners can shorten the life of your fabric, so it’s up to you if you use it every time, but it really makes a difference in the initial wash. Thanks to Anon who pointed that out!

While your fabric is washing, let’s have our geometry lesson: shaped, faced hems like scalloped hems require two techniques: turning curved seams, and facing hems. They’re both simple and look nice.

The only thing that makes scalloped hems tricky is that they require you to use curved seams. We’re going to have a 20dollarlolita geometry lesson for a second:

Part 1: The inside of a circle is smaller/shorter than the outside of a circle (image on the left). The outside of a circle is bigger/longer than the inside of the circle. This is really the only fundamental lesson here.

Part 2: When you draw your seam allowance on a curved seam, that seam allowance isn’t an exact copy of your stitching line. The curve in the middle shows what happens when your seam allowance tries to be an exact copy of the stitching line. The lines overlap or are different distances from each other, and you can’t sew a seam where your seam allowance overlaps your stitching line and stops existing. The image on the right is a better approximation of a realistic seam allowance. Just pretend that it doesn’t change thicknesses. Photoshop is hard sometimes.

Part 3: When you have your pieces with the wrong sides together, they lie flat. However, when you’re sewing, you turn the piece inside-out and put the seam allowance on the inside. Here’s where your problem starts. The outside of a circle is bigger than the inside of a circle. When you turn our circle right-side-out, you make the outside of the circle become the inside of the circle. However, the actual amount of fabric that you have in your formerly outside circle doesn’t change. There’s too much fabric for it to lie flat, and it will become lumpy. We don’t like lumpy lolita hems.

a+ photoshop

To fix this, you have to remove some of the fabric in the outside circle. When you cut little notches out of the seam allowance, you can turn them into an inside circle that doesn’t have too much fabric in it.

Geometry lesson done! Sorry to be boring, but too many tutorials go “just cut this and it goes flat” without explaining why it smooths out, and that bothers me.

So, step 1 is to look at your hem, and cut your hem facing:

Terminology: facing is fabric that you put in your garment, that shows with the right side pointing at the inside. It’s often used to finish a hem or cover a seam.

Face or face fabric is the fabric that will show on the outside or the right side of the fabric.

Face of your fabric or fabric’s face is the side of the fabric you want pointing to the outside. In my case, it’s the side with the print. Technically speaking, whatever side you decide is the front is the face of your fabric, even if it’s not what the manufacturer intended. You are the master of your own destiny in this case. Double-faced is fabric that looks the same on both sides.

Interfacing is what you put between the backside of the face, and the facing, for stability or reinforcement. Any questions? Confused yet? Moving on!

To save on the confusion, I generally try to say say “facing,” “front fabric,” or “fashion fabric,” and “interfacing,” when I’m writing for this blog.

As you can see, my hem facing is cut out of the same fabric as my skirt. You can also use a coordinating, but less expensive fabric. In this case, the cats on my facing are going sideways, because I ran out of fabric to make them go the proper direction.

The hem of the skirt and the hem of the facing need to match exactly, and the hem facing needs to be about three or four inches above the hem. My hem facing’s other edge is shaped sort of like my hem, but it would have been much easier to just make it a straight line above the scallops.

You’re going to need to finish your non-hem edge. I used an overlock because I have a serger. You can use a zigzag, or just press it down on the wrong side about 5/8". You don’t need to double-press, because the skirt will cover the raw edge when you’re done. This is why it saves you a lot of trouble to just cut the back edge of the facing in a straight line.

Step 2, sew the facing to the hem, just along the hem edge. If your hem has any corners, like mine does at the edge of the scallops, make sure your turns at the points are sharp. Whatever your hem allowance in your patterns was (mine was 3/8"), sew that distance as your seam allowance.

Step 3, grade your seam allowance. Grading is a really great precision sewing technique. Here, it means cut off half of the seam allowance on the facing side only.

The purpose of grading is to prevent the seam allowances from showing a bump. When you cut the edges of your seam allowance in layers, you make the whole seam smoother from the outside. In general, you want the seam allowance closest to the outside fabric to be the longest, and the seam allowance on the inside to be the shortest. This is why we cut the facing seam allowance shorter, not the outside fabric.

Step 4: If you’ve got inside corners at the edges of your scallop, notch them all the way up to your stitching line. Here, you can see that my original stitching line didn’t have a sharp enough point, so I sewed an extra line of stitching before I notched it.

If you skip this step, you won’t be able to fully turn the scallop to the front. You want to go all the way to the stitching line, but not through it!

Now, clip your seam allowances so you can turn them inside. Remember our geometry lesson up there.

The graded seam allowance is two different lengths, but you can clip them like they’re one piece.

Grading and then clipping saves you a lot of time, instead of doing it the other way.

Step 5, press and turn. Start by pressing them from the right side, like this. Take some time to prevent any lip-like folds at the seam line. Use the very tip of your iron and work it into the fold to flatten it out.

Then flip over your facing to the wrong side and press it flat with your iron.

You want none of the facing to show on the right side, and a little tiny bit of the front fabric to show on the back.

If your facing doesn’t sit 100% flat at this point, troubleshoot it until it does. You don’t get a better chance to fix it than this.

Step 6 is understitching, AKA the best secret trick ever. When you understitch, you sew your seam allowances to your facing, about 1/8″ from your seam line. The purpose of understitching is to keep your facing on the inside and your outside on the outside. Right now, our facing is all hidden in the backside, and not showing at all on the front. With time, facings like to shift so that the seam creeps forward, and makes the facing visible. It’s not a good look. Understitching stops that, and it’s necessary for any garment you want to wash more than once.

The best way to understitch is from the outside, because you can really see where you’re sewing line is going. You can’t actually see the seam allowances, but you don’t need to, because you can feel them through the fabric. On the left is my front side of my dress, and on the right is my facing. All of the seam allowances are pressed towards my facing. With my index finger, I can feel that there is no seam allowance on the left side. If I feel a little bump, I know to stop and move it to the right before I sew over it.

You really don’t want any stitching to touch your front fabric here, which is why you want to do this from the outsides.

When you flip it over to the wrong side, you can see your seam allowance sewn up all nice and neat. The top line of stitching is my seam. The bottom is the understitching.

Go slow, stop often, and keep one finger monitoring your front fabric and feeling for any pieces of seam allowance that might have gotten shifted to the improper side. The facing side should feel chunky and the face fabric should feel thin and smooth. And don’t worry, as long as your finger stays touching the fabric, even lightly, you can’t sew over your finger because your presser foot will stop you. It’s actually incredibly difficult to sew over your finger (despite what Project Runway tells you).

Step 7, press it again. Get it all arranged so it looks good, press it from the back, and then the front. Get your facing smooth all the way to the other edge. You want to get it so it looks perfect, because you’re about to fix it like that forever. Pin the top edge of the facing so that it’s smooth and not going anywhere.

You can see my little line of understitching here.

Step 8, using an invisible stitch of your choice, sew that facing down by hand.

Doing 7 other steps of sewing and pinning and then still having to hem it by hand has always felt like the punch line to a joke I didn’t get to hear, but you’ve done so much work that you don’t want to wreck it with a line of machine stitching visible on the outside.

(unless your facing edge is perfectly even and straight, and you decide to hide that stitching line with some lace, but that’s Technically Not The Right Way To Do These Things)

I use the flat catchstitch/cross hem stitch, because I’m really fast at it and it’s very easy to regulate my thread tension. Any stitch that looks invisible from the outside will work. You can use a blind machine hem, if you’re confident in your machine’s ability to do it (but I’m not confident in mine).

If you need a refresher on the flat catchstitch and/or want to go down 20dollarlolita memory lane back to 2014, here’s a post on hemming stitches.

And there you go! Shaped hems are a great way to add detail and interest to an otherwise plain dress or skirt, without having to buy 5 yards of lace. You can stick a ruffle behind it for some extra cuteness.

You can use this faced hem technique on any hem you want, no matter what shape.

[wafflepatterns]

Box Pocket Free pattern and tutorial for Bamboo coat and any other garment

Bamboo coat is a new sewing pattern from Waffle Patterns in this winter. It features 2 types of the pocket ; an easy patch type and a authentic slanted welt type. (the tutorial for slanted welt pocket is here) And here is one more option! It’s modern horizontal box type with free sewing pattern and step by step photo instruction. Sewing box pockets takes time and patience, but it is totally worthy and adds professional look on your coat. This is for Bamboo coat, but you can use this pattern for any other suitable jacket/coat patterns.

Download Free Horizontal Box Pocket Sewing Pattern here

How to sew the box Pocket

<< Cut Fabric / Interfacing >>

Cut the parts for pocket. Be careful the photo shows only one side parts, please double them for L/R sides pockets. Put interfacing on the Welt and the pocket open place of the bodice. (For the sample in the photo, I use a square fabric piece instead of the bodice for the explanation.) Mark the pocket placement on the Bodice. (You can find the template in the downloaded pattern) The upper line is for the Pocket Pouch Back and the under line is for the welt. If you’ll make Bamboo coat, you can use the Pocket B’s outside line as the welt place. 

<< Fold and crease welt fabric >>

Press and crease the Pocket Welt before stitching as the finished shape.

<< Stitch pocket pouch front and welt >>

1. Open the folded parts on the Pocket Welt. Place the Pocket Pouch Front and the Pocket Welt right sides together, match the notches and sew. 2. Press the seam to the Pocket Pouch side.

<Attach welt and pouch fabrics to the bodice >>

1. Check the markings on the Pocket pieces and the pocket places on the right side of the bodice.

2. Place the Pocket Welt onto the pocket place of the bodice right sides together, matching the lines. Sew between the notches using short stitch length.

3. Place the Pocket Pouch Back onto the bodice right sides together. Put the both attaching lines together and sew between the notches.

<< Cut slit on bodice >>

Flip the Welt and the Pouch and cut a slit on the Bodice as shown. Get close to the corner, but be careful not to cut into the stitching.

<< Shape welt >>

1. Push the Welt to the wrong side of the Bodice through the slit. Turn it to the wrong side. Open and press the inside seams.

2. Fold and press the welt on the fold lines again.

3. Push the folded Pocket Welt to the right side. Baste the under edge.

4. Turn over the bodice. Stitch the pocket welt fabric and the seams.

5. Turn the bodice to the right side. Flip the Pocket welt and Blind stitch and fix the seamallowance of the both sides.

<< Fix pocket pouch pieces >>

Push the Pocket Pouch Back to the wrong side of the Bodice through the slit and press and shape the pocket open. Put it on the Pocket Pouch Front and fix the both pouch with pins. *Depend on your fabric thickness, the parts might not line up correctly. Don’t match up the seams forcibly, put on naturally avoiding wrinkles or warps.

Double stitch the edge of the front and back Pocket Pouch pieces.

Turn the bodice to the right side. Top stitch the both sides of the Pocket Welt.

**Back side view**

***** Voila! ******

There are other tutorials which you can apply Bamboo coat, like how to sew hidden button stand, how to sew bent or free flap pocket pattern. Hope you enjoy them, too.

If you have any questions about the pattern and instruction, please contact me. If you put your photos of your creation from my patterns on your blog or other media, please share with Waffle Pattern’s address and don’t forget the tag #wafflepatterns on the SNSs!

The Bamboo coat sewing pattern is available here.    Also in Etsy shop.

*********************

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[sewing-lolita]

JoAnn has new fabric!!! I got a couple yards of each. I am hoping to get a jsk of each done, starting on the dog one first. A full night of sewing here I come.

[charmingmonsters-blog]

Finished a new blouse last week! I’m calling this my “Moitie Blue” blouse, since the fabric was selected specifically to match the blue on my Iron Gate Skirt <3

Top is the sample coord I’ve been planning; however, the shirt fabric is sliiiiightly sheer, so I may need to swap in a bodice rather than the Chantilly corset belt. The color is a touch darker in person (and a better match for the print), but it’s a very tricky shade to capture with my camera!

My next project is to finish the matching bonnet! 

[mewmewrith-deactivated20180315]

A basic bow tutorial

[dollneedle]

Finally, it is here. The new tutorial on how to make cute wristcuffs. I’m sorryit took such time and that I have been so busy to not make something bigger.Better luck next time, I suppose. Oh, well, thank you ad Wellcome to all my new followers and don’t forget as we reach 400 followers there will be a new one again. Thank you everyone and lots of love to all of you.

[lolitaplus]

OMG! Look at what McCalls just put out as a pattern! This would work for sailor lolita.. It’s so cute!

[ladylawga]

WOW this was kind of a beast to write. I’m sorry that I’m a day late with this (to the whole 5 people who are reading these) but I recently got a dog and she’s kind of taking over my entire life LMFAO. Great now I’m one of THOSE dog owners. Next week, most definitely another skirt (maybe pleats, maybe circle YOU JUST NEVER KNOW i’m a loose canon fashion designer who don’t play by the rules)

Week 1 - Grainline

Week 2 - Intro to Pattern Drafting

[dollneedle]

Here it is, as I promised! So, my first tutorial I actually put some time into doing. I would be ever so happy if people would tell me what they like/don’t like about it so I know in the future how to adjust it. If there is anything you wish to know about it, just ask. I know the Pictures look kinda… bad, but I did what I could with what I had and I, atleast, loved the outcome. I have a new pair of “frillies” and I love them and I tried my best to do this tutorial as simple to follow as possible. When making this, I used a fabric with cotton/linen mix. Thats why it gets so wrinkly so fast, but its still a good fabric for undergarment since it breath and is very soft. This tutorial is a basic, so you can decorate your bloomers as much as you wish and in any way you wish. When following this tutorial, I used the pattern for mens torusers to make the bloomers a bit more casual. I also made the waistline lower, since I don’t really like when things are to tight around my waist. I guess I’m sensetive. Haha. Good luck with your sewing and don’t forget to comment and “follow”. :D

[gingerbreadcoffin]

Lolita Fashion Tutorial: How to Make an Embroidery Pendant/Broche  ✂🌷🌹🍃

I started making these broches/pendants, as a quick fix to complete my coords. As someone who loves embroidery and broches, it often turned out to be just what I needed. So I thought I’d show you how to make them ^^

For a broche, make sure the eyelet on the pendant is facing down. And for a pendant, remember to have the eyelet face upwards. For this tutorial, I’ll be making a pendant.

You will need: 🌹 Scissors. 🌹 A piece of fabric. 🌹 An embroidery needle. 🌹 Embroidery floss, in colors of your choice. 🌹 A piece of paper. 🌹 A pendant with a flat surface (like a cameo). 🌹 A pencil. 🌹 Super glue. 🌹 A thin piece of cardboard or buckram. 🌹 Plush stuffing. 🌹 An embroidery frame. 🌹 And double sided tape.

Step nr 1: The first thing you want to do. Is to trace the inside of your pendant on a piece of paper, to make a stencil. Then you want to mark that area on your fabric, with a pencil. 

It always helps with embroidery, to mark certain things (rose sizes, leaf shapes, twigs, etc). Because it contributes to an overall more polished look.

Step nr 2: The next thing you want to do, is embroider your design. Now this is the part that’s going to take the longest. But in my opinion, it’s also the most satisfying ^^

I’ve used several techniques and stitches to create this design. Some of which are: the lazy daisy stitch, the bullion knot stitch, and the french knot stitch.

This video will show you how to make a rose, with the bullion knot stitch. And this video will show you how to embroider the green rose leaves.

Make sure that when you stitch on any beads, the needle is very thin. And that the eye of the needle, is just as wide as the needle itself.

Bonus tip: If some of the colors are too bright. You can soak your embroidery in black tea overnight, like I did.

Step nr 3:  When you’ve finished your embroidery, we’re going to cut it out. Make sure you leave approx 1 cm of fabric. Around the edge, we’re going to make little inward snips. So we can fold it around our buckram/cardboard back side. Don’t cut it in all the way, just up to two third. Like shown in the photo below. You want to leave a little room, or else all these little frayed bits are going to stick out. 

Step nr 4:  Take your paper template, trace it onto your piece of buckram/cardboard, and cut it out. 

Now before you do anything else, make sure it fits nicely onto your pendant. Adjust the shape if needed.

When you’re satisfied with the shape. Take a piece of double sided tape, and stick it onto the back of your buckram or cardboard. Trim the edges.

Step nr 5: Fold the edges of the fabric around your back side. Make sure the sticky side is facing outward. Leave a gap, so you can fill the inside with stuffing. This step is just a personal preference. But I like the look of it, because it would look rather flat otherwise.

Step nr 6: Close it up all the way around, after finishing the last step. And glue your embroidery piece onto your pendant. 

If you have followed my instructions so far, you should end up with something like this. You could either leave it like that. But I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the edges. 

So as a last finishing touch, you can add a chain stitch all the way around the edge… like so. Make sure to tuck away any ends or knots under the edge.

Tadaaaaaah! Finished!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and that it was helpful. If you have any constructive critisism, please drop it in my inbox. As I’m always looking to improve myself ❤  

[skyfishcosplay]

How to make puff sleeves

Making a puff sleeve is not so difficult as it may seem. There are different ways how you can make it but this is how I usually do it. You can use this technic on both short and long sleeves.

Start of with a normal pattern of a normal sleeve in your measurements and draw a cross across the pattern.

Cut among the lines and separate the four pieces so you get space between them.

With this pieces you can make different kinds of patterns depending what kind of puff sleeves you are going to make.

A) By separate the four pieces like this you will get a pattern of the classic puff sleeves. B) By connecting the upper tips of the pattern pieces you will get a sleeve that is only puffed on the lower part and normal (un-puffed) on the upper. C) By connecting the middle tips of the two lower pattern parts you will get a pattern that is puffed on your shoulder and normal (un-puffed) on the lower part of the sleeve.

Place your pieces on your fabric like you want them, draw it out and cut your sleeve out.

Zigzag around the edges and then sew the sides of the sleeve together.

To make the puff effect on the upper part of your sleeve take needle and thread and start to sew two set of lines among the markings with big stitches.

Pull the ends of the threads on both sides to get the sleeve wrinkled.

To make the lower part of the sleeve puffed I usually use elastic band. The elastic band will make it easier to take the sleeve on and off.

Measure your arm and make a ring out of the elastic band. Needle it to the lower part of the sleeve and sew it on. Remember to pull the elastic band as you sew.

Sew the sleeve on to your blouse and you are done!

~Bubblefish

[sweet-dreamworld]

Packing tip for lolitas!

[sweet-dreamworld]

Packing tip for lolitas!

[runningwithtoastcosplay]

Using a T-shirt to Make Patterns

Using a standard unisex T-shirt that is about one-two sized larger than your size can be used as a base for another way to drape darts or move the excess fabric into different styles. This is a method that can be done using a model form or on your own body!! (I do recommend if you are wearing the t-shirt to have the undergarment on that you will be wearing with the cosplay.) Helps to get a more accurate fit! First I will start by showing how to make standard double-ended darts using a T-shirt. Using this same technique you can make many types of darts.

Materials:

Standard unisex shirt in a size one-two sizes larger, sewing pins/safety pins, marker/tailors chalk, large piece of paper, scissors, pencil, ruler

^ 1. You want to work both sides at the same time. taking in a little on each side as you go. Don’t make it too tight, the excess fabric around the waist will be used to make darts (or seams).

^ 2. Taking the excess fabric, pinch equally at the placement of your darts/seams.

^ 3. Front darts are meant to tighten the excess fabric, there are many ways to utilize them.  They end about 1/4”- 1/2” down from the bust point (unless you want Madonna points). Darts leading down past the waist end at the hip, typically about 3”-4” past the waistline.

^ 4. Repeat process for back. Back darts work similar to front, top ends point to the largest part of the chest, and the bottom ends are about 3-4” from the waist

^ 5. Once all pins are in place, use tailors chalk or a marker to draw over the newly made sections, marking each side of the darts, and at each side of your new side seams.  Make notes for all markers like waist line along the sides and at each side of your dart, bust point, ends of darts top and bottom.

^ 6. While wearing the t-shirt, draw your neckline and armholes.  Be sure to mark for matching up front and back at shoulder seams and at the side seams.

^ 7. Now you are ready to transfer to paper! Carefully take the garment off, trying to keep all pins attached, it is okay if you lose some in the process. I like to go through and re mark on front and back with a sharpie the: bust point, dart points, waist at front and back sides as well as at each side of your dart, where the front and back pieces at the shoulder and under the arm. You only need half of the front and half of the back to complete the pattern.

Now you are ready to remove the pins, SEE second picture. Once pins have been removed, make a long line down the center front and center back. Label which side is front and which is back.

^ 8. Cut the shirt apart at the side seams following the lines you drew, and at the shoulders along the t-shirt’s seam line. Trace around the pieces, transfer all your marks and notes. After you have the outer edges, transfer the four dart points you marked: top, bottom, and at the waist on each side of the excess of the fabric. This will create your dart.

^ 9. Create your sewing guide lines, connecting the four points of the dart.  This will make a diamond shape.

^ 10. Finishing touches!!  Add seam allowance to all of your edges.  For this example, the front is on a fold a center front, which doesn’t need any seam allowance.  Back will have a zipper, which needs a larger amount of seam allowance. I highly suggest making a mock up with your new pattern pieces to test fit for any adjustments.

Whoo!!  This turned out longer than I thought it would, hope it makes sense and helps out. Happy Patterning and Sewing!!!

[sewing-lolita]

Bodice Pattern

Hello everyone,

I have fixed the bodice pattern link and it should be up in running.  The original post is fixed and I have attached it again here.

Bodice Pattern: Link