You'll Need:
We goths are subject of many nasty things. This includes cruel seasons, which does their best to make us uncomfortable. Summer and winter are hard on us, in both ends. In the summer, we are forced to either sweat like a pig in black clothes or sacrifice style to keep ourselves cool. In the winter, we face the exact opposite, either freezing our butts off (and looking good while we do so) or wearing enough clothes that we puff up like a big ball of fluff.
While it is difficult to spice up clothes for the summer, it is easy (or easier) to do with the winter clothes. We have created a simple, yet beautiful and warm, scarf to wear during the cold months. Now go prepare for a more stylish winter outfit :)
Your first step is to find some beautiful fabric, some warm and soft fabric and three buttons that goes well with the beautiful fabric.
We have chosen some black velvet for the outside of the scarf, and some black fleece for the lining. Also, we have a lot of buttons at home, so we just dug up some golden metal ones with some nice engravings on.
Please be aware that some fabrics, like velvet, has a direction from which it looks best. So for your own sake, find out which way the fabric has to be turned in order to look its best. See picture #9 for right direction.
Now that we have the three pieces of the puzzle, lets continue.
To be sure that your scarf fit you you'll have to measure (crudely) on yourself. The scarf should be able to wrap itself around your neck two whole times (without being tight and choking), and it should be wide enough to cover from your collarbone to your chin. You might find it easier to measure, if you use piece of discarded fabric as measuring "tape". When you have got the size of the scarf, remember to add 3 cm to both length and width for seam allowance.
If you do not want to measure yourself, you could use some standard sizes. We have made the width of the scarf 21cm (including seam allowance) and 120cm long.
Now that you have the measurements, cut out a square the appropriate size, from both fabrics.
Then, take the two pieces and pin them together, right to right.
If you are working with fleece as we did, or if you are working with any kind of stretching fabric, you want to do this part of the tutorial extra carefully. Otherwise, your scarf will end up having wrinkles at the edge.
Onto the sewing! To sew your scarf, simply sew along the edge all the way around, except for a small hole. This small hole will be used to turn the scarf inside out and thus hiding the seams. However, before you turn it inside out, proceed to the next step.
As you want the hole/gap to be invisible, we recommend placing it at least 10 cm from any corners. This helps the fabric to fold from where your seams have been sewn, and thus giving you an easier time making the gap invisible.
Oh... Btw, when you are done sewing along the edge (with 1,5cm seam allowance), remove the pins :)
As said, before you turn your scarf inside out, here's a neat little trick. To make sharp corners, we have to remove some of the seam allowance at the corners. Basically, you just cut the corners of the seam allowance away. When you do so, try to cut as close to the seam as you can, without making the seam "unstable". This is usually approximately about 1mm away from the seam.
The white lines on the picture is where the seam is.
With everything, but the gap, sewn up and the corners cut, it is finally time to turn the scarf inside out. If you are working with fleece, be careful NOT to stretch it too much, as the fleece will expand and thus deform your scarf.
Now it is time to find the piece of wood that we wrote on the "need"-list. As you have probably noticed, the corners are not very sharp, despite our little corner-trick. To make full use of the corner-trick, take the piece of wood and use it to force the corners into shape. Push the wood into the corners from within the scarf. You might try to wriggle it about a bit. Just be careful not to apply too much force on the fabric, as the corner is a bit unstable.
While this will help the sharpness of corners, they will not be 100% sharp. But almost :)
Another small thing that you might have noticed, is that the fabrics doesn't fold nice and straight around the gap. To make sure that it behaves, when we are going to sew along the edge, we pin it.
If you are working in fleece, you may want to pin it good and extensively. Fleece has a tendency of stretching without seeming like it does, which will end up leaving wrinkles. So we pin it to avoid this.
Now with the opening properly pinned, your next step is to sew along the edge of the scarf. Sew a stitch all the way around the scarf, approximately 0,5 cm in from the edge.
When you look at this picture, you might wonder why the scarf looks like it has two colors. That is because velvet and other furry fabric has, well, fur. And this fur is not aligned straight up into the air. It sort of lies down one direction, which results in two things. If you look down into the hairs, the fabric becomes very light absorbent. This is the way the fabric is meant to be seen. The other happens if you look at the fabric from most other directions, you will notice that is changes "color". This is very important when working in fabrics such as velvet, that you remember which way is up :)
Now that the scarf is semi-done, we are going to add a little something special - buttons! Most scarfs are just, well, scarfs - designed to be wrapped around your neck, sometimes with a knot.
If you look at the picture, you will see three small white dots. These are going to form the base of the buttonholes. The dots are places 2cm in from the top.
Please note that this is one of the scarf ends :) Depending on which side you want your scarf fastened, you should choose the appropriate end of the scarf, keeping the fur-direction in mind.
There are multiple ways of creating buttonhole. The way you do it is not important, although if you have a sewing machine it will make your life easier :)
What is important to note, though, is the way the buttonholes are turned.
As you can see Bjarke has chosen to close his scarf in the right side. To make sure that the scarf fits him perfectly, we are going to figure out exactly where the buttons should be placed.
To do this, you should tighten the scarf around your neck to the point where it feels snug, but still spacy and comfortable. Then take your fabric pen and make a mark onto the fabric though the buttonholes.
Try to make the mark as close to the end of the scarf as the buttonhole will allow.
You are looking at the markings of where the buttons will be placed. The small, thick white line is our mark we made though the buttonhole. We then drew a white line straight across the scarf, making sure that this line crossed the buttonhole line. This is the line which indicates where the buttons will be aligned.
We then took the end of the scarf (with the buttonholes) and matched it to the button-align line. Then we drew the three orange lines, using the buttonholes as our "guide".
The intersections between the orange and the white lines is where we will attach the buttons.
Attaching the buttons by hand, making sure that they are "facing" the right way, in respect to the fabric and to each other.
Done... Now your neck wont freeze in the winter months and you will look stylish as well, when wearing it... Congratulations - You're Awesome!!!
Here is a posing picture of Parnuuna.
The scarf looks a bit to high for her. That's because it was made for Bjarke and he has got a longer neck.
Comments
Parnuuna - Rating 5
Mon 15:30 7/November-11
Trixie - Rating 5
Fri 3:31 4/November-11
Parnuuna - Rating 5
Tue 10:50 23/November-10
Corkie - Rating 5
Tue 0:05 23/November-10
BeMyGoth.com - Rating 5
Sun 15:10 19/September-10
Page 1 of 1