Full how to on prepping your fabric, transferring the design, sewing and cording a pair of stays. These stays are certainly the most complex cording project I've done, so I wanted to share how I've been going about it! Uses a completely different method than the one shown in my Making a Corded Petticoat post.
In the middle of all the craziness that was Dickens Fair and the holidays, I got the irresistible urge to make a corded petticoat. I am obviously not sane. Here's how I went about it.
In the middle of all the craziness that was Dickens Fair and the holidays, I got the irresistible urge to make a corded petticoat. I am obviously not sane. Here's how I went about it.
I wrote an Instructable on how I converted my hand drawn paper corset pattern into a file that the laser at work can cut out. Go read it here. See the laser doing all my work for me here.
I'd seen a few "how to make fabric roses" tutorials here and there on teh interwebs and thought that it looked fairly easy. Turns out it takes quite a bit of skill (and luck) to make a pretty rose! My first attempts looked like lumpy wadded up bits of scrap fabric. I tried a couple of different methods and some different fabrics and pretty much failed at them all.
And I do mean pretty darn exact. Check out this photo of my finished hoops with my draft laid over the top for comparison. You can use the following method to create any type of round hoop, whether cone shaped, bell shaped or a crazy undulating shape. The key is that only round style hoops can be done like this; bustle/hoop combos, elliptical hoops and panniers won't work with this method. But if the silhouette of your intended hoop design is identical from the front, sides and back then this will work for you.
I showed you how to draft a custom hoop skirt pattern here. Now I'll show you how to sew it up. It's really quite simple. Here's the quick and dirty instructions in nine easy steps, followed by the slightly more complicated process I used for mine (partially by choice, partially because I screwed up), with a few photos.
Over the course of the last week I've been taking apart my little Singer hand crank machine to clean and repair it. I was terrified when I started out, but with a good set of instructions there is absolutely no reason to fear this job!
Whether you have an old sewing machine that was your grandmother's or you picked one up at a yard sale or antique store, you might be in need of a little information on it.I'll start with the brand of machine you're most likely to have: Singer.
Finding loads of information on my Singers was easy, but two of the machines that followed me home last weekend weren't any brand I'd heard of. New Home? Jones? No clue. To teh interwebs!
Yesterday I showed you some vintage saris and dupattas I ordered off eBay. They're beautiful, but they stink! But how to wash a super delicate silk that has been embroidered with actual metal, not to mention beads, sequins, and other embellishments?
