Black Friday offers from handmade shops!

Here are a few reasons why you should buy handmade this holiday season:

• Instead of a massive, greedy corporate crapbag that uses a sweatshop workforce, you’re directly supporting a skilled artisan/craftsperson.
• Handmade craftspeople understand the concept of quality over quantity. Handmade is made to last.
• Handmade is unique. Who doesn’t want to be able to brag to their friends that they’re the only one with that bag/top/necklace?

Okay, enough preaching. Check out the comments for some fantastic deals from handmade shops!

keyhole opening – photo tutorial

This tutorial shows a keyhole in the front neckline of a top, but you can use the same technique for the front or back of a top or dress. You can also use it on bags, pockets, and more!

Difficulty:

Step 1

I’m starting with a top that is almost completed. I’ve sewn the front and back together, and added the sleeves.

As you can see, I’ve cut a hole where I want the keyhole to be. You can add a keyhole to the front or the back, like I said, in this case I’m putting it in front. You can do a pretty large keyhole in the back of a top, but keep in mind how much skin will be showing if you’re putting it in front. A more modest hole for the front is probably best.

As always, start the hole small if you’re not sure. You can always cut it bigger, but you can’t make it smaller.

 

Step 2

Here is a close-up of the keyhole opening. I’ve cut a slit where the keyhole meets the collar of the shirt.

Other things to consider when determining the size of the keyhole: how wide will your trim be? How much of a seam allowance are you using?

 

Step 3

You will also need a piece of fabric or trim to finish the edge of the keyhole.

They key to keyholes (haha, get it?) is very stretchy trim fabric. The stretchier the fabric, the better your keyhole will turn out. If you’ve tried keyholes before and the trim wouldn’t lay flat, it probably either wasn’t stretchy enough or you didn’t stretch it enough.

For this top, I’m using a piece of rib knit. This stuff is PERFECT for keyholes, because it’s insanely stretchy and elastic- it doesn’t lose it’s shape when stretched a lot. It’s also called ribbing, baby rib, etc. It’s the same stuff they use for the cuffs of sweatshirts.

So back to the keyhole- you will want a piece of trim fabric that is equal in length to the circumference of your keyhole. You can estimate on this a little, but always err on the side of longer for the trim. I like to live life dangerously, so I cut my trim to match the hole, so it’s 14″. Your trim fabric should also be double the width you want it to be when it’s finished. I want 1/2″ of trim, so my piece of fabric is 1″ wide (plus a seam allowance!).

You can use lace or some sort of ruffly stuff around a keyhole, but it’s tricky. You’ll probably want something that is elastic in the middle with ruffles on both sides. In that case, you won’t need to worry about the width.

Step 4

Fold the trim fabric in half, and pin it to the right side (outside) of the top. This is kind of like making a stretchy fabric waistband, or a crew neck style collar.

You’ll want to be sure to stretch the trim A LOT as you pin it to the keyhole, and again when you sew around the edge that you’ve pinned.

Step 5

Here it is once we’re finished sewing. Look how nice and flat it sits! Say thank you to the ribbing for being such a good sport with all that stretching and pinning.

Step 6

I like to topstitch around stuff like this, it helps the fabric lay flat and gives it a nice finished look.
I used a small zig-zag stitch in a contrasting thread, but you can use a straight stitch if you want.

Step 7

Now it’s time to decide how you’re going to finish the top.
If you want a closed keyhole, baste the two edges of the keyhole trim together (red line in the photo), and then finish the top by adding a collar or hood or what-have-you as you normally would.
If you want an “open” keyhole that you can tie closed, don’t baste the two edges of the keyhole together. Instead, start at one end and sew the collar or hood on until you’ve reached the other end. Then you’ll want to add some strings or cord or ribbon to tie the keyhole closed.

Step 8

I wanted a hood with a keyhole that could be tied closed. Yay!

surplice / cross-over bust tank top tutorial

This little twist on a tube top is the perfect way to revamp a big t-shirt.

Difficulty:

Step 1

Start out with your large-ish tee.

Mark like so.

The larger piece should have a top measurement to match under your bust. Grab a tape measure and measure right under your boobs.

Step 2

contour bust or ruffle bust top or dress tutorial

This is a tube top style top with a contoured bust section that makes a little more form fitting than a plain old tube top.

Difficulty:

Here’s an example photo:

 

At the end of the tutorial, there’s a variation for a ruffle bust, which looks like this:

 

Step 1

You will need 4 pieces for this one.

The back is pretty much a standard tube top back.

The front is 3 pieces: 2 contoured bust pieces (they kind of look like sunglasses), and the bottom. It’s kind of like a tube top, too, but with the boobs cut out.

 

REMEMBER TO ADD A SEAM ALLOWANCE FOR ALL OF YOUR PIECES!

 

Step 2

Here’s a more detailed look at the “sunglasses” pieces for the bust for various sizes.

You may need to adjust this a bit depending on your particular shape. And I know I already said this, but remember to add seam allowances!!

The length should be half of the bust (in our example, we have a 36″ bust, so our pieces are 18″ long).

If you want, you can cut 4 of these instead of 2, and line the bust (which I recommend for sheer or very thin fabrics).

Step 3

I find it’s easiest to sew the two “sunglasses” pieces together first.
After that, you want to attach it to the bottom front piece.

Pin the bust to the front piece a lot before sewing. The curved shape can make it kind of awkward to sew. If you’re using a serger/overlocker, I’ve found that it’s easier to pin the piece together, straight stitch, and then serge.

Step 4

So now you have the completed front, and the back. All that’s left now is to sew the sides of them together.

Step 5

You can add elastic or a top band to the top, and hem the bottom or add a skirt to make it a dress.

Continue on for the ruffled bust variation.

Variation Step 1

After sewing the two bust pieces together, cut a piece of fabric at least twice as long.

For our example, our front bust pieces are 18″ long, so we want the ruffle fabric to be at least 36″ in length. I gave myself a few extra inches and came up with 40″.

It should be as wide as the widest part of the two pieces sewn together, in this case, 6″.

Variation Step 2

Ruffle the long piece of fabric along the longer edges until it’s the same length as the bust piece.

You can do this just by laying it on a table, and making the ruffles with your fingers, or you can baste the ruffle (by hand or machine).

Once you’ve got it how you want it, the next step will be easiest if you sew the ruffles down along the edges.

Variation Step 3

Sew the bust piece onto the ruffled piece.

I like to pin the two pieces together on the wrong (back) side of the fabric first, then sew on the right (top) side of the fabric (as shown).
That way, I can see what the ruffles are doing as I sew, and nothing gets wonky.

Variation Step 4

Cut the excess fabric off from the edges.

Variation Step 5

Ta-da! Now you can sew this onto the rest of the front, and follow the rest of the steps from there.

circle skirt variations tutorials – pixie skirt and more!

If you don’t know how to make a circle skirt yet, check out the Circle Skirt tutorial first, because all of these skirts build on the basic premise of a circle skirt.

Difficulty:

Variation 1 – double full circle skirt

Instead of cutting 1 donut with a center cirumference of 36″ (the number we used in our examples), cut 2 donuts with a center circumference that is half your desired waistband measurement. In this example, each hole should measure 18″. The desired length (16″ from our example) should stay the same.

Cut the donuts open and sew them together. You will wind up with a very full and flouncy circle skirt.

Variation 2 – handkerchief hem or pixie skirt

Cut the center “waist” hole out of your fabric, but leave the edges square. Now you have a classic hanky hem skirt!

This is a good one if you’re in a hurry, because it’s one less step.

You can cut several of these squares out and layer them around the hem for a different look. Try cutting the a top layer out of a sheer fabric and layer it over something opaque!

Variation 3 – double full pixie skirt

This is a combination of variations 1 and 2, and it might be my favorite circle skirt variation.

Cut two squares, each having a circumference half of what you want the total to be. Cut them open, sew them together, and you’ve got a very swishy pixie skirt.

Variation 4 – asymmetrical layered circle skirt

Instead of centering the “waist” hole, cut it off-center. You could do 1 layer like this, and it looks especially nice if you make the back much longer than the front. It has a cool cascading effect. Or you can do 2 or more wonky donuts and layer them over one another.

circle skirt tutorial – version 2.0 – new and improved!

The awesome thing about circle skirts is that once you get the idea, you can use the same premise to make a variety of different styles all based on a simple circle skirt.

This tutorial is for a classic circle skirt (think 50’s style poodle skirt). The other variations of the circle skirt can be found here.

If your circle skirt turned out ginormous and you’re left scratching your head, check this out.

Difficulty:

Step 1

Cut a waistband out of stretchy fabric or stretch lace. It should be large enough to stretch over your hips, but small enough that it stays put on your waist. For shiggles, let’s say our example waistband is 40″ wide.

 

Step 2

I’m skipping ahead here for just a second to show what our end goal is.

What we want at the end of all of this is to wind up with a big donut shaped piece of fabric with the center hole’s circumference matching that of our waistband, so for our example, 40″.

 

Step 3

Thar be math ahead!! Don’t worry, it’s not hard, and I’ll walk you through it.

If you’re a little rusty on your geometry, let’s revisit. The circumference is the measurement aroouuuund the outside of a circle. The radius is the measurement from the center point of the circle to any point on the outside of the circle (the diameter goes all the way across the circle, and is two times the radius, but we don’t really need that here).

 

 

Step 4

MATH STUFF! HUZZAH! I’ll bet you love math as much as i do, so this part will be So Much Fun.

Before you try to skip the math and wing it, read this.

In order to cut an accurately sized hole (40″, remember?), we need the radius of the circle.

NOW…
let’s pause for a minute. I’m not going to go into great detail about this, but there’s something called ‘bias’ with fabric. It has to do with how the weave of the fabric effects the way the fabric drapes.
Cutting on the bias will make the fabric stretch. When you make a circle skirt, you’re going to wind up cutting part of it on the bias- no matter what you do, it can’t be avoided. Even with a non-stretch, woven fabric, it will stretch. Stretch fabrics will REALLY stretch when cut on the bias.
So if you’ve ever made a circle skirt, and you’ve done ALL the math right, and it still turned out a little too big, we shall blame bias.
To counteract bias, we need to make the hole smaller than we think we need it. So we will subtract 4 inches from the 40″ we are shooting for. That gives us 36″.
I know 4 inches sounds like a lot, but trust me here. You always want to shoot for smaller with a circle skirt (unlike most other things where larger is more easily fixed), because that can be fixed by cutting the hole bigger!

So even though we want a 40″ hole, we are going to do the math for a 36″ hole.

To get the radius, we use this equation:

radius = circumference divided by 2 times pi
and
2 times pi = 6.28
SO
radius = (36″) divided by (6.28)

radius = 5.7″
which is about 5 3/4“

 

Step 5

The next step is figuring out how much fabric we need. Circle skirts require a decent amount of fabric, so sometimes you’ll need to make your fabric donut out of 2 or even 4 different pieces of fabric.

Here’s how you figure it out:

Take your desired skirt length (minus the waistband), in our case it’s 16″, and add it to the radius measurement.

(Remember to account for hems and seam allowances!)

5.75 + 16 = 21.75″

Now multiply that times 2 and we have 43.5″.

Your piece of fabric must be at least 43.5″ in length and width in order to cut a circle skirt in 1 continuous piece.

Generally fabric comes in 45″ and 60″ widths, so as long as your piece of fabric is long enough, a skirt with these measurements is not a problem.

However, if you want a really long skirt, you will most likely have to piece together your giant donut in halves or quarters.

 

 

NOTE!

This isn’t so much a step as a note, because the drawing illustrates a particular concern with circle skirts. Patterns. That top little skull guy is going to wind up being upside down on our skirt. Maybe you don’t care, that’s cool, but it’s something to keep in mind. One-way patterns will be upside and sideways at various points on the skirt. If that bothers you, see the next step. If you cut your skirt in quarters with all of the pattern pieces oriented so the pattern stays right-side-up, you can avoid this issue.

You can avoid this by choosing patterns that aren’t one-way. Polka dots work fine. Or you can use one-way patterns to your advantage to get interesting designs. Stripes, for example, look pretty cool on a circle skirt because the stripes take on a curvy appearance. See an example here.

Step 6

Okay, take a deep breath… we’re almost done.

If you have determined you can cut your skirt in 1 continuous donut, fold your fabric in half. And then in half again, so it’s folded in quarters. Make sure you get nice neat folds… you don’t want it to look sloppy like my drawing. And you don’t want wrinkles.

From the folded corner, measure 5 3/4” out from that point in several places and then connect the dots with a curving line, so that you have a quarter circle.  Each point along the quarter circle should be 5 3/4” away from the center point. (see the blue dots in the drawing.)

Now do the same thing for the length measurement.  You could measure 16″ from the 5 3/4″ line, but you’ll get more accurate results if you measure from the center point again. So just add those two together and measure 21 3/4″ from the center. (purple dots)

Cut where you’ve marked and…

 

 

Step 6 b.

If you’ve determined you won’t be able to cut your skirt in one continuous donut, you will wind up cutting your fabric something like the examples below.

 

 

Step 7

Ta-da!

Look familiar?

Laying flat, the middle circle will be 36″, but when you open it up and let gravity have a tug at it, it’ll be much closer to 40″.

Measure it to make sure, and if you need to make it a little bigger, go ahead. Just take a sliver off that inner circle to make it a little bigger. Go slow, because like I said before, too big is harder to fix than too small.

 

Step 8

Attach the donut to your waistband, and you’re done!  If it turned out a little bigger than your waistband, just stretch the waistband a little as you sew them together.

You can use this same idea to add a flounce hem to a dress or skirt.

 

Okay, so now you’ve mastered the circle skirt. What else can you do with it? Check these ideas out!

raglan sleeve / baseball style top – photo tutorial

Grab an old tee, some chalk, and a pair of scissors!

Difficulty:

Step 1
Pick a shirt. You can do this with the shirt you want to reconstruct, but if you’re new to making patterns, I’d recommend getting an old junk shirt and cutting it apart to make the pattern

Step 2
Cut the collar off. This is more necessary if you’re going to actually be using this shirt as your reconstruction. If you’re only cutting apart the shirt to use as a pattern, you can leave the collar on, if you want.

Step 3
Mark the front with chalk like so. This is the sleeve line.

The top of the line should be about 2 inches down from the shoulder seam. Make a line from that spot on the neckhole to the armpit.

Step 4
Now, we cut!

Just cut where you’ve marked, but ONLY through the front of the shirt. Don’t cut all the way through the back. Stop once you reach the pit.

Step 5
Flip the shirt over, and mark the back the same way.

Step 6

Cut where you marked the back.

Now your sleeves come off!

Step 7

Cut up the sleeve seam, and this is what you get- a raglan sleeve! Use this as a template to make your sleeve pattern.

You’ll probably want to mark which sleeve is which, but if you don’t and you forget, the longer of the two pointy bits at top goes in back, and the shorter end in front.

Don’t throw the rest of the t-shirt way, either. Cut up the sides of the t-shirt, because you’re going to need those front and back pieces as patterns, too.

Just so you know, you CAN NOT attach a raglan sleeve to a shirt that is supposed to have standard (set-in) sleeves.

To attach the sleeve, sew the sleeve seam up (the one you just cut open), and the sides of the t-shirt. Line up the Longer Point with the back of the shirt, the sleeve seam with the side seam of the t-shirt, and the Short Point with the front, and sew! They’re really easy!

attaching set-in sleeves (the harder way) – photo tutorial

Set-in sleeves are kind of tricky, and there is an easier method.

This method is still good to know, because you might find yourself in a situation where you want to modify/add sleeves to a top that already has the side seams sewn up, or doesn’t have side seams.

Difficulty:

Step 1

Here we go. We’re starting with the side and shoulders seams already sewn, so we have a basic sleeveless top. The sleeves have also been sewn up and cuffed.

You can ignore the hood in the bottom right hand corner. That’s for later.

Step 2

This is each sleeve folded in half.

Mark the folded edge at the longest point with a pin(red dots), and the shortest edge (green dots).

The green dots will wind up in the armpit area and the red dots at the shoulder.

Step 3

The corresponding points on the top have been marked with the colored dots. The shoulders in red and the armpits in green.

Step 4

Turn the top inside out.

Keep the sleeves right side out, and insert them cuff-end first into the arm holes.

Match up the armpits and the shoulders.

Step 5

Here’s a sleeve inside the shirt with the edges lined up with the armhole.

Pin around the armhole- you may have to “ease” the sleeve into the armhole a bit, which means stretching it to fit.

Step 6

Sew around the edge, following your pins. Make sure both layers are kept flat as you sew over them. The body of the shirt likes to bunch up as you’re sewing sometimes.

Step 7

Here’s the edge after being sewn together, with the sleeve still inside the top.

Step 8

Turn the shirt right side out again. Woo!

Buy Handmade this holiday season!

It boggles my mind that anyone would be organized enough to already be shopping for the holidays, but I’ve heard through the grapevine that such people do exist. So for early birds and tardy, tardy, two-by-fours alike, consider buying handmade this holiday season! It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the environment, and you’re a lot more likely to find real quality with attention to detail than if you buy some piece of junk made in China.

And just in case you don’t know where the start, the DiYScene Street Team is here to help! Each Thursday they offer fantastical deals from noon to midnight, and this holiday shopping season, the deals are sure to make your wallet quiver!

Check the comments section for specific deals from participating shops!

easy sleeves – photo tutorial

 

Attaching set-in sleeves (the easy, cheater way).

Okay, so it’s not really cheating. It’s a perfectly legitimate way of attaching a sleeve, and it is way easier.
However, a set-in sleeve is a set-in sleeve because you’re supposed to be setting it in, and with this method, you don’t.
Anyway, I’m splitting hairs.

Keep in mind, though, that this will only work if you haven’t already sewn up your side seams. If your side seams are sewn, you’ll either have to cut them open, or use the other method.
And if your garment doesn’t have side seams that line up with the sleeve seams, you’ll also have to use the other method.

Difficulty:

Step 1
Sew the shoulder seams of the front and back pieces together.
You’ll notice that my front piece is cut in half- that’s because this is going to be a hoodie with a zipper in front. But this method will work for any top with side seams, so don’t worry.

Step 2

I already have my sleeve piece cut out, all nice and stripey-like.

If you don’t have a pattern for sleeves, I strongly suggest you either BUY a pattern with sleeves, or cut apart an old shirt to make a sleeve pattern yourself, because they are tricky, goofy-shaped little dudes, and I can not instruct you on how to make one other than the advice above.

 

Looking for striped knit fabrics?
Try: Ebay – Fabric.com
Or take a look at our Craft Supplies Directory for a huge list of great online fabric stores.

 

Step 3
Mark the center of the curvy edge of the sleeve with a pin, the part that’ll be at the top of your shoulder when the shirt is on. Also mark the center of the armhole (called the scythe).
Line Mr. Sleeve and Mr. Scythe up where you’ve marked, right sides together, of course, and pin them together.

 

Step 4

I like to start from the center, and pin the rest of the sleeve to the front, working outwards.

Then go back to the center and pin the other side the same way, working outwards.

 

Step 5
Here it is all pinned together, from the inside.

Step 6
Now, we sew. Or serge, if you have an overlock machine.

 

Step 7
Thar she blows!
But… we’re only half-way done.
Don’t worry,though… that was the hardest part!

 

Step 8
Put all the right sides back together again with the sleeve folded in half on top.

 

Step 9

And again, we sew.

And bam! There it is!

 

Step 10

Rejoice!

Surprised at how easy that was? I bet you didn’t even say any dirty words this time!

 

Looking for embellishments and corset trims like stretch lace, grommet tape and eyelet tape?
Try Ebay!
Or take a look at our Craft Supplies Directory for a huge list of great online trim suppliers.

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