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 facefabric 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.
WHEN AND HOW DID THIS GET 300 NOTES
HOLY CROW, THANK YOU!
I wasn’t originally going to make a tutorial so I do not have pictures of the whole process but I will try my best to explain what I did.
NOTE: Since this was the first time I ever tried making a half bonnet there are a few things that I wish I could have done a little better. The first thing is making the middle strip that lays against the head wider as mine came out a little skinny and I had a harder time keeping it on my head because of it. The second would be adding lace to the inside of the brim. (You need pretty wide lace for that which I didn’t have at the time.)
For the half bonnet I used:
* 2 Bodyline waist ties
* ½ yard black linen fabric
* Black ladder lace
* Black ½ inch lace for brim
* 2 pink heart buttons
* 1 black hair comb
Quick reminder! I was able to do this with the Bodyline wasit ties because they are double sided. If not I wouldn’t have been able to make the back frill or side ribbons in the color of the skirt.
I used this picture as a reference for all the measurements I made for the half bonnet. (Ignore the round brim picture)
First of all you will need to rip all the seams and completely separate the two sides of the ties.
When you are done put two aside for the time being and lay the other two length ways. Since these particular waist ties are tapered you will have to sew two of them diagonally to keep the same width for the brim. If you do not want as wide of a brim then you might not have to do this step as it is kind of a pain. >.o
Lay one on top of the other and try to make a long rectangle that is about the same width for about 70 – 80 cm. I chose to make my brim 30 inches long. The width for that section should be 8 – 10 cm ( I believe I went with 4 in.) Draw a line diagonally and draw another line parallel to it for the seam allowance. You will have to mark the first line with pins or tailors tacks to see where the line is on the bottom waist tie so you can draw a line on that one for seam allowance. (I know this is super confusing, I screwed up and drew wrong lines the first time.) Once you have that you can cut at the second lines and it should look like this:
^The red line is where you sew along and the green is the edge of the seam allowance. The other black line is the screw up line.
There will be a line where the two pieces meet but as long as the fabric doesn’t have too busy of a print it shouldn’t be that noticeable.
Next you will need to round out the brim (use the reference picture as I do not have exact measurements for it.) Once you have that cut out trace it onto the black fabric and cut out a piece for the front of the brim. Next you will need to iron the seam allowance inward so the lace used on the brim can be sandwiched between the two pieces. Pin the lace in place and sew on the edge of the fabric making sure to check if the lace comes lose or not.
Once that is done gather the raw edge until the desired length is reached for your bonnet brim. Secure the ends.
For the flat portion that rests on your head measure out as much as desired. The picture says 4-5 cm but it can be wider. Just make sure to take seam allowance into consideration. Cut out a rectangle out of one of the two left over waist ties and the black fabric.
Next take the two strips that were cut out and sandwich the brim between them. You want to have the bad sides facing out with the strips laying against their corresponding fabric.
^The patterned rectangle is on the other side facing the patterned brim.
Once you get them fitted together nicely stitch and fold over the pieces and iron flat. Use a strip of the black ladder lace and sew it to the patterned side of the fabric and stitch.
^Here you can actually see the line connecting the two waist tie pieces really well. It looks a little bad but we try and work with what we’ve got. ;3
For the back of the bonnet cut out a long rounded rectangle using the picture as a reference. The ruffle should be at least 2 in if you factor in seam allowance but it can be wider. Fold over the round edge twice and stitch to give a nice hemmed edge. Take the other flat edge and gather until the length matches the other raw edge of the bonnet. Secure the stitching.
Iron the two raw edges of the flat part of the bonnet inwards. Then sandwich the ruffle so you see no raw edge showing and stitch closed. When you are stitching the sides add two long ribbons and sew securely in place. For the bows I used two rectangle edges from the first two ties that were sewn together since the bottom of the print wasn’t used. Use that as the top of the bow and add ladder lace or any other embellishment. I used black fabric for the back of the bow because I ran out of waist tie fabric. Secure the two rectangles together with a strip in the middle and sew the heart button to the front. When you are done hand stitch them to the sides of the bonnet near where the ribbon peaks out. Lastly hand stitch the comb to the center for extra help in securing the bonnet to your head.
And now you’re finished!
I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I had hoped during the whole process, so if there are any questions feel free to ask on tumblr or through my twitter. Good luck!
A while ago someone asked me how to make the gathered overlay that many bonnets have and I told them to just use a rectangle and gather the bottom and top and put it over the bonnet. That’s the easy (or lazy, if you will) solution. Today I made a ‘proper’ pattern for one of my bonnets. This method is a little time-consuming but not too difficult:
Step 1: Transfer bonnet brim and headband pattern onto paper (mine is millimeter-paper) Foto 1
Step 2: Divide patterns into sections of approximately the same size. Foto 2
Step 3: Start cutting up section by section, and tape them onto another piece of paper. The ‘gaps’ between the sections determine the width added to the original pattern. I choose to double (which means section of for e.g. 2cm, will have a gap of 2cm added to it) but you can triple or even quadruble. This is especially beautiful with chiffon fabrics.
You may need to even out a the shape a bit. Foto 3
Step 4: You should end up with something that looks like a fabric croissant. All you need to do now is gather both bottom and top edge et voilá: you gathered bonnet part is ready. (This works exactly the same for the headband part of the bonnet)
I hope this will be helpful to some of you for future bonnett-making adventures. As always feel free to ask in case anything is unclear.
A couple folks (a handful of anon and @angelictactics, who is very sweet) asked about hoods. I figured showing how to draft a reaaaally simple hood neckline was a good place to start –– as always, forgive my weak production values 😉
Hi hi! I’ve decided to start a little series named “Sewing with Siren”. It’ll cover basic in garment construction and how to start basic patterning. (aka your first year of fashion school so hey if any of you are applying for school I got you covered). I hope this turns out??? Helpful??? To someone? LMFAO I know I ramble on a lot but I always thought that knowing about grainlines and stuff was important even for people who just sew for fun (cosplayers and people making their own lolita stuff) but there wasn’t really a resource for it. Next week we get to go over pattern drafting. OH BOY.
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)
Don’t buy Angelus pain’t on Amazon, it’s like $6.99 an ounce. Buy it direct from their online store the poster above linked, the single ounce bottles are $2.95 there. Also, a little goes a long way, unless you have something HUGE to paint, you can probably do it with a small bottle. I barely dented the one I got doing all the black on this;
I see a LOT of tutorials for this method call it “cheating” and this method is absolutely not cheating. I learned it in costume school, and again when I was pursuing a fashion degree. This is a real and useful sleeve method. Let’s get that out of the way.
The concept is pretty simple. When you do a set-in sleeve, you sew an armhole, and then sew the armsceye. When you’re doing the shirt sleeve method, you sew the armsceye, and then sew the armhole. This is easier (sometimes), because you’re not trying to sew in a tiny hole and with cramped quarters. It’s also more intuitive as to what side to attach the sleeve. I can’t tell you how many set-in sleeves I’ve sewn inside-out.
When you have it laid out here, it looks nice and easy.
However, once you put right sides together, you start to see the problem. This is the great sewing problem of how to sew an inside curve to an outside curve.
The fact that you have to pin an inside curve is the reason why this doesn’t work with every garment.
To understand why we need this, we need a toilet paper roll and a kleenex box. I was fresh out of both, but I improvised.
So here’s a slanted-down sleeve. You need these on things like suit coats, because you need your armpits all smooth and space for your shoulder pads. You don’t do that much waving your arms over your heads in suit jackets, which is good because you don’t have as much mobility in this kind of tailored sleeve.
And here’s a sleeve with more mobility in the upper range. A sleeve like this will get wrinkly in the armpits when you have your arms down, so they’re not used on heavily tailored garments.
So here’s what it looks like when I trace the sleeve holes in those two fake sleeves, and lay it flat. On the top, we have the tailored sleeve, and on the bottom we have the higher-mobility sleeve.
The more the sleeve sticks out, the shallower the sleeve bell will be. The shallower the sleeve bell is, the easier it will be to pin the sleeve’s outside curve to the armhole’s inside curve.
So, start by sewing your garment’s shoulder seam, but leave the sleeve seam and the garment’s side seam open.
So match your sleeve notches and then take some quality time pinning that curve. Remember that, due to geography and seam allowances, your very edges of your fabric won’t match, but the part along your seamline will match. Just take your time. When the pinning’s done, sew your sleeve into your armhole. If you have a puff sleeve (like most lolita blouses do), you can pin it first and then pull the gathers when you’ve finished.
Once you’ve sewn your armhole, take advantage of how easy it is to press your armhole smooth and flat. It’s never this easy when you do a set-in sleeve, right?
Now you need to pin the armpit together, and then pin the sleeve and the side seam. Start at the armpit and radiate the pins out from there.
You can start sewing that seam from the bottom or the top, but if you sew the left seam starting at the top, sew the right sleeve starting at the top, or it’ll be unbalanced.
Press it all nice and neat.
If you’re making a men’s shirt or a shirt styled after a men’s shirt, it’s common to do this seam with a flat-felled seam (halfway through this tutorial) formed on the outside of the garment.
Now rejoice over how easy that was.
Both this technique and the set-in sleeve technique are useful in their own ways. Give it a try, get a feel for it, and use it when you think it’ll save you time and stress. Whoo!
Struggling [to be] a[n] artist 