#sewing-projects

[sea-salted-wolverine]

I am on my way to being the best auntie ever or the worst sister-in-law that ever lived. Possibly both.

I am making my 2-year-old niece a plushy for her birthday. She is very hands-on baby and wants to help with everything and be involved in the center of attention. A few weeks after her birthday everyone is going dipnetting. She is two and can not help with dip netting or do anything but watch.

So I am making her a toy salmon. And I am making it so she can filet it. It has guts. It has bones. It is all one piece and child friendly, and I am debating using embedded magnets or velcro to hold the filets on.

She has a kitchen set with a little wooden knife at her grandparents house, who have already heard about this and think its a great idea. We are gonna teach this kid to clean and process fish. She already knows where meat comes from and she will want to get in and do what everyone else is doing which she can not do because the fish are only slightly smaller than she is.

So, salmon plushy

[marypsue]

One of the worst feelings in the world: when you are just desperate, like claw-your-own-skin-off desperate, to create, but the only thing that even vaguely appeals to you to work on is a nebulous half-feeling that might be dreamily related to some half-formed notion of a concept. I must! Make! No thing! Only make!

[cy-lindric]

Last day at the festival !

[bananna-threads]

Hand embroidered, self drafted, birch tree inspired buttonup shirt.

[anielskaaniela]

How to Sew a Bias Skirt in 3 Easy Ways as beginner (Free PDF Pattern and Tutorial)

In this post, you will learn how to sew a basic bias skirt with an elastic waistband using a free PDF pattern . Do you love the look of a bias skirt, but don’t know how to make one? A bias skirt is a flattering and versatile garment that can be worn for any occasion. It’s also easy to sew, even if you’re a beginner. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to sew a bias skirt in 3 easy ways using a…

[charcoaldustonmyfingers]

Good Listener, Part 1

[ 1 - 2 - 3 ]

The third in my comics reflecting on the older brothers’ reminiscing on their youngest growing up.

I absolutely love to hear people talk about the stuff they like, even if it’s usually something I couldn’t care less about otherwise. If someone is excited, I’m excited for them, and it’s fun to have a litany of random knowledge and fun facts from everywhere! There’s so much to learn from listening to people who are passionate :)

I like to think Mikey is the same. He tends to hang out in the background and enjoy the antics around him in the show when he isn’t goofing around himself.

The next part gets a little melancholy, but I swear it’s not actually angsty! Y’all got so scared for Leo last time lmao

[sinensis26]

I take back what I said earlier: I would absolutely sell my craft creations, and by "sell" I mean "trade for something I equally value". Do you like my punk rock giraffe stuffie? You can have one for $81... or a bag full of coreopsis seeds. A knit fringe lumberjack hat? Thats $195... or a jar of local honey. Ill sew new clothes for all of your kid's dolls, usually $300+ in labor and material, but Id rather they draw me a really cool picture that I can hang on my fridge.

[heartorbit]

figure skating set right now please. thanks

[jirachibaby]

oh yeah btw i made this

[xxx-ang3l-w1th-a-sh0tgun-xxx]

some fish embroidery i just finished :D

[sea-salted-wolverine]

A video of the filetable salmon plushie being fileted. I managed to film this by holding my phone between my knees, so be proud and grateful for the effort exerted to bring you this magnificent example of how to clean a fish.

[annoyinganarchopunk]

i love the stereotype of punk just being purely scary and insane. like ya theres definitely some odd balls here (love u guys) (most of u) but im literally making myself a belt bag from an old pair of jeans!!!!! im over here doing arts and crafts for the sake of the environment.

fuck capitalism i wanna sew a bag. that i can attach to my belt. with loops. a belt bag. for my little things. fuck you!!!!! ill go listen to my political loud music too!!!!!!!

[cy-lindric]

My gamurra and my friends, with @surikane !

[thehaberdasheress]

Dearest Tumblr: My business is running low on money. My shop needs an algorithm boost before the holiday rush starts. I would like to be able to pay myself and my two hired minions this month. So that means it's time for... SERIOUS SAVINGS.

I design easy-as-hell embroidery patterns, sell sewing supplies I test and use myself, and have just added art nouveau print-on-demand items like umbrellas, dresses, and mugs.

Find me at thehaberdasheress.etsy.com

And because I love you more than all the other platforms, until this Sunday September 16 you can use the promo code TUMBLRSECRET for an additional 10% off.

(Also. If you just want to throw money at me without any kind of compensatory merchandise, I have absolutely no shame anymore. Here's my Paypal.)

[vinceaddams]

Any tips on learning to make buttonholes? I've been putting it off for.... *checks notes* like three years.... but better late than never and all that. I don't have any fancy machines so I gotta do it by hand but that seems right up your alley.

Thanks!

It IS up my alley, yes, I do most of my buttonholes by hand!

I'm actually part way through filming an 18th century buttonhole tutorial, but I expect it'll be a few more weeks before I finish that and put it on the youtubes, so in the meantime here's the very very short version. (The long version is looking like it'll probably be about 40 minutes maybe, judging by how much script I've written compared to my last video?)

Mark your line, a bit longer than your button is wide. I usually use a graphite mechanical pencil on light fabrics, and a light coloured pencil crayon on dark ones. (I have fabric pencils too, but they're much softer and leave a thicker line.) You may want to baste the layers together around all the marked buttonholes if you're working on something big and the layers are shifty and slippery. I'm not basting here because this is just a pants placket.

Do a little running stitch (or perhaps a running backstitch) in fine thread around the line at the width you want the finished buttonhole to be. This holds the layers of fabric together and acts as a nice little guide for when you do the buttonhole stitches.

Cut along the marked line using a buttonhole cutter, or a woodworking chisel. Glossy magazines are the best surface to put underneath your work as you push down, and you can give it a little tap with a rubber mallet if it's not going through all the way.

I'm aware that there are some people who cut their buttonholes open using seam rippers, and if any of them are reading this please know that that is abhorrent behaviour and I need you to stop it immediately. Stop it.

Go get a buttonhole cutter for 10 bucks and your life will be better for it. Or go to the nearest hardware store and get a little woodworking chisel. This includes machine buttonholes, use the buttonhole cutter on them too. If you continue to cut open buttonholes with a seam ripper after reading this you are personally responsible for at least 3 of the grey hairs on my head.

Do a whipstitch around the cut edges, to help prevent fraying while you work and to keep all those threads out of the way. (For my everyday shirts I usually do a machine buttonhole instead of this step, and then just hand stitch over it, because it's a bit faster and a lot sturdier on the thin fabrics.)

I like to mark out my button locations at this point, because I can mark them through the holes without the buttonhole stitches getting in the way.

For the actual buttonhole stitches it's really nice if you have silk buttonhole twist, but I usually use those little balls of DMC cotton pearl/perle because it's cheap and a good weight. NOT stranded embroidery floss, no separate strands! It's got to be one smooth twisted thing!

Here's a comparison pic between silk buttonhole twist (left) and cotton pearl (right). Both can make nice looking buttonholes, but the silk is a bit nicer to work with and the knots line up more smoothly.

I've actually only used the silk for one garment ever, but am going to try to do it more often on my nicer things. I find the cotton holds up well enough to daily wear though, despite being not ideal. The buttonholes are never the first part of my garments to wear out.

I cut a piece of about one arm's length more or less, depending on the size of buttonhole. For any hole longer than about 4cm I use 2 threads, one to do each side, because the end gets very frayed and scruffy by the time you've put it through the fabric that many times.

I wax about 2cm of the tip (Not the entire thread. I wax the outlining/overcasting thread but not the buttonhole thread itself.) to make it stick in the fabric better when I start off the thread. I don't tend to tie it, I just do a couple of stabstitches or backstitches and it holds well. (I'm generally very thorough with tying off my threads when it comes to hand sewing, but a buttonhole is basically a long row of knots, so it's pretty sturdy.)

Put the needle through underneath, with the tip coming up right along that little outline you sewed earlier. And I personally like to take the ends that are already in my hand and wrap them around the tip of the needle like so, but a lot of people loop the other end up around the other way, so here's a link to a buttonhole video with that method. Try both and see which one you prefer, the resulting knot is the same either way.

Sometimes I can pull the thread from the end near the needle and have the stitch look nice, but often I grab it closer to the base and give it a little wiggle to nestle it into place. This is more necessary with the cotton than it is with the silk.

The knot should be on top of the cut edge of the fabric, not in front of it.

You can put your stitches further apart than I do if you want, they'll still work if they've got little gaps in between them.

Keep going up that edge and when you get to the end you can either flip immediately to the other side and start back down again, or you can do a bar tack. (You can also fan out the stitches around the end if you want, but I don't like to anymore because I think the rectangular ends look nicer.)

Here's a bar tack vs. no bar tack sample. They just make it look more sharp, and they reinforce the ends.

For a bar tack do a few long stitches across the entire end.

And then do buttonhole stitches on top of those long stitches. I also like to snag a tiny bit of the fabric underneath.

Then stick the needle down into the fabric right where you ended that last stitch on the corner of the bar tack, so you don't pull that corner out of shape, and then just go back to making buttonhole stitches down the other side.

Then do the second bar tack once you get back to the end.

To finish off my thread I make it sticky with a bit more beeswax, waxing it as close to the fabric as I can get, and then bring it through to the back and pull it underneath the stitches down one side and trim it off.

In my experience it stays put perfectly well this way without tying it off.

Voila! An beautiful buttonholes!

If you want keyhole ones you can clip or punch a little rounded bit at one end of the cut and fan your stitches out around that and only do the bar tack at one end, like I did on my 1830's dressing gown.

(I won't do that style in my video though, because they're not 18th century.)

Do samples before doing them on a garment! Do as many practice ones as you need to, it takes a while for them to get good! Mine did not look this nice 10 years ago.

Your first one will probably look pretty bad, but your hundredth will be much better!

Edit: Video finished!

And here's the blog post, which is mostly a slightly longer version of this post.

[yasuyasudere]

So, I made an Underfell sans jacket…

It basically took me a year to make even though I was actually only making alterations.

This is a motorcycle riding jacket. I added the red reflective stripes, yellow flannel lining, fur to the hood, changed the zipper to gold and the gold grommets, and used a custom zipper pull of Fell Papy’s face.

I had to do a lot of hand stitching because this bad boy broke my sewing machine. Turns out, even with a heavy duty needle, you can’t force a regular machine to stitch through steel wool, leather, and a zipper. Ha.

The design is based off @theskeletongames fell sans design, and this thing is heavy duty. The riding safety pads add that classic bulky figure of sans. Like, ever wonder how he goes from little skeleton to bulky and intimidating one? New head canon, it’s cause he wears a riding jacket. Which is also why it’s so toasty, cause this thing is now my winter coat.

I’m mega ultra excited to wear it around.

Might still go back and add a hidden black vinyl design to the back for extra reflective ability when riding, but I’ve spent waaaaaaaaay too much on this jacket already considering I still need to get the rest of my gear and upgrade from my cute (but speed limited) moped. ^^;

How’d I do?