Patchwork Underground

Handmade bias tape (or bias binding, as I’ve also heard it called) can really dress up your sewing.  Yes, you can buy the pre-made stuff at the store but it’s expensive and very limited in terms of color.  When you make your own, you can match your tape to your project exactly.  Patterned bias tape pretty much always looks rad.

The good news is that it’s easy to make.  Let’s do it!

1. Start with a square or rectangle of your fabric.   I don’t like to use the entire width of the fabric for small projects because you end up with A LOT of bias tape that way.  A small starting square means less waste for smaller projects.

2.  Cut into your fabric along the diagonal using a ruler, a cutting mat and a rotary cutter.  If you don’t have a rotary cutter, use a piece of tailor’s chalk to mark out your lines and then cut along them with a pair of scissors.

3.  Turn all of your fabric into strips of the same width.  You can make tape of any size but be aware that the smaller your tape the harder it is to deal with.  Remember, your finished tape width will be one quarter the size of your starting width.

4.  Now, join all the strips together to form one continuous strip.  Some people like to square off the edges and join their strips together with a diagonal seam.  I like to leave the edges cut on the diagonal and join them as you see below:

5.  Iron your seam flat with lots of steam.

6.  Fold the edges of you tape inwards towards the middle of your tape.  Press.

7.  Fold your tape in half lengthwise so that the unfinished edges are on the inside.  Press.

8. You’re done!  Now it’s time to insert your bias tape.  There are several ways to do this.  I’ll show you my favorite.  First, I open up the tape.  I start on the *back* of the item in question.  With right sides facing, I sew along the first ironed fold.

9.  When I get to a corner, I stop at the place in the fabric where the two seam allowances should meet.  (In this case, I stopped 1/4″ short of the edge of the fabric.)  Then I fold the tape back on itself as seen below:

9.  I begin the intersecting seam at the same point that I left off the last one. (Again, this is the point in the fabric where the two seam allowances intersect.)

10.  Once you’ve gone all the way around the piece, Fold the free edge of the tape over the exposed edge and arrange the mitered corners so that they match up correctly.  Press with steam.  Pin if nessessary and top stitch your binding closed.

Hope this helps!  Let me know if you have any questions.

Here’s two of the ones I made. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the blow-by-blow tutorial or just read on for the full story.

It all started when I bought this cutie at the Bins…..

I was inspired. I needed more. Living in our solar powered school bus has made me a serious power miser. Running our lights during the nighttime when we’re just hanging out and playing music is kinda silly. Why waste battery power when we could just light up a bunch of candles for an even better lighting scenario?

I set to work thinking of ways to make more.

I started at the ReBuilding Center in Portland.  (It’s a lot like Bring Recycling in Eugene.) I bought a buncha random glass pieces off of old light fixtures, some ornamental random pieces and some copper wire. The first one I made was kinda silly because I was reluctant to hammer holes into the jar lid which makes up the hanging base where the candle sits. Instead, I used a ton of my precious copper wire to form a web underneath the lid. Dumb move.

But it’s still cute. Here’s a closeup of the burner piece I used for the top cap….

The second time around I saved a lot of wire by just poking holes into the lid with a nail and using those as hook spots.

Here’s a closeup of the second one I made the smart way. I used a nail to hammer 4 evenly spaced holes into the corners of the lid.

~**TUTORIAL**~

1. Get yer pieces together. You’ll need:

• 3-4 feet of wire (copper is $$ but really soft to work with…i got it used so it was affordable)
• a metal piece for the bottom (a mason jar lid is good)
• a metal thingie for the top cap (I used a gas burner piece one time and a drawer pull another time)
• and a fluted glass thingie from an old light fixture (MUST be flared - not a cylinder)

you’ll probably need the following tools, too:

• pliers
• metal snips/crappy scissors you don’t care about ruining
• hammer and nail

2. Start by going around the “waist” of the fluted glass thingie with the wire and twisting the ends together.

2. Using a hammer and nail, make 4 evenly spaced holes in the lid.

3. Thread a new piece of wire through one of the holes in the lid and twist to secure. then thread it under the loop you made around the waist of the fluted glass thingie.

4. Next, bring the copper back down to the lid and through the next hole. Twist and keep going around the lantern until you reach the point where you started, twist it off and cut the wire.

5. To form the handle, take another piece of wire and thread it through your top piece so that a loop is sticking up through it. I twisted my loop around itself to make it prettier but you can really do whatever you feel at this point.

6. When you’ve got the top piece the way you want it, you should have two ends of copper wire sticking down out of the top piece. I just hooked these around the “waist” belt of the fluted glass thingie and called it done.

Getting your tea light into these babies is a little tricky. I dropped it in and then lighted it with a match through the space between the lid and the shade. You could also invest in one of those stick lighters (refillable please!!) that people use for their BBQs. Hang them in bunches for an extra cute effect.

Enjoy!

I just got done learning this awesome technique (you can see my results here). I used the tutorial at Savvy Seams (which was awesome) but I wanted to share a more visually-oriented tutorial with ya’ll. I know canadian smocking looks crazy hard but it’s actually super simple (and fast!) once you get the pattern down. Seriously!

<3 erin

p.s. I had lots of fun messing with photoshop to makes this tutorial extra cute. Love that star stamp!

ok, Here goes…

~*The Tutorial*~

Before I give you the step-by-step lemmie give you The Grand Scheme of Things. Basically, you’re gonna be working in a row, starting towards the top of your grid and moving downwards. You are always working on the backside of the fabric. When you get to the bottom of a row, you tie off your thread and start a new row.

Here’s the nitty-gritty:

Step 1. Figure out how big your want your finished smocked block. Multiply the length and width by 3. Make a grid of dots on your fabric square with a fabric marker/sharpie/chalk. Leave at least a 2.5″ seam allowance around all edges. Make the dots about 1″ apart.

Step 2. Knot your thread and make a tiny stitch (pick up a few fibers) under this dot:

step 2

Step 3. Make a tiny stitch under the top left dot, bring this dot and your starting dot together (forming a pleat). Make a knot over both dots to secure the pleat:

step 3

Step 4. Make a stitch underneath the next dot down. DO NOT MAKE A PLEAT. Leave the fabric flat. You’ll have some slack on the thread. This is good. Make a knot over this new dot:

step 4

Step 5: Bring these two points together. Knot:

step 5

Step 6. Just like step 4:

step 6

Step 7. Just like step 3:

step 7

Step 8: Continue working down the row until you get to the end. Once you’re done, tie off and start a new row with a new length of thread. Repeat the sequence starting with step 1 but use this dot as your starting point instead:

step 8

Once you’re done, it’s apparently common to steam the whole thing from the top without applying any pressure (like…hover over the top with your iron’s steam blaring) but renegade seamstress that I am, I skipped this step. It still looks good but I might try steaming it next time to see what the effect is like.

The end!

I hope this was helpful, folks. I’m still a novice so let me know if this tut was clear enough. If you end up trying this out, definitely send me a pic of your creation or link to one in your comment. I wanna see!