It's Pinspired Friday! {Lace Scarf Tutorial}

Welcome to my weekly feature, Pinspired Fridays!

 

So I was pinning away one day and stumbled on "my" main page - I have 905 pins! WHAT! So I decided to give myself an "ultimatum" of sorts - a "get on that!" challenge of my own. Every Friday I will be attempting a project of some sort from my Pinterest boards. It can be food, it can be crafts, but I gotta do it!

So without further ado, may I present my first PF post!

I have had this scarf pinned for over a year in my DIY board. I love how romantic it looks and I think it would look awesome with a pea coat and some boots this winter! Unfortunately, this is no tutorial for this EXACT scarf, and the page it's from is all in German, but I think we can figure it out pretty easily.

The folks over at this website were kind enough to include this view in their listing. From this, we can deduce that the scarf needs to hit about top of the thigh or slightly higher when the lace panel is added.

So for this, we'll need an old T-shirt, a sewing machine, and a panel of lace. I bet vintage lace is going to work the best - something with a bit of cotton in it, not completely synthetic, otherwise it won't hold it's shape very well.

And this is where I show how much of a noob I am when it comes to blogging still - I don't have any pictures of me cutting my shirt. Sigh. But! Here is the exact tutorial I followed when it came to cutting my t-shirt. http://organizeyourstuffnow.com/wordpress/make-an-infinity-scarf-from-a-t-shirt.

So now that you've got your shirt cut and stretched (make sure you've got it stretched really good before you start! You don't want to be wringing on your scarf too much with your cotton lace on it as cotton doesn't stretch well.), try your scarf on and leave it unwrapped around your neck.

This is where we're going to figure out how much lace we'll need. From the mannequin, it looks like we'll need about a foot or a little more of lace. I decided on 14"... and ended up cutting a little less than that, because I decided to cut off a ratty piece of lace instead of folding it under, so more like 12".

Now, if you're one of those sewers who has to have perfect stitches and perfect measurements... you might want to stop reading. This is one of those projects I just "winged" and yes, I'm leaving undone edges as both my lace and jersey for my scarf doesn't unravel... and the little bit that the lace does, I really like for a "shabby chic" look. So! With that being said... for those brave enough to just "wing it" too, proceed! :)
As you can see, my lace is a little larger width wise than my grey shirt part. In my case, I decided to bunch the lace as I went for a billowy effect rather than cut off the completed edges on both sides -- less sewing is best in my book.

Now, find your seam on your t-shirt (and make it look like a giant pair of shorts in my case?). You'll probably have two seams on your shirt, so just pick one. I picked this one because of that little weird cut divot down there. My shirt was originally one of those shirts with a tie waist, hence the little divot. Cut on that seam, opening up your t-shirt into a long piece of fabric.
I left this image large so that you can see what's going on. What we're going to do now is align our ends and sew this baby up. You can see in the background that the other seam is facing up as well. Think of it this way - you're pinning it so that when you flip it all around, all of your seams will be on the inside of your scarf. If you were to pin it the opposite way, you'd have your other shirt seam facing inside, and the lace and raw gray edge would be seamed facing the outside. If you're really winging it and this won't bother you, go to town but I decided I wanted all of my seams facing inside my scarf. I am pinning it and folding some of the lace together to make little folds in the lace (remember I left it slightly larger than the grey part? I am now folding it into little pleats basically so that the lace will become the same size or width as the grey fabric.) If you're worried about fraying, make sure you fold your edges under before sewing.

We're not worried about fraying here, so we're just going to start sewing it. This foot is for some reason my favorite foot to work with. If I line up the edge with the edge of this foot, it just works perfectly and I'm a fan of that, but please use whatever foot you're comfortable with. Start sewing, back track at the beginning and end to really make sure your seams are tight and don't start to unwind when tugged on while wearing.

We're done with one side! Woo hoo! You should have your piece of lace now attached on one side of your scarf. I've circle my pleat in black (I ended up with two pleats per side for my slightly larger lace to align perfectly with my jersey.)
Sew up the other side, making sure to follow the same directions regarding your seams facing in or out. And then when you're done with that...

You're done!!! :) Your scarf will take a bit of fidgeting to get it just right, rolling to hide seams and whatnot, but when it's done (and when you have better lighting than I do! ha!) it looks great!

Thanks for following along with my Pinspired Fridays post! I'd love to see your take on this scarf! And if you have any questions, please comment and let me know! I'll try my best to help out!