Sewing With Nancy

Long or short, square or rectangular scarves are fashion statements that are as enjoyable to create as they are to wear. Best of all, they can be created in a variety of fabrics and a minimal investment of time. Throughout the seasons of Sewing with Nancy, you've seen me demonstrate an array of scarf options. During this two-part series, I've selected episodes that I recorded in the past, featuring my favorite scarf techniques. The first feature is-- hands down-- my most favorite scarf technique, the spiral scarf. Donna Fenske, one of the Sewing with Nancy designers, joins me during this first episode. We'll begin with a long strip of fabric, make an important fold, and then sew. Magically, the scarf turns from a long rectangle into a bias tube. I like to use rayon batiks for this technique. The fabric gracefully drapes around the neckline. You may think that the sewing description seems contrary to logic. But with a little sewing savvy, a crosswise length of fabric easily turns into a bias scarf. Sewing with Nancy's "Favorite Scarves to Sew," that's what's coming up next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman is made possible by Baby Lock a complete line of sewing, quilting, and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting, and special effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios, fine sewing furniture, custom-built in America. Clover, making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting, and needle arts for over 90 years. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. The spiral scarf is totally on the bias of the fabric but believe it or not, this fabric was not cut on the bias. Rather, crosswise strips were cut and sewn together and then a magic of sewing the fabric by a special folding and stitching technique created the bias strip. Donna will show you that in a few minutes. I would like to go over the widths and the lengths of the scarf pieces. The length of the fabric must be divisible by the width of the scarf. Translating, if I had a 12" width of fabric we would have to multiply that many times to get the length. This scarf started out as 12" x 96". Or you may want to start with a smaller width. Let's say 4" x 80", or 8" x 88", the choice is yours. Just keep in mind that the width and length reduce in size after the folding and stitching about by a third. So, our 12" width of fabric went down to approximately 8" or 9" and became totally on the bias. Donna is going to show you how that bias is stitched and created. What I'm going to be doing with my small sample here I have a fairly small scarf that I'm going to demonstrate on. I'm going to fold down the upper left hand corner to create a kind of a diagonal fold here. I also have a pin about 1/4" from this end. I'm simply going to insert it underneath the sewing machine and sew a 1/4" seam. When I get to the pin mark, I'm actually going to stop with the needle down in the fabric. I'm going to take the pin out and I'm going to lift my presser foot. I'm just going to pivot the fabric kind of straight. Again, line up my seam allowances. I'm having a little difficulty. Just straighten it out and again start sewing straight. Notice that I will continue to kind of spiral the fabric to meet the raw edges. So instantly, I'm creating that bias straight. So you're going to sew a portion of the fabric. You're going to also want to advance and leave an opening so that you can turn the scarf. So, I'm just going to raise my needle and advance, so I have an opening for turning. I'm going to continue sewing straight. The fabric is continually spiraling when I'm sewing. You will notice, too, when I get to the end here that I have a pin marking my 1/4" seam allowance on the lower edge of my scarf. Again, I'm going to stop with the needle down in the machine at that point. Okay, one more stitch. Then I'm going to lift my presser foot and straighten out all of my seam allowances and sew the remainder of the tip. Again, this style of stitching has put in that spiral seam on the scarf. Because we had the length divisible by the width those ends met perfectly. So make sure that you have your math right there. Here's a sample of the same fabric that has been stitched. Notice that even though Donna stitched a straight seam the seam spiraled around the edge of the fabric. Now we have pre-pressed these seams open. It might be seemingly difficult to get inside of the fabric but what we like to use is a wooden dowel or if you had a larger scarf, perhaps a sleeve roll. We just place the dowel inside the scarf and then just press over the dowel. It works quite well. You can just keep moving the dowel and the scarf to get all the seams pressed open. It takes a little time to do this because the seam twists around, but it's well worth the effort. Then after doing all the pressing you just turn this through the opening so that you have the right side out. I kind of like long scarves so this is a bit of a longer piece. But as it comes out, here it's starting to shape. And I now I would turn the other side through this opening. Of course you're going to do some hand sewing when it is complete to close that opening. Within a matter of just a few minutes I'd say a half an hour of sewing time and cutting you would sew that end closed. You would have a scarf that spirals, is on the bias and drapes extremely well. Because we have the bias look you could also make the scarf two-toned. Here's another example of that scarf. You can see that we used two shades of blue two shades of rayon batik, and used the same sewing techniques that Donna demonstrated. We like to have the smaller strip about a fourth of the size of the total width of the fabric. This fabric now measures 8". We cut this piece 2-1/4" to include a seam allowance and this piece 6-1/4" to include the seam allowance. Stitch it together. Then the same sewing technique would take place. Fold the right hand corner in half, creating a 45-degree angle, sewing to the point, and then meeting all edges so that it continues to spiral and twist. The spiral scarf, it's a great technique and it's certainly sensational! Knits are the fabric of choice when creating a continuous loop scarf. Like infinity rings or bracelets, the design cleverly includes one twist to give the scarf great shape and style. During this segment from the past, learn the secret of turning a tube into an infinite, continuous loop. You'll also learn how to create a two-tone version, as you see here, or a one-color option. It will be easy to stitch up a wardrobe of scarves. We can honestly say that you can make this scarf in about 20 minutes. Oh, I would say. It was really fun. The knit fabric works so well. We have two fabrics, and each of them have been cut the same size. We're just cutting crosswise strips out of our fabric. They are about 12". So, two 12" cuts of fabric. We're going to seam it together into a tube. What we have here, is we have both strips sewn together with the serger. What we do on one side, is we sew like 6" leave an opening, and continue serging to the end. The other side is a continuous serged seam. We used a 4-thread overlock stitch. Now we're going to create the twist. And magic is going to happen here. Through the opening, pull the fabric right side out just through the long edge only. We're keeping the print on top so you can see what's going to happen. We have created a little twist here. Now we're going to bring the circle ends together through the opening, and we'll let Nancy grab them. It is kind of a team effort here. We're going to be teaming up, again the print with the solid around the circumference of the circle. So we're going to pin this into a circle and we have the print next to the solid and vice versa on the opposite side. Here you can see that I'm just serging serging it around in that complete circle. After that quick serge, you can turn it right side out. We have it completely serged, and magically it will turn through that little opening. Again, we'll have to do a little handwork to finish off that opening. We do have a twist in our scarf. The two-tone color, I think, is very attractive. It's a quick gift, a quick accessory to make but you could also make it in one color and a bit shorter. Here's our finished scarf, and it's more cowl length and you can see that is has that same twist in it. It's drapable. Donna, you have the sample and the cut size. It's cut 24" x 30" and we're simply folding it in half again. We're serging part way on one side and then leaving an opening, and then the remainder. So you matched the 30" length. What we're doing on the other side, is we're making sure that we make a very obvious nip at the fold line. On both ends. On both ends. Because they're going to help us match our piece. So again, we're reaching in to pull the fabric right side out. Then, we're going to slip it in and match the serged seam with the nip. I think you can kind of get the idea that we're matching serged seam to the clip to guarantee our twist in the fabric. So then just serge or stitch around the edge. When you do the magic of pulling this right side out, here's the cowl size. Again, knit fabrics drape beautifully. It could also be worked with another fabric, a rayon, or whatever, but this knit is a great size. This is the style I'm wearing. So, you can see within a few minutes of time you can make a great accessory with the infinity scarf. The chenille scarf has never gone out of popularity. I first showcased it in 2005, but it is as important of a style today as it was when it was initially introduced. Select a little over a yard of fabric, creatively cut into strips, stack the layers, stitch down the center, and then cut. After washing and drying, the fabric blooms and the boutique-style scarf is ready to wear. It's a great design to create. Yarn-dyed fabric or fabric that looks almost the same on the right or the wrong side is the fabric of choice for this scarf. Donna, the yardage is simple. It's basically 1-1/4 yd. of fabric. It's 45" wide. You cut a square about 45". To create these scarves we worked with batik, rayon batik fabrics. We have a 45" length which is 1-1/4 yd. It's about 43"-44" wide. Not quite a square, but we're going to do some creative folding. What we're going to do is kind of fold it diagonally to create kind of a bias angle here. Then we are going to, again, flip the other corner down, fold on fold. We're stacking them really nice and even. You'll notice that on our lower edge the fabrics aren't quite lining up but they're parallel and that's the important part. Then we are going to do some cutting and make certain that these folds are meeting. Just meet them up a little bit better. There we go. Because a ruler isn't generally as long as your folded fabric, we fold this up and then cut into sections. Right, and the first cut, since we're on the fold we take the ruler and just cut a 3" strip. So just align your ruler, cut a 3" strip and underneath we have all the cuts. Magically cut them. After the first cut of the 3" strip the remainders are 6" strips. So you can see, we have all of this. The pieces get smaller, and smaller and smaller. We're going to stack the fabric to make the chenille scarf. The first cut, they call it the foundation piece because it's the full length of the diagonal and the full length of the scarf. It might be a little shorter, but it is our foundation piece. It's a long piece. The subsequent pieces are placed on top two layers on one side two layers on the other side and the edges and the lengths will not be the same. Right. So we'll have to do a little piecing together. When we start, what we're going to do is, since the angle of this second piece is totally on the bias and you saw that we had things angled at a point, we're just going to cut off that corner. We're going to make certain that the foundation piece is going to be approximately 1/2" longer at its shortest part than the top layers. You'll see why in just a few minutes. Now Donna, at your end it's not going to be as long so we would take a shorter piece. And piece it in place. Not really piece it, but overlap it. Overlap it, right. Also, prior to this, too if you would like to eliminate the selvage edge you could cut that off ahead of time. Sometimes when we're cutting it is a little challenging at that selvage. Donna is trimming as I am placing that second layer. I've cut that corner off, and I will flip it so that the prettiest side is out and lay this down. So I have the foundation piece and two layers stacked one on top of the other. When one gets a little short, I overlay the second piece on top and now just do a little bit of pinning. Of course we would take more time to get the layers layered properly. But what we are going to do now is just flip the scarf over so that we can add two layers to this side as well. So two layers on each side of the foundation piece and you know the drill. Just kind of trim this top edge so that it forms a peak. Try to align all the layers. I think they get the general idea. We have another one already pinned. The beauty of this one is that it is also a plaid and you can easily see how the bias is created. So here's our scarf. That foundation piece is longer. Then the next step would be to use your ruler and chalk and do some marking. Basically you're going to start in the center of the scarf and you would mark the full length of the center of the scarf. Since this is a 6" wide basic cut we'll place the ruler on 3" and mark the centerline, the stitching line. Here's a close-up of doing some stitching. You can either use a straight stitch or a wobble stitch, a zigzag a very narrow zigzag to stitch down the center. Then all subsequent stitches are a presser foot width apart. So, give or take a little better than 1/4". It's kind of mindless sewing. You just stitch and stitch and stitch. So, if you need to think about something do that while you are doing this stitching. The stitching you see is very dark you would be stitching in a complementary color. Then you are going to do the cutting. The next thing is the cutting and because the foundation fabric is a little longer it enables us to get into our little channels and cut evenly. So this is a little chenille cutter that makes every cut perfect. We have other cutting tools as well. If you have an electric scissors cut down the center the full length. And then we also have one more which is kind of a chenille cutter as well. It has a longer toe and the toe feeds through the channel while the blade is cutting and not cutting through the foundation layer. That foundation layer is so important. Then you would flip it over and do the same cutting on the reverse side. After you have done the cutting then you are going to be-- If you would like to create fringe, as we had on our sample, we have some stitching about 3"-4" from the edge, a heavy zigzag stitch. Then cut up to the area so that you are creating fringe. What we also like to do is clean finish the edge. Just trim away an extra 1/4". Wash some towels. Put your scarf in the washing machine and wash and dry the scarf and when it comes out of the dryer, presto! It has bloomed beautifully. It's a very soft scarf, very drapable and wearable and all made with 1-1/4 yard of fabric creative cutting, and stitching. The last scarf project of this episode features the ever-popular polyester fleece. Donna Fenske again joins me to show you how a fleece scarf is something you can make for the kids in your life, or a project that you can sew in tandem with them. The scarf is functional while sporting a unique pocket shape that showcases felting accents. You'll soon see that felting step is perfect for a how-to project for kids. It's another one of my favorite scarf projects that's a palette for creativity. During this whole series we've featured so many scarves that are very fast to work with. Donna, this is one of the quickest projects. It's really quick. I cut it about 7" wide and what you do is you can put a tape measure around a little person's neck and kind of determine how long to make the scarf. Then we have kind of oversized mittens on there. You can trace their hands and make an oversized mitten design. Then what we have featured on there, too, is just felting on the mitten. What I have here is a little brush, my felting tool, the mitten that I am working on, and also my needle puncher. It felts, and this is roving. Yes, I have some on display here. What it is, it's a non-twisted yarn and I'm just kind of laying it on the mitten kind of in a zigzag, kind of a knitted look and I'm just going to secure it to the fleece. I would do this until I have it firmly blended together. The felting needles embed the fibers into the fabric. I chose for the mitten itself the reverse side as you can see from the original one I would have felted it longer and then simply place it on your finished cut-out piece and stitch around it. And add a backing. Right, and I simply edgestitch. You can always also use maybe decorative blades on the edge, too, to change the look. We'll show you that in a few minutes because our next fleece project is a super-sized pocket. You can make this for your favorite football team or soccer team. Wear it to the game. This particular project can only take about 15-20 minutes to create. Here's the finished scarf. Basically 12" wide, and it's 60"-72" long depending on the width of your fabric. The pocket areas are 12" x 18", and basically they're double the width, the depth of the pocket. I did put in a stay tape in the pocket area to just to build in reinforcement. Here we creased the fold and then just a little stabilizing tape to prevent that from just stretching out. Then you overlap all your layers together. If we look at this finished pocket you'll see that we marked 2" in from the edge of the fabric and then just stitched all the way around. We curved the edge after the stitching. This is about as fast as you can get for a project. After the stitching, then place a decorative blade in the traditional 45 mm blade housing. Then just cut all of the edges so that you have kind of a fast finish. The fleece doesn't ravel. And it's a really fast project, nice and warm and a great project to do in a few minutes. So you have a pocket at both ends and easy to make as we said before and it's the big pocket scarf made out of polyester fleece. Fleece, rayon batiks, interlock knits, jerseys, and homespun fabrics, are many of the candidates for your next scarf creation. I hoped you've gleaned from this first episode of my "Favorite Scarves to Sew" series, scarves can be created with a minimum of time and, of course, monetary investment, little monetary investment. The best part is turning a rectangle of fabric into a fashionable accessory. Next time on Sewing with Nancy, look forward to the second episode of this series, where I will once again go into the Sewing with Nancy archives and feature techniques from the past that are timeless. I'd like to encourage you also to go online and check out NancyZieman.com. You can watch and re-watch many seasons of programming online at your convenience. We also write a blog three times a week where you'll get updates on sewing, quilting, and embroidery You get to learn a lot right at your computer. Or you can join the sewing and quilting conversations on our Facebook and our other social media platforms. It's fun to connect with others. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy has written a fully-illustrated book entitled " Sewing with Nancy 's Favorite Scarves to Sew" that is the reference for this two-part series. The book includes more than 40 sew easy scarf options, and four pull-out patterns. The book is $19.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book,

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