Craft Archives - Page 37 of 77 - Violet LeBeaux

How To Sew A Batwing Cardigan

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 26, 2012 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

I’ve been on a bit of an online shopping spree…. well not an online shopping spree, more of an online window shopping spree XD

Anyway, getting back to the point, everywhere I keep seeing these big drapy cardigans with dolman/batwing sleeves. I’ve never had something with a cut like that and to be honest I didn’t think it would look great on me so I didn’t want to pay any money for one in case it did look completely unflattering XD

So time to DIY!

You need:

Some kind of nice fabric, again I was being cheap so I used some left overs from another project
Lace for the edges
Sewing machine and overlocker, I probably wouldn’t hand stitch this because it would take forever.

First lay out your fabric flat.

VioletLeBeaux-Dolman-Sleeve-Tutorial-867_16630

Cut it into a big square. To decide on how big roughly estimate how long you want it to hang down from your neck-back and use that as the side measurements.

Now fold each of the corners in to the middle.

And where they meet up horizontally pin them together. The corners on the left side go together as do the right ones.

Cut off the point at the end, this is where your hands will poke out of the sleeves 😀

Now stitch down the sides that you pinned together. I prefer to use an overlocker for this but you can also zigzag to keep the edges from unraveling.

You should have something like this 😀

And this is where you should have stitched:

Now really that’s all the cardigan is made up of… seriously. It’s just because of the shape that they drape so nicely. I decided to decorate mine with some random lace Celeste gave me for my stash.

I stitched it all around the neckline/center hole in a big circle.

I added it to the sleeves as well to match.

Details:

And yep that’s all there is to it 😀 It’s long and comfy 😀 I think I would considering buying or making a big knit one. In fact, I have a blanket I knit ages ago that I could easily turn into one of these!

What do you guys think Yay or Nay to big batwing sleeves like this?

The Home Sweet Home Diary – Quick Craft

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 22, 2012 | Craft, Home Sweet Home Tutorials

When I started the Home Sweet Home Project I wanted to make a physical diary that I could keep of the progress. Like a scrapbook but full of drawings and pretty things. Of course it needed to be as pretty as the projects I was planning to do so it turned into a mini project in itself.

I went through all of my stickers trying to find something suitable then realised that I had far to many stickers for someone who really never uses them for anything.I used a pre-made set for the base.

And extended it out to cover the whole area. Finished 😀

As a front page I added in a watercolour chart as I was planning to do a lot of painting with it.

Now I can be assured that I’ll have something pretty to remember this whole experience with ^_^ Now back to the real projects!

Fancying Up Leopard Print Earmuffs

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 18, 2012 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

I wanted some of these leopard print earmuff last year but they were quite expensive and seeing as I’ve never found a need for them before I couldn’t justify the price. This year I saw them again in shops for the same price and my want level went a little higher XD

Luckily I found them for $3.99 in Groove so the fact that I may never wear them less important ^_^ But they were plain… and that never lasts long in my house!

End result:

Apparently earmuff make me sleepy XD

When I got them home I noticed some of the stitching was undone so I repaired that first.

Then I decided on a theme: lace and chain. Easy.

Design done.

Sewing… done 😀

Last for some extra interest I added the chain over the top part too.

DONE!

Detailed, easy to do and best of all only $3.99.

Now I wish it would actually be cold on a day that I need to leave the house!

Earmuffs for the win!

Sweater T-Shirt Surgery Sewing Tutorial

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 17, 2012 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

Does sweater surgery still count as tshirt surgery? XD

In The Great Wardrobe Clean Out Of 2012 James’ old work uniform jumper was on the chopping list. It’s very soft but so ugly and seeing as he hasn’t worked at this place for almost 4 years there was really no reason to keep it.

Totally flattering? Not so much…

Bring on a challenge!

I love going through the throwing away pile of clothes because I can do whatever I like with them without fear of ruining something good! So time to get out those scissors and start cutting >:DThis is what I started with and I was aiming for a big, loose , comfy, so-ugly-it’s-cute kind of sweater for relaxing in.First thing I did was remove the horrible collar and cut it into a boat neck.

Next I cut the bottom into a more flattering “U” shape.

I cut down the front to remove the zip and sewed it back together again. This made a more flattering neck shape too.

There wasn’t really a need to finish the cut seams because this kind of polar fleece doesn’t fray but I zigzagged them anyway with contrasting thread.

Next some details! Plain black is boring so I used up some striped scraps to cover it with cuter hearts.

All different sizes and directions to make it adorably random.

Then of course my sewing machine died so James spent 20 minutes trying to fix it while I sulked on the couch.

Once it was fixed I zigzagged around the edges. Had I been even lazier I would have just used fabric glue 😀

DONE!

So what do you think? I’m loving it, removing all of the thick edging makes it drape so much more and it’s super comfy now!

Sorry guys it’s too comfy… nap time!

Tshirt/sweater surgery for the win 😀 And an old crappy jumper which was going to be thrown out now has a new life!

How To Make A Hair Donut… or Sausage? I’m hungry :D

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 10, 2012 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

So have you ever wondered how people make fancy perfect buns like this?

Well the answer is a hair donut. Really the same thing can be achieved with a sock, piece of foam or anything squishy that approximate shape but hair donuts are cheap and come in a variety of colours.So what’s a girl to do when the shops are closed and she needs one for some photos or she can’t find them in her area? Make one of course!What I’m showing you today isn’t completely a hair donut, rather a hair sausage which is more versatile that a donut and can be worn in so many different ways (tutorials on those ways are up coming of course).

The end result is a light squishy tube which is flexible and held in shape via wire.

You need:

Polar fleece or similar stretchy fabric
Thick wire for the inside
Needle and thread
Stuffing or fabric scraps if you’re desperate
Pliers to cut and shape the wire.

Cut a piece of the wire a long as you want the sausage to be. Remember it needs to be able to wrap comfortably around a ponytail with a bit to spare and the ends will need to be curled over so they aren’t pointy. I made mine around 25cm and then curled the ends into circles as seen below.

Fold a piece of polar fleece in half and lay the wire on top.

Cut out a trapezoid shape like below and make it substantially longer than the wire, the long end of mine was almost double that of the wire.

Stitch from one corner up the side and around to the other side. Leave a gap so you can turn it inside out.

Turn it inside out ^_^

You should have something along these lines…

Put the wire inside.

Stitch on each side through the wire loops. This will hold it in place and make sure it doesn’t slip around inside.

Because the polar fleece is bigger than the wire it will look something like this when you sew each loop.

Fill the whole thing with stuffing.

It should be packed in there fairly tightly but not so much so that it can’t bend.

Stitch the end up and you’ve got a hair sausage!

To use it you just need to make a ponytail, wrap this around and the form the bun around it.

The reason I prefer the sausages to donuts is that you can use them in a variety of ways including in vintage style rolls etc. I’ve seen a lot of sock versions of this too, have you ever tried them?

I’ve got tutorials on how to use it in a variety of ways coming up soon 😀

Quick Craft Tutorial- Flower Magnets Again

by VioletLeBeaux | Apr 8, 2012 | Craft, Other-Tutorials, Tutorial

I’ve done flower magnets before, you can see the daisy ones I did over here, but back to the point I made another set of them for a friend’s care package so I thought you a might like to see it for some other inspiration 😀 Honestly these are a cute idea no matter what kind of flowers you have. Hell I’m just sticking magnets to anything that doesn’t move now XD

Big flower with two lavender sprigs!