Monday, October 29, 2012

Three Lessons on Bias Tape

If you've ever sewn anything, you've probably had a need for bias tape.  Making your own creates a lot more options for whatever your purpose is.  I needed to make some to use as bone casing for my friend's corset.  I'd never made it before, but there's never a better time than when you have a very specific need!

I saw a tutorial like this one, that seemed like it would save some work, allowing me to create really long strips of bias tape.

Lesson 1:  when drawing your lines, mark the wrong side!
I marked the right side, and had trouble lining up my marks properly, had to turn the tube to cut it, and found out that well, my lines were not aligned.  *sigh*  I eyeballed it as I cut, and got some decently even strips.

Lesson 2:  Use a low-steam setting on your iron, or get one of those handy little bias tape folders.  I was doing this ally by hand, and earned some steamed fingers.  Ouch!

Once I got all my bias tape made, I realized that I'm going to have a bunch of little seams, that may interfere with inserting the boning.  Not good, but I'll have to make do.  But today, I found this:

Lesson 3:  You don't have to have squares to make the bias tape! 
I was thinking about this as I was cutting up my limited amount of fabric into chunks, but I'm not a math/geometry wiz.  I wasn't going to try anything, not with my fashion fabric, at least.  This one will be mighty handy next time!  Plus, the blog is called The Dread Pirate Rodgers!  Cute pun, great reference, excellent tutorial!

May you take these lessons I learned the hard way, and use them.

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