boot fur cuffs & pom poms!

happy holidays (whichever you prefer, i’m not picky!) to everyone! i’ve been MIA for the past week or so, and about to disappear again for another week due to this:

my poor bb sewing machine + serger awaiting the sewing machine doctor!

nothing is wrong with them… they just need their yearly check-up (same as you’d do for your pet, or your car, or uhh yourself). turnaround time is about a week, so i took the opportunity to drop them off today since i will be spending my new year’s weekend in new orleans 🙂
but i miss them already!

in other happy fun-times news, i did get a new camera for christmas! so i can start taking pictures again, although this camera is much different than my previous one so it is taking some getting used to. my pictures are pretty sucky right now, hopefully i’ll figure it out sooner than later!

oh, and i got new sewing books!

kwik sew method for sewing lingerie

singer sewing for special occasions

my brother & sister-in-law bought me a couple sewing books for christmas – tailoring and boutique apparel. i couldn’t get a good picture of them, but here is the art of sewing flickr set. aren’t they gorgeous? there is a great cape pattern in the apparel book that i am dying to try!

i also made some little fur cuffs & pom poms for my boots over the weekend 🙂

the process i used was a mish-mash of stuff from casey’s fur collar tutorial (the hair canvas & twill tape method is my favorite from keeping the hair from getting everywhere – fur is messy!) and colette patterns fur peter pan collar tutorial (for the pom poms, although i modified mine a bit). i think they turned out pretty neat!

fur circles waiting to be turned into pom poms

i machine-stitched a gathering stitch around the edge of each circle

tied a big ol’ knot in my faux suede cord (well, 4 knots on top of each other)

got a little wad of cotton to stuff in each one

pulled the strings tight around the cotton/cord

and stitched each top closed

pom poms!

for the fur trim, i made a little pattern piece with some scrap fabric to determine the size. i kept it flat while basting on the hair cloth & catchstitching down the twill tape, then sewed the two short sides together to make a loop. i prepared the lining in a similar fashion and slip-stitched the two together.

right now, the cuffs are just hand basted to the tops of my boots… eventually, i would like to sew snaps to twill tape and sew that along the top of the boot & the cuffs (so it can be easily removed for… well, i don’t know, exactly, bc it’s not like i wash my boots), but this will do for now.
i found it very helpful to use a needle designed for sewing leather & a thimble. leather needles are neat because instead of being shaped like a cylinder narrowed to a point, they have 3 flat sides that form a triangular point so they actually cut a small hole in the leather. it is much easier to sew, especially since the needle itself is much stronger than a standard hand-sewing needle. no more bent needles!

i had more to say, but this update is scatteredbrained enough as it is.
happy new year, y’all 🙂

Tags: books, boots, FUR, reconstructions