Fur Starters

The fur adventure began with all of the planning and learning that was involved in me working with fur for the first time. Then after that came the cutting of the fur. This was not a quick process for me ,  and so here is what I did.

First, I needed to find out which direction the nap of the fur went. Then I needed to make sure that he nap of the fur went the same direction on each piece of the pattern that I would cut out. Next, I traced the pattern pieces onto the fur before I cut it out. I used a sharpie to do this. You might say that it was crazy of me to use a permanent black marker on my fur, but I wanted to make sure that I could clearly see the lines while cutting. I also knew that since I would be cutting on the line and that any remaining black lines would be caught up in the seam so it wouldn’t be visible once it was stitched up. I also made sure and used a fine point sharpie and I tried it out on a small piece of fur first to make sure it didn’t bleed through.

Because of the way the fur has to be cut, none of the pieces can be cut on the fold. So when I traced the back, I had to trace one side and then flip it over and trace the other side. After all the pieces were traced, the cutting started.

Since I did not want to cut the hair of the fur, the fur had to be cut out with tiny snips of the scissors, very carefully, making sure to only cut through the backing of the fur. This was not difficult, but it was very time consuming.

When I had finally finished the cutting, I figured it would be clean up time, but with since I was not cutting much of the hair of the fur there was really only a small mess when I was done. Also, at this point, I was still happy with the pattern that I had picked. The jacket pattern that I chose is very simple and did not have a lot of detail to it. This was a bonus for me since I did not have to try and make any special markings on the fur. In fact, I didn’t even worry about cutting any notches. I figured I would not be able to find them in the fur later anyway.

Next I cut out the lining. This was quick work since I was able to use my rotary cutter on it to cut it out.

At this point, I tried to pin a couple of the pieces of fur together, only to see my pins bend and twist. I was very frustrated at this since I am a big fan of pinning things together and I hate to sew with out pinning first. So to solve this problem I ending up using some large paper clips/clamps to hold the fur together. Not as elegant as using pins, but the paper clips did the job and held the fabric together.

Now that all the pieces are finally all cut out, it is time to sew!

Please be sure and join me in the next post in the continuing Saga of the Fur Wars…

Fur The First Time

Curse you Fabric Mart for having such wonderful fur on sale!

Because of my fascination with stuffed animals, I have always wanted to purchase some fur to have on hand in the stash just in case. And I have always wanted to sew stuffed animals which is why I enjoy making amigurumi’s so much. But instead of sewing stuffed animals I crochet them, so I don’t really have a need to purchase expensive fur to make stuffed animals or to learn how to sew with.

But awhile back when Fabric Mart was having such great sale on some fur, I decided it was finally time for me to purchase some and to begin to learn to sew with fur. Well, in reality, I went a little crazy and bought a lot of fur so now I feel that I must learn to sew fur to deal with the larger quantity that I just added to the stash.

Plus since I have a big bag of amigurumi animals already sitting in the closet that need a home, I decided not to use my newly purchased fur to make stuffed animals with. But, then what should I make from the fur? Well, a fur jacket of course!

Now that I knew what I wanted to make from my fur, I started with some quick internet searches to learn how to properly cut and sew the fur. After reading several how-to sites and a couple of blogs on making fur jackets, I started to look for patterns. I knew that I wanted a zipper in my jacket, but could I use a zipper with the fur, or would the fur get stuck in the teeth when you zipped it up? How about buttons instead? But, how do you make button holes in fur? Then what kind of closure should I use? How about pockets? Patch pocket seemed to be out but what about side pockets? Welt pockets? How about lining the jacket? There were just so many questions that I had and so few answers that I finally decided that I just had to go for it and see what I got and try to solve the problems as they came up. I don’t normally sew this way, but it seemed like the best option for this project.

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But in not wanting to waste all my fur while learning to make a jacket for me, I, of course, turned to my children’s patterns and decided to make a fur jacket for the little neighbor girl. I could learn all the things that I needed to know about sewing fur without wasting all of the fur I had purchased. And I would still have a enough fur for my jacket in the end. Actually, I will still have plenty of fur left over after making both the neighbor girl’s and a jacket for me. Man, I bought a lot!

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I dug through my patterns next and decided to use Simplicity 8902, an out of print pattern that I got at Walmart over 10 years ago for $0.25. I decided I would put a zipper in the jacket and hopefully it would zip ok with the fur. Even though I have an unwritten rule that all kid’s clothes I make will have pockets, I decided not to add pockets to this jacket. I have enough to deal with in learning to sew fur for the first time, and so I decided to not add the question and problems of pockets. Plus not having pockets would not affect the wearing of the jacket. I picked the B view of the pattern because I am more experienced sewing collars than I am hoods. So, with all of these things decided, I traced size 3 of the pattern, in view B.

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I had also decided that the jacket must be lined, not only to help the little neighbor girl to get the jacket on and off more easily, but also to hide the fur’s seams. I made a quick run through the stash, but I did not find any fabric that I wanted to use for the lining of the jacket. This did not surprise me. I have not sewed a lot of lined items during my sewing career. So, the next time we were by M&L Fabric, I stopped in and dug through their $2/yd bins and found some great pieces of suiting lining that I think would work ok for the little jacket. When I make my jacket, I will need to buy more yardage of lining fabric.

 

With all these decisions of making and planning done, I am now ready to start the cutting of the fur and the sewing the jacket. So, let the fur adventure begin!