Looking at the Markland Calendar, I discovered there's a war in MARCH. I REALLY wanna go and drag someone along with me, but its going to be REALLY cold. I saw this article a while ago about making a rabbit fur blanket and decided that may well be the answer to the problem of the REALLY cold-ness.
So now I am preparing to learn to sew furs. I've ordered myself a sewing awl and some thread, and am working on trying to get some cheap rabbit furs. So far my best bet has been Ebay - I've gotten a couple for $2 with free shipping. If you want to buy in bulk, you can also get hare skins at http://www.chichesterinc.com.
Tips I have discovered for sewing furs:
1) comb the fur out of the seam before you sew it.
2) if you are using a sewing machine, it will probably have to be an industrial machine. You will need to get a special presser foot and needle to sew the leather.
3) if you have problems with the leather getting stuck in the feed dogs, there is a kind of tape you can get to put between the fur and the machine
4) if sewing by hand (as I will be doing) you need to have an awl and some very sturdy thread
5) you can lay the leather edge to edge with no overlap and sew small X stitches. According to one ebayer, one stitch per inch should be enough to hold everything together.
6) with most sewing awls, you need access to both sides of the material, which is only an issue if you're making something complicated.
As for the pattern given on the website... I am not really planning on following it for two reasons - it'll cost too much to get that much fur, and I don't want as small a blanket as that turned out to be. I think I will be cutting squares of fur and sewing them together quilt-style. As my sewing machine isn't industrial, I intend to work by hand.
I will also most likely try to find myself a SMALL project to learn the skills I need before I try to make something as big as a blanket.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment