Tips On Nice Fabric Cutouts 2.0

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

I am trying to make cutouts on cotton for a skirt, calico in this moment (if you have any other recommendations of which type of cotton will be better, because for this project I must use only cotton). The cutouts i want to make will be revelead entirely, kind of making a whole into the fabric which you can see perfectly from front. Nevertheless, I want to make them really nice and neat so that the edges don’t go fuzzy and my work is clean and beautiful.
Here is a picture of the basic high waisted skirt I did for organizing how my final shapes will be distributed through the body, as well as for having support when i sew the shapes on top of the basic skirt. The blue rectangles are the actual shapes that will be cutout, the green ones will have some embellishments on top, so disregard those! Another tricky thing is since those shapes are curvy I thought that the best way of sewing them was leaving the seamallowance inside turning my work inside out to the good side (here and here are images for making that more clear! (sorry for the raw edges, they are just humble samples!)) So by the pieces being sewed that way I was also thinking that the cutouts would have to be double for me to see through a complete hole.
Thank you so much for you help to anyone that answers. It is so comforting to have a creative community in which everyone shares a bit of knowledge for everyone’s process!

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

Hi there, This skirt is going to be awesome and I can’t wait to see how it’s going to turn out.  If I understand you correctly, the blue fabric is behind the main fabric.  You’re going to cut holes in the main fabric at certain places so you’ll be able to see the blue.  Is that right?  I hope so because I love this technique which I also call reverse applique.  It gives the project a whole new dimension.  You can actually see how I do it in this tutorial, starting at timecode: 01:50.  The best part of this is that it works on curves and the raw edges are hidden so you don’t have to worry about fraying.  It’s also really easy to do.  If you’re only doing blue cutouts, consider just lining the whole skirt with the blue, so then no matter where you cut, you already have blue underneath and are ready to go.  It’ll make it easier for you and will look more clean on the inside of the skirt.  I hope this helps.

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

Hello and thank you for your very kind answer! It does help me that tutorial you attached on your reply. But it isn’t exactly what I need, because i don’t have blue fabric under. Instead there will actually be a complete hole so you will see the skin, but that is only in the parts where there are blue outlined rectangles on the basic skirt I did. So, mmm, think about it like different strands of fabric that go as an “appliqué” to the basic skirt. (I did these ones today so, maybe that can illustrate better) and they goa along the body and some of them (the ones with the blue rectangle signs) have cutouts that go completely through. Maybe I can apply the same you did with the inverted applique but instead of having fabric under i would not have anything so I will just do the same tuck you did, but I think it wouldn’t really look as clean because there would be two tucks since the fabric strands are actually made out of two layers of fabric sewn together. What do you think it is the best method? I am quite frustrated since this must be done very nicely for university, but well, I am sure sewing is just like any other thing, a process in which you get to know your way more and more since you fail and try.   Cheers!

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

I use stablizer and fabric etch when I quilt.  You can control how many layers of fabric (and in my case, batting) you want the cutouts to go through and get nice clean lines, much better than any cutting tools.  The only thing I would suggest is to practice before you use it on your garment.

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

got it.   I agree with rdejam that an interfacing  would be a good idea.  You can try on a scrap and see if the reverse applique gives you the look you want (minus the fabric underneath) but still turning under the same way.  You can also, after you do your cut out, see if you can use a ribbon or trim to just fold over the raw edges of each cutout.  That way it’ll look finished with no fraying.  After you do the cutout, I would apply a little bit of fray check just so it doesn’t fray before you get to it.   I’m interested to see how you accomplish this so let us know what works best for you.

[Author]

Posts