Infinity Scarves

A few weeks ago I had been watching a makeup video and the gal was showing her infinity scarves.  Juni had actually sent me one from China, but since it is knit it is super puffy and way too big for California climate.  It would have been perfect for NY.  I thought that the scarf the gal on youtube was showing looked nice.  It had a vintage feel to it with large runs in the knitting that were purposely put there.  I thought it was really nice until she said the price.  $80 smack-a-roos.  That is crazy.  There is no way I will ever buy a scarf for $80.  I checked on Amazon and saw that they had different brands for around $15.  I didn't think that was bad, but the scarves are so simple that I got the notion in my head that I could make them much more inexpensively.  I set out to find out how to make them and came across this blog called Homemade Mama.  They had simple instructions on how to make the scarves.

The next day I went out to Joann's to buy some fabric.  Now I know why not many people make their clothes anymore.  The fabric was way more expensive than I anticipated.  I almost walked out of the store without anything, but then decided that it would be a good project.  In classic Allison fashion, I went overboard in shopping.  The logical thing to do was to buy one piece of fabric to try it out.  Did I do that?  Of course not.  Not only did I not buy just one piece, I bought three.  The total tab came out to be around $52.  At least all of the fabric was on sale.  Plus they were having a big sale on their scrapbooking stickers so I had to partake in that too.  Out the door I ended up spending $72.72 with a total savings of $31.72 (says the bottom of my receipt).  I could have saved $57.72 if I just bought the $15 scarf from Amazon, but that is irrelevant now.  That was the first night of my project...just getting the material.

It took me another week to even pull the fabric out of the bag.  I am a terrible seamstress and felt overwhelmed by the thought of messing up the fabric that cost me $50 and possibly my pride.  Finally, I managed to muster up the courage to start making the scarves.  I was pleasantly surprised when I cut and pinned my fabric to find that each piece makes two scarves.  I thought to myself, well this is great because I can get two scarves for about the same amount that I would have spent on one scarf from Amazon since they averaged about $17 per cut.  I could make the scarves for about $8.50, which isn't bad at all.  I was feeling much better about making scarves after this realization.  But the kicker is, why do I need two of the same scarf? I decided that I would make scarves for my friends instead of letting the rest of the fabric sit around and collect dust.  Linda claimed one and I have the other two in mind for Bonnie and Abby...that is if they turn out well enough to give to them.  We will just have to make sure to coordinate and not wear them on the same day.

After pinning the fabric, I got the sewing machine out but didn't know how to thread it or where the extra bobbins were.  My mom was busy making dinner so I didn't want to ask her while she was doing that.  Another week went by before I actually sat down to try to thread the machine.  Last night I finally looked at the instructions on how to thread the sewing machine and was able to get it working.  I was feeling pretty confident after I did my one straight line to connect the piece of fabric.  Then came the tricky part.  I had to connect the two ends to make a circle.  On one side it looked okay, but the other did not.  The fabric is also very stretchy so you can see at the seam where it was puckering.  It is easy to hide, but for the next one my mom gave me some tips on how to reduce the puckering.  Hopefully it works!  Stay tuned for the next few scarves I make.  I didn't want to do them all last night incase I messed one up.  I was feeling quite pleased with myself and didn't want to press my luck.  My plan for now is to complete my other two scarves to practice on and I'm hoping by then I'll have it down and the remaining three will look good enough for me to give away.

This is the finished product.  Sorry that it's a little blurry but I was having a hard time getting the whole thing in the frame and holding the camera still by myself.

This is how it looks on.  Just ignore my sweats and imagine it with real clothes.

Okay, so this seam isn't so bad.  It puckers, but is generally pretty straight and pretty good for my sewing skills. 

This is the other side.  Obviously I couldn't see the underside while sewing so the top is pretty straight, but this side clearly suffered from my lack of skills.  If you look on the left hand side you can see a little triangle of piled fabric.  When I was done sewing I had a little wing of extra fabric even though when I first pinned the ends together it wasn't there.  (Told you I'm a terrible seamstress.) I think this was a result of the fabric stretching and being pulled unnaturally.  I folded it over and sewed it into the scarf so that it wouldn't stick out.  Thankfully the Jersey Knit is very forgiving and you can't tell at all that I messed up.  I just put the ugly seam behind my neck with this side facing down. 

These are the other two fabrics I got.  Linda said that she liked the cheetah and I thought that Bonnie would really like the black and white.  I figured that since Abby wears a lot of solid colors that the black one would be best to give her.  Plus, I rarely see her wearing scarves so black is probably the safest option of the three to give her.   Haha I've actually put a lot of thought into who gets what based on personality and preferences.   Abby, if you're reading this, I'll try much harder to make the seams better, but you might have to turn a blind eye to how crooked they are!

This fabric is more like a linen, but I think that it will hang nicely. 

I know that I'm being overly ambitious, but I was telling my mom that if these turn out well and I can make them look professionally made that I can start making them and sell them on Etsy.com.  We'll have to see how that turns out, but people are already selling them on there so it's worth a shot.  I just need to get my seams straight before any of that happens!  She also suggested that I make a nice warm one for my grandma since you can wrap this type of scarf up in many different fashions.  I don't know about that.  My grandma was a seamstress for most of her life and would laugh at my sorry attempt at sewing, but I guess it is the thought that counts.