Very easy fabric shawl with the new Sari fabrics by Änni Sews

19 April, 2021

It is the time of scarves and shawls. Fill your wardrobe with color this spring. Learn how to sew a fabric shawl in less than 1 hour. For this, you need a suitable fabric that is natural, light, drape, and pleasant to the touch. You are lucky, in the new FLY SS21 collection we have several fabrics with these characteristics: sari, Panama, muslin, bambula and plumeti.

A very easy and fast pattern to make. Download any of the 3 free patterns that we have on our website HERE. And learn how to finish the edges with a very special guest: Änni Sews.

Hey, I´m Annï and I blog at aennisews.de and on Instagram @aennisews about everything related to fabrics and threads. Today I bring Katia Fabrics a quick and easy pattern to sew a nice light fabric shawl.

 

shawl tutorial

How to sew a fabric shawl

With 1 piece of cloth = Two large scarves!

Can you have enough scarves? I honestly think not. So when I saw the new Sari fabrics from the Fly collection, I didn´t even try to suppress the desire to sew a scarf. The Sari fabric had to be around my neck! And not only around mine, because when I sew a scarf almost always a second automatically arises. For one or two triangular shawls you only need a square piece of fabric, with the measurement of the width of the fabric. At least for the simplest model. Because you can also reduce the width of the fabric a little or use several pieces of fabric and join them.

sari fabrics

CUT THE FABRIC

The width of the sari fabric is 140 cm, so you need a 140 cm long piece of fabric to make a square. Now take one corner of the square and place it on top of the corner on the opposite side. The fabric is folded, and you get a double triangle, if you want to make a bulkier scarf, you can overcast the edges of the folded fabric together. I would do this with a fabric that did not have a pattern on the back of the fabric, but in this case, we are going to work with a single layer of fabric and, therefore, we cut the fabric at the edge where we have folded it.  Then we obtain two identical pieces of cloth to make two shawls.

To sew a scarf, it is not necessary to have a special sewing machine or a specific presser foot. In theory, you don´t even need to use a sewing machine, because a rolled hem can also be done by hand. 🙂

I want to give my handkerchief a bit more eye-catching, so I´m going to polish all three edges with a 3-thread rolled hem. And that´s not all: I´m going to use foam thread so that the seam looks more filled and the points are visually joined creating a voluminous continuous line. It so happens that the color of the thread I use matches perfectly with the color of the neon lines of the Sari Fluor fabric, although with this type of stitching a thread of any other contrasting color also looks very good.

fabric shawl threads

THREADS

To perfectly adjust the overlock machine it is advisable to do a test before starting. To do this, I don´t mind “sacrificing” a 1 cm wide strip of the original fabric from my handkerchief to do the test stitching. In the worst case, if the seam doesn´t come out right, I´ll cut it close to the edge. And if there´s any fabric left over for testing, even better.

I remove the left needle and thread the foam thread through the two hooks. On the right needle, I thread a color matching thread. I have chosen a light pink color.

For the foam thread, I use the bobbin nets of my overlock. In most cases, these nets are supplied together with the sewing machine, but it may happen that some beginner throws them away thinking that they are part of the packaging. I´m not going to reveal who this happened to years ago when she bought her first sewing machine …

 foam thread

SEWING

I start sewing in the direction of the fabric thread or across the thread direction. For all of you who were better than me at math, this must be one of the legs of the triangle. When you reach the right angle at the end of the first edge, you can turn the fabric a little and continue sewing, or continue straight to the end of the edge and then finish off the excess of the chain, as I will also do in the others corners. With a little skill, you can also sew all the way to the edge and raise the presser foot and needle to turn the fabric for a perfect corner.

rolled hem

Resume

Here I take the opportunity to make a small spoiler: When sewing transversely with respect to the direction of the fabric thread, that is, against the thread, the work is difficult as waves are formed because the fabric is too tight. For those who enjoy that inconvenience: well, great! And for those who do not like it: increase the differential of the machine. You have to go testing because it always depends on the material with which you work. Another option is to do a backstitch first with the normal sewing machine. And then another overlock seam on top, as this will better maintain the shape of the fabric. Using felt ribbons or something similar does not seem like a good idea to me, because the felt wears out with washing and then the seam is no longer so beautiful.

fabric shawl tutorial

There is no other remedy. You have to practice, and I must admit that I have made more polished seams than today. But they have never come out so colorful and with the color so matching the design of the fabric!

annie sews shawl tutorial

annie sews shawl tutorial

We hope you liked the result of Änni´s shawl and are encouraged to sew yours, 🙂