Tangled Thread - Tips, Trick and Tutorials in Sewing & Stitching

how-to of the day: making a fringed fabric scarf - part two

by Chloe on September 10th, 2008

 Time to start fringing!

I’m showing you the quick ‘n dirty way to create a fringe - I’ll explain a second method at the end of the post :-)

To begin, you need to figure out how long you want your fringe to be.  I’m going with a big, long one, so I’m wrapping my yarn around the long side of a standard shoe box lid.  You could use a book, a piece of sturdy cardboard… Just combine the yarn you want to use and start wrapping away.

How many times you ask?  Well… the short answer is - it depends!

Each full wrap (all the way around the lid, once) makes one hank of fringe.  You could measure and figure out how many fringes you want per inch or you could do what I’m doing and just wrap until it looks good :-)

Here’s where I decided to stop wrapping:

 Now you need to cut one end of the yarn wrap - very slowly and carefully, making sure to hold onto the strands.  They’ll spring out and land everywhere otherwise!

I love how the cut yarn looks on the fabric already:

 Now we need to get our yarn attached to our scarf (which has been finished off with a simple rolled hem on all four edges).

Using very sharp scissors, poke a small hole in the very edge of the scarf - just big enough to squeeze your crochet hook into:

 Now take one hank of yarn (I’m using a blend of five yarns, so one strand of each color equals one hank for me) and fold it in half.  Place the folded end on the crochet hook, like this:

 Gently pull it through the fabric and use the crochet hook to grab the loose ends of the yarn:

 Now pull the loose ends of the yarn through the loop and pull gently to close the loop.  It should look like this:

 Don’t pull it too tightly, or you’ll deform the bottom edge of the shawl.

I’ve decided to add an extra knot for a little extra security.  It’s just a simple knot, but you could add beads or charms to it as well:

Now keep on fringing!  It took me under an hour to tie the fringe on the top and bottom of my 15″ wide scarf.

If you want to be a little more organized and neater when you’re making your fringe, cut a piece of cardboard - as wide as you want your fringe.  Cut little notches into the top and bottom of the cardboard - approximately every 1/4″.  Wrap your yarn onto the cardboard, catching the yarn in the notches.  It will make it easier to keep everything from springing everywhere after you cut the yarn.

I’ll share the finished scarf with you tomorrow :-)

all images: © C Findlay-Harder

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POSTED IN: Creativity, Fabric, Floss and Thread, How To, sewing, techniques, tutorials