I'm so ashamed of myself :)
Since fleece doesn't fray, you don't need to finish its edges to prevent
it unravelling, so all this scarf really involves is cutting a strip of
fleece. That said, learning to lay the fabric flat, to pin, to cut straight,
and to align the manufactured edges properly is important, so I have an
excuse.
- Align the cloth. The rest is trivial:
- Arrange the cloth so the selvages are aligned with one of your table's edges, or your cutting mat's edges (or both). Use a T-square or the cutting mat's grid to help you.
- Lay a long T-square across the shop-cut edge, hooking the T-square against the table or cutting mat's edge, and then pin along the T-square's edge, through both layers of the fabric, marking a line to cut. It's easy to push the pin through from the top, but do it at a 30' angle to the table and use the point of the pin to lift the layers from underneath. Keep a finger on the cloth so it doesn't move (much) while you're doing this. Pin the ends, then the middle, then the quarters, then the eights, etc, until you think you have enough of a line to cut straight.
- Slide the T-square up 12 inches and pin again.
- Moving the cloth as little as you can, cut carefully just inside the pins with sharp fabric scissors, as straight as you can. Don't close the scissors completely as you cut - it won't matter with this project, but it's a bad habit to fall into: with more detailed work or more fragile cloth cutting with the scissors' tip will make a nasty edge.
- If you have a rotary cutter, you could to trim directly against the T-square (or a metal ruler against the T-square) with less pinning (five pins should do) to help the cloth not to slip. If you're careful, you needn't pin at all.
- If you're feeling creative, trim the selvages neatly from the ends of the scarf, and make regular perpendicular cuts from the short ends, about an inch or two long, to make coarse tassels (use scissors, not a rotary cutter for that).
Pretty easy. And if you're feeling even lazier, I reckon that asking a fabric shop to cut you a 12" strip of fleece is probably the cheapest way to obtain a (slightly scruffy) scarf if you went out without.
To make this page a little more substantial, and because I've recently
found out there's more than one way to do it, I'm going to list two ways I
know to tie a scarf
:
- overhand knot: Probably the one everyone knows: loop the scarf around your neck, hold one end out, lay the free end over it, and draw the free end up under the held length, nearest your neck. Tighten.
- doubled-and-threaded: The one I've only seen recently: fold the scarf in half, lay the doubled length around your neck, and lace the free ends through the folded loop, tighten.
- I believe there's another way to tie a scarf, based on how they're always drawn in cartoons, but I've not worked that one out. I think it might be an overhand knot with subsequent primping.