Fun with Fur

Back in November last year, I made a very weather inappropriate Santa Miku costume. It was a nightmare working with both cotton velveteen and fur in the heat of Brisbane summertime. 

But, since I was working with fur, I thought I would share with you the intricacies of how to sew it. Please note though, that I have only sewn with synthetic fur so these principles may not apply if you are using real fur.

The first thing is tools:
- Fur (obviously)
- fine felt tip pen (can be a water soluble fabric pen, or fading pen)
- small embroidery scissors with a fine point
- sticky lint roller and lots of sticky refills


The Fur:

How to cut your pieces:
Flip the fur over to the wrong side and trace around your pattern piece with the felt pen. Make sure that you have the pile running the correct way for your piece.

Use the fine point scissors to cut out the pieces by carefully sliding the scissors along the backing fabric without cutting the fur. Pull the pieces away from each other.

Trimming Fur for sewing:
To sew the fur pieces together so that the joins are invisible, you need to trim back the fur that will be in the seam from the backing fabric.

 Take the little pointy scissors and slide them along the backing fabric, making small snips. Scoop away the cut off fur. This is where the sticky lint roller comes in handy to stick up all the bits of fur that inevitably fly everywhere.

Sewing the fur:
When you sew the fur pieces together or to the other fabric piece, push the fur away from the seam and then sew. It may be easier to use a zipper foot on your sewing machine so that you can get close into where you cut the fur as the bulk of the fur can make it difficult to get in there.

 One sewn on, flip it over and comb down the fur so that it all sits in the same direction. It's also a good idea to run the sticky lint roller over this again to pick up any extra bits of fur so that when you wear your outfit you don't get fur falling off you.


There you have it. The basics of sewing with fur. If you have any questions, head to the comment section and I will definitely respond to you.