One cloth - five ways!

My morning, so far, was spent procastinating.

I am avoiding to start sewing a dress for my daughter.

She has a birthday coming up at the end of the month, and decided that she wants to have a red carpet party,
with kiddies champagne, paparazzis, and fondue.

And for this occassion she needs a dress, and of course she needs it now!
As does her best friend.
Somehow I got volunteered to make them both.


So yesterday we went shopping and came home with some very shiny fabric, in turquoise for Eva and in
blue for her friend.
I had great difficulties getting her to school this morning, as she much rather would have stayed home and
watched me sew.

Seeing how much I got done so far, she probably had a point...


Anyway, to avoid tackling the shiny fabric I hopped around in blogland and came across the easiest,
most versatile project ever!

I found it on Fine Craft Guild, and she found it on Bina Brianca.


All you need is a big piece of fabric.

I had quite a lot of fabric left over from my housedress.
It worked ok, but is a bit heavy, a lighter fabric would make it more manageable.

The fabric panel should be about 5 times the width of your hips. Then you need to cut two slits, in the middle
of the fabric and 1-times the width of your hips in from each side.

If you want to you could actually sew it like Bina Brianca does, and you could of course also hem it...

I have no hopes whatsoever that my photographer will take any pics of me and my new piece of miracle clothing
before I haven't finished her dress, so here just a couple of self-portraits to give you an idea.


This is the cloth worn as a tunic. I am getting a lot of questions on how I wrapped this, I used the step-by-step
instructions found here. If it looks different than on the Bina Brianca website, it is because I used a thicker fabric than she does:

And here it is poncho style:

As a head scarf:

Around the shoulders:

And as a cardigan:

Dear friends, thank you so much for all your lovely comments. Seeing that I am getting a lot the same questions, I would just like to clarify here: I used the measurements (width of hips) I stated above.

One lovely reader left this comment specifying other measurements:

'm commenting as I don't have a blog of my own to post to and wanted to help anyone trying to make this too. (Think I found you via Pinterest FYI)
I looove that you used one piece of fabric instead of side seams!
I used 1.5 yds of 60" wide jersey knit (I'm 5'3", size 6ish), put the slits 12" from each side, and made them 12" long. Unfortunately, it looked like the edges/corners of the slits are pulling more than I'd like so I had to reinforce them. I used a very short, fairly wide zigzag stitch on each side of the slit and went down the edge as well, essentially making an *enormous* buttonhole. (I would recommend doing this prior to cutting the fabric, like a good buttonhole, as I cut first asked questions later, I had to use a piece of paper as a tearaway backing to give enough stiffness to that floppy cut edge. Ugh.)
I added the snaps (small silver ones bc they were what I had - I would've ideally used larger black ones to blend in w the fabric) - I haven't tested it out extensively but I put them on the outside(right side of the fabric) per what it looks like on the Bina site. And I alternated the snaps around the corners, male, female, male, female so the left/right can be connected both w your arms in the slits or w your head in the slits. I'm guessing that's how Bina does it...?
Good luck!

Thanks so much for this, I hope it helps everybody wanting to make the cloth.

Also, I did wrap all the styles (also the tunic) exactly like it is stated on the Bina Brianca website.
It might be that it looks different because my cloth is thicker then the one she uses, but that is the only difference.

Hope that helps,

Jutta


Here are some additional clarifications reg. the size of the fabric needed. I got those from Rose from Fine Craft Guild.

She says:

‘Bina Wrap’ Width

• I previously suggested to choose 5x the width of your hips for the width of your fabric. This is right ONLY when you are as slim as the girl in the picture, say size 4-6 or so. In concrete terms on the dimensions of the Bina wrap, if you are slim like her, you can buy 1.5 yards* (54”; 1.37m) of 60" (1.5m) wide fabric; and cut the front panels say 12" (30 cm) from each side of your fabric. (* I’m presuming you can buy either full or half yards).
• However, if you are much wider at the bottom than at the top, I’d say go with 2 x the width of your hips/chest (i.e. your widest body part) for the back panel and 1x the width of your widest body part for each side panel. One reader is pregnant. Well, for her 5x the width of her hips resulted into a giant creation. That wasn’t meant. What was meant is that you tailor the wrap size to your body size & shape.
• So, if you are petite, well, then perhaps you should make it an inch or two shorter. Leave the extra length on at first, but then don’t be shy to cut it till it is right for you.
• While this is a seemingly super-easy pattern, it pays to make either a simple paper version or a roughly hand-stitched version, and try it on before you cut your fabric. This way you get your dimensions right.  Twice measured, once …

‘Bina Wrap’ Length

• The length of the garment should be about the same as the width of the back panel.
• This is a test: Hold the cloth in front of you: it should reach from just under your arm pitch/top of the breasts till half way down your calves (see first image in this article to see what I mean).  If that measures 39”(1 m) , than make the length of your garment 39” (1 m).
• If your length is 39” this means that your back panel should be also approx. 39” wide. It should be about a square. Right?

Wrap Arm Slits

If your chosen length for your garment is about 36-39”, then I’d go for an opening that is about 10”-12” wide.   *** Try it out with some some rough hand stitches FIRST, so that you can see if it fits properly ON YOU.  If you have wide shoulders, guess what, you may prefer a somewhat larger opening. 
The opening should be in the middle of the length of the garment, and be about 1/3 of the total length.



A lovely, sunny, happy day to you!







Ps: I am linking to these lovely parties.

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