Tips & Tricks | How to Insert a Flat Circle Into a Tube

This is not one of those square-peg-in-a-round-hole situations. But, if the idea of sewing a two-dimensional item (a flat circle) into a three-dimensional item (a tube) sounds like something from another dimension, read on. We've broken it down into a simple step-by-step process and even show you two different methods. 

Let's chat first about what we are not going to learn today. We're not going to get into the math equations needed to figure out how to appropriately size the opening of the tube to fit the circle. This involves π (or pi, but not the yummy cherry kind) and multiplication, and is best left for a future tutorial on just this topic. And, we are not going to learn how to cut a circle without a pattern – again, we'll come back to that one. For this tutorial, we are assuming someone with a calculator and graph paper has already figured out all the dimensions for you and provided you with pattern for your circle (wasn't that nice of them?).

If you are familiar with garment sewing and have inserted a sleeve, you'll notice the similarities. 

We show you two methods below, one with gathers and one without. When you use each is dependent on your project. The gathered method is usually best when your overall project has some softness or fullness, such as a bolster pillow. 

The flat method works well when the circle is the base of a project, just as a tall duffle bag. 

Gather all your materials

With gathers 

Marking the circle and the tube

1. Following the directions for your project/pattern, cut out the circle (our sample uses an 8" circle).
2. Following the directions for your project/pattern, cut out the rectangle to form the tube (our sample used a 12" high x 21" wide rectangle).
3. Fold the rectangle in half, right sides together, so it is now 12" x 10½". Pin along the 12" edge.
4. Stitch along the 12" edge, using a ½" seam allowance.
5. Press open the seam allowance.
6. The key to this technique is to make accurate quarter-round marks on both the tube and the circle. To create these marks on the circle, think of it like the face of a clock. You will make four marks at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00.  
7. Fold the circle in half, right sides together, press lightly to set a crease. 
8. Place a pin at both outer edges of the fold.
9. Open up the circle, then fold in half in the opposite direction, right sides together, aligning the two pins from the first fold. 
10. Press lightly to set an intersecting crease line. Then, place a pin at both outer edges of the new fold.
11. Open up the circle. You should now have a pin at four points of the circle, like a clock face: 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00.
12. Using a fabric pen or pencil, make a mark at at each point, then remove the pins. 
13. Once your pins are removed, you may want to go back and enlarge each of the marks so they extend all the way to raw edge of the circle. You want the marks to be easily visible.  
14. Set aside the marked circle.
15. Next, you need a matching set of marks on the end of the tube into which the circle will be inserted.
16. With the tube wrong side out, flatten it in half so the seam forms the left edge. At the right edge, place a pin in the fold. NOTE: It also helps to lightly press the fold opposite the seam. The crease lines you set (as you did above with circle) give you additional guidelines to follow when matching the circle to the tube. 
17. Open up the tube and flatten it in the opposite direction, bringing together the pin and the seam. 
18. With the pin and the seam aligned, place a pin at both outer edges of the new fold.
19. As above, place a mark at the location of each pin.

Inserting the circle into the tube

1. Find the marked circle. 
2. Run a gathering stitch around the entire outer edge, staying within the standard ½" seam allowance. ⅜" is a good seam allowance.NOTE: If you are new to machine gathering, check out our full tutorial. 
3. Gather up the circle just slightly, leaving the thread tails long so you can adjust the gathers as needed.
4. Find the marked tube. 
5. Place the circle into the marked end of the tube, right sides together, matching up the 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00 marks on both pieces. 
6. Pin just the marked points first. 
7. Adjust the gathers as needed to ease the circle against the round base of the tube.
8. Then fill in with additional pins between these points until the circle is pinned in place all around.
9. Using a ½" seam allowance, stitch the circle in place. It's best to flip up the tube so you can stitch with the circle facing up. This way, you can insure the gathering stays even.
10. Stitch slowly and concentrate on keeping the seam allowance even. 
11. Press the seam allowance open and turn right side out. 
12. If you are working with a particularly stiff fabric, you may want to clip the curves slightly to allow more give around the curve of the circle. Or, see the notes below about stay stitching. 

Without gathers, and with an optional lip

1. The marking steps are the same as above. First pin and mark the quarter points on the circle.
2. Then pin and mark the quarter points on the tube.
3. Insert the circle into the end of the tube, right sides together. Match up the marks and pin all around. It will be a bit more of a challenge then when you have the gathers to take up any slack, but with plenty of pins, you should be fine. (This is assuming that the person doing your pattern/project got the dimensions precise!) Don't be afraid to use plenty of pins. 
4. Using a ½" seam allowance, stitch the circle into place. Go slowly to keep the seam allowance consistent, and as above, stitch with the circle facing up as it will be easier to slightly ease along the way if need be. 
5. Press open the seam allowance, and clip the curves if you have a heavier fabric that could use a little more "give."
6. Turn the tube to the right side. If this is the base of a project, such as shown on our Beach Duffle above, you can topstitch around the circle to form a lip. This adds a professional look and gives the base a bit more stability. 
7. Pin the bottom circle to the side of the tube around the very bottom. 
8. Topstitch (in matching or contrasting thread, depending on the look you want to achieve) around the base with a ¼" seam allowance. 
9. You can go slightly smaller or wider with your seam allowance. It should be based on the size of project you are working with. A tiny lip will look out of proportion around a large circle; likewise, a very wide lip will look bad on a small tube. Your project/pattern should have guidelines, but ¼" is a good place to start. Cotton is forgiving, so you can always rip it out and go again.
10. You project/pattern should also tell you if interfacing is required prior to assembling the circle into the tube. 

A quick note about stay stitching

Stay stitching is a single line of stitching that simply helps stabilize the fabric to prevent stretching or distortion. In this technique, it can also provide you with a seam line to follow later when stitching the circle in place. And, in the non-gathered method, it can provide a stopping line for clipping your curve.

Run the line of stay stitching along the long edge of your rectangle prior to sewing it into a tube (in our sample, we would stay stitch the 21" side).

Stitch the side seam. 

Clip the raw edges of the end of the tube into which you are inserting the circle (of course, you may be inserting a circle into both ends). Clip approximately every ½", taking care to cut up to but not through the stay stitching.

Insert the circle into the base and pin in place. The clips will allow the fabric to flare out to match the curve of the circle. 

Use the line of stay stitching as your guideline to stitch the circle into place. 

credit: sew4home.com

DIY Tutorial | Cloth Napkin and Napkin Rings

I know I'm not the only person in the world who likes a well-set table, but I'm certainly the only person in my family.  For years my husband has tried to train me out of my "fanciness".  To be fair, I'm a pretty simple girl.  I like matching plates and cups.  White serving platters and bowls.  A tablecloth and cloth napkins on Sundays and special occasions.  He would prefer that we eat off of paper plates every night and serve food from the pan it was cooked in.  That's because I do almost all the cooking and he and the kids almost always do the dishes.  The more I dirty up, the more there is to clean afterward.  Soup looks really nice in a white ceramic tureen, but it tastes exactly the same so why dirty up a whole 'nother dish when you could just put the soup pot on the table?!  

They have me mostly converted, but guess what's right around the corner . . . MOTHER'S DAY!  My family usually makes me a really nice breakfast on Mother's Day and they do it up right -- just like I like it.  With that in mind, I decided to take some pretty fabric and sew up a new set of napkins and napkin rings for them.

Side story -- I had to order some supplies and stuff online for girls camp and Etsy orders and I figured out that I was about 1 yard of fabric away from qualifying for free shipping on the website.  Since the total cost was going to be the same either way, I was all like, "Hey, free fabric", and I added this awesome Amy Butler laurel dots to my cart.  I love it when that happens!

Anyway -- making cloth napkins isn't a super exciting project.  You just cut a square of fabric {mine was 18" on each side} and make a narrow hem all the way around to finish the edges.  BUT!  I have learned the EASIEST way to sew PERFECT MITERED CORNERS every time, and this is just the project to practice on.  You'll have 4 mitered corners per napkin and, what, like 4-8 napkins per set?  You'll be a pro by the time you're done.

First things first, you'll be able to get 4 18-inch napkins per yard of fabric so decide how many you want before you go buy fabric.  I wanted a set of 8 so I made four out of one print and 4 more out of a coordinating print.  Cut the fabric into 18" squares.

STEP 1: Begin by placing the fabric wrong-side up on your ironing board and press down  1/4 – 1/2 inch of all four sides. Double it to fold those edges in on themselves again and press another 1/4 – 1/2 inch on top of each.
Unfold the folds you just pressed and this is what you'll have:

Pretend those blue lines are your pressed fold lines.  {I'm a lazy sew-er so I hardly ever press even though my mom taught me better than that.  Love ya' mom!}Fold the corner in at a 45-degree angle right at the spot where line 2 intersects at the corner and press in place.  Trim off the extra little corner of fabric, just like in the photo.

STEP 2:  Refold the folds you pressed in step 1 along one edge and pin in place. Do the same thing for the adjacent edge:

Step 3:  Repeat for all four corners.  Stitch all the way around the edge of your square with your sewing machine using a 1/4 seam allowance.

Voila!  A perfect mitered corner!  Since I already had my sewing machine out, I decided to whip up some coordinating napkin rings out of grosgrain ribbon.  I used about 7" of ribbon and one ribbon slide for each.

 

Feed one end of your ribbon through the ribbon slide.  Fold it over about 1-1/4" and pin in place.

Sew straight down the edge of the ribbon to hold it in place.

I cut the opposite end of the ribbon at an angle and used a q-tip to dab a tiny bit of Mod Podge along the cut edge to seal it.  You could use fray check or any kind of glue that dries clear.  You just don't want your ribbon to unravel with use.   Wrap the ribbon around your cloth napkin, feed the loose end through the ribbon slide and pull it tight.

I really like the fun pop of color and the little extra prettiness it gives the place setting.  So tell me -- are you a "fancy", cloth napkins kind of girl or are you a the-simpler-the-better type?  I'm curious who I'm talking to out there. . .

Fashion News | UAE leads design market growth in Middle East and North Africa region

The UAE is the largest design market in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, with a 27 per cent share and $27.6 billion in revenues in 2014, according to Mena Design Outlook 2015 report, released on Monday.

Commissioned by the Dubai Design and Fashion Council and produced by global consultancy Deloitte, the report highlights that the UAE is expected to maintain its position in the coming years, with the country’s design market forecast to reach $35.9 billion by 2019.

Overall in the region, the design market is expected to grow by about 6 per cent annually to reach $147.5 billion by 2019, according to the report. It states that the Mena design market was valued at more than $100 billion last year, representing more than 4.5 per cent of the global design market, at $2.3 trillion. And by 2019, it is forecast to account for 5.2 per cent of the global market.

In 2013, Dubai launched a new project — the Dubai Design District (D3) — aimed at making it the region’s fashion and design hub. The project, which is developed by Tecom Investments, is located adjacent to the Business Bay area. The first phase of the project, with 11 buildings and 10,000 design and creative professionals, is complete.

Meanwhile, the second phase, which includes the “Creative Community”, is expected to be completed by 2018, followed by the third phase in 2019, which will feature the Waterfront Promenade that includes hotels, cafés, restaurants and boutiques.

Commenting on the report, Amina Al Rostamani, Chairperson of Dubai Design and Fashion Council and CEO of Tecom Investments, said: “We recognised that we currently face a lack of visibility on the design markets as well as benchmarking standards … Commissioning a study such as this gives us key insights which will enable us to shape the way forward and helps us identify the gaps in the market and introduce strategic initiatives to support the growth of the design sector.”

Saudi Arabia is the second biggest design market in the region, with revenues of $21.9 billion. Qatar and Egypt follow, both representing around half of the Saudi market.

Design revenues in the region are forecast to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9-10 per cent in the next three years.

While the UAE is the largest design market in Mena, it is likely to grow at a slower pace compared to other markets in the coming years “due to a higher level of maturity”, according to the report. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the region’s fastest growing design markets, having grown by 9 and 11 per cent respectively between 2010 and 2013.

Fashion, architecture and interior design are the largest segments of the design industry in Mena, and specifically in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as per the report.

The region is among the global emerging markets driving fashion expenditure, alongside Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The Mena fashion market has outpaced global industry growth since 2010, with a CAGR of 15.7 per cent. That compares to a global CAGR of 3.3 per cent. The growth has been driven by increased spending in retail infrastructure in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to the report.

The UAE leads the region with a 28.3 per cent share of apparel revenues, followed by Saudi Arabia with 16.8 per cent. Globally, the fashion retail market is forecast to exceed $1.7 trillion by 2019.

credit:gulfnews.com

Fashion News | Le Théâtre Dior, Fashion Catwalk Atrium at Dubai Mall from November 9 to 24

An exhibition at The Dubai Mall this month will celebrate the enduring talent of designer Christian Dior. Running from November 9 to 24 in the mall’s Fashion Catwalk Atrium, the aptly entitled Le Théâtre Dior will offer a rare insight into the world of couture, which, with its air of beauty and playfulness, is nothing if not fashion theatre.

The exhibition will lead viewers on a chronological journey from Dior’s first collection in 1947 to the present day, and will feature clothes, sketches, inspiration boards and photographs. In total, Le Théâtre Dior comprises 12 chapters, charting the couture collections as well as Dior’s inspirations, collaborations with celebrities, admiration for the arts (he started as a gallery owner before the lure of fashion took him on another path) and even his obsession with gold. The work of his successors is showcased, too, highlighting the breadth of talent that has helped sustain the house since the untimely death of its founder in 1957 – from a youthful Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan and Gianfranco Ferré, through to the turbulent years under John Galliano and the work of current artistic director Raf Simons.

A wide-reaching exhibition that sets out to capture the mindset of Monsieur Dior (as he is still known to this day) himself, this is a magical snapshot of the world he created and that has been so expertly buoyed by his successors.

Sixty of the house of Dior’s most timeless looks have been painstakingly reproduced in the atelier, and are being presented in exact but scaled-down versions. Every detail of the miniature outfits remains true to the original, down to the techniques and even the fabrics used. As some of the earliest pieces are now almost 70 years old, these fabrics are exceedingly rare.

Dior’s legendary first collection, Corelle, will be displayed on a set of moving mannequins that travel through a reimagined salon, capturing the experience of a catwalk show of the day. Corelle is the collection that launched the solo career of Monsieur Dior – and it is arguably the house’s most iconic to date.

Dior presented this first collection of outfits on February 12, 1947, essentially recharting the course of fashion with a bold new silhouette for austerity-ridden, post-war Europe. Unlike other designers of the time, Dior paid scant regard to the cost of fabric per skirt and instead swathed his models in metres of intricately pleated wool. Gone was the utilitarian practicality that so typified the age.

During the war, many women had toiled in factories and on farms, taking on the roles left vacant by absent men. The years of rationing that followed meant that commonplace items became expensive and hard to come by.

In turn, fashion took on a decidedly stark air, with durable fabrics cut into boxy, efficient shapes and shoes that were sensible and square-toed. With his first collection, Dior single-handedly swept all that aside. He called it Corelle after an imagined flower woman with “a waist as slim as a vine and a skirt as wide as a flower corolla”, he said.

He carved dramatic suit jackets from pale shantung silk sculpted into bold shapes, with tiny wasp waists and padded peplums to create a feminine hourglass effect. The skirts had padded hips and fell to mid-calf in decadent circular cuts. Wrap dresses with elegant, high crossover collars were balanced with full skirts. The press immediately dubbed the collection the “New Look”.

This was also the debut of the now iconic Bar Suit. Interestingly, all of Dior’s successors have chosen to revisit this classic suit, which so captivated audiences back in 1947, highlighting its importance to the house’s core DNA and firmly establishing it in the annals of history as a genuine fashion icon.

Fashion News | Qatar sisters The Al Subaeys offer a sneak peek at new nomadic-inspired collection

The Qatar based sisters Ghada, Hend and Maha Al Subaey, have come a long way with their ready-to-wear label The Kayys. Launched in 2011, the brand will show its new, desert-themed spring/summer 2016 collection in a runway presentation today at the Vogue Fashion ­Dubai ­Experience.

The Al Subaeys are widely felicitated – they won the Young Designer prize in the 2013 Arab Woman Awards, and also had the unique experience of dressing Gwen Stefani for her performance at the Men’s Handball Tournament in Doha in March.

Their label, which is available at The Luxury Arcade in Abu Dhabi’s World Trade Center Mall, started out as many other fashion projects do: with passion, pizzazz and out-of-the-box styling concepts.

The initial Marie Antoinette-meets-Middle East designs featured plenty of frou frou, volume and bright colours. Since then, their vision has matured, cuts have simplified and styling has become more refined. Today, the sisters are known for producing chic, on-trend designs with an urban edge and minimalist undertones – statement separates that can be layered or worn solo.

The sisters place a lot of importance on detail, and structured silhouettes and intricate hand embroidery have combined to become the brand’s signature aesthetic.

“We are really honoured and excited to be part of Vogue Italia,” says Ghada ahead of their big runway show in Dubai. “We’re looking forward to a great experience – we have so much to share with everyone.” Explaining their spring/summer line, ­Ghada says their work was inspired by a stormy desert landscape: “Abstract lines and curves reflect the mineral formations that take place on the sand dunes, and the writings integrated resemble the desert romance, poems and songs.”

Expect a soft, earthy palette of beiges, light browns and greens, in nomadic cuts such as hooded kaftans, trench dresses and bomber-inspired jackets. Textiles will include lurex wools and organic linens, cottons and silks. The new collection also draws heavily on verses by the poet Rumi, and Arabic calligraphy will be incorporated into embroidery on the garments. The sisters are no strangers to using script in their designs. Their autumn/winter 2015 show emphasised the word “numinous”, which, coupled with Arabic text, was placed on a white sheet of fabric and tacked onto the front of a grey dress and the back of a green bomber jacket.

“Numinous means having a strong religious or spiritual quality, indicating the presence of a divinity. It is a beautiful word that has several connotations and meanings on whatever you look at in life,” says Ghada, ­adding that if the brand achieves international fame for a particular style, it would be one that “embraces a woman’s inner worldly spirit and natural elegance”.

credit: thenational.ae