The first decoration inspired by Comme des Garçons is a playful star made from glitter felt. If you are familiar with the Comme des Garçons Play collection then this is a star-shaped version of their little heart icon. In this post, you can see more of the Rei Kawakubo inspired fashion baubles.
This is a project that doesn’t need any sewing, so it’s perfect for easing future sewers into some of the basic fabric handling and cutting skills that are needed to work on garments. In this blog post, we will use some of the cutting methods and equipment from our book How To Start Sewing.
Equipment:
- Rotary Cutter (How To Start Sewing, Chapter 22)
- Protective Mat (Chapter 22)
- Fabric Shears (Chapter 3)
- Tailor’s Chalk (Chapter 6)
- Hot Glue Gun.
Fabric / Materials / Trims:
- Glitter felt in red.
- Plain felt in black and white.
- 6 mm wide black ribbon in double sided satin.
Patterns:
- Playful star template or simply make your own shapes.
Techniques:
- Mark and cut fabric (Chapter 23)
Step 1: Prepare Your Pattern
Create your own template by hand or on Adobe Illustrator for a basic star shape and draw outlines of eyes as well. The pattern used here has a star about 11 cm high. You may only want one copy of the pattern, or if making the project with kids you may want extra copies.
Step 2: Mark Star on Felt
Felt is a great choice for a project like this because it doesn’t fray. Use tailor’s chalk to mark the star shape onto the back of the felt if you are using a glitter felt as shown here.
Step 3: Cut Out Stars
Cut out the outline of the stars using a rotary cutter. Don’t forget to put a self-healing protective mat underneath the felt while you work. This is good practice for cutting lots of simple straight lines. Be careful not to roll the blade too far into the inside corners, instead, you can use fabric shears to snip the felt.
Step 4: Cut Out Felt for Eyes
Next, cut out the white and black felt to make the eyes. You don’t need to use a pattern for this, just do it freehand and trim the shapes as you like. If you look at the Comme des Garçons heart you will see that the shapes are a little chunky anyway and this is part of its charm, so they don’t need to be perfect.
Step 5: Glue On the Eyes
Use a hot glue gun to stick the whites of the eyes onto the stars then add the black dots. Play around with the angle of the eyes and the spacing between them to get them to look right before you apply them.
Step 6: Add Hanging Ribbon
Fold over the tip of the star and make a small snip with your fabric shears to create a tiny slit in the top of the star. Next, cut pieces of the ribbon to use for hanging the decorations. You can alter the length depending on the size of your decoration but here the ribbon was cut into 24 cm pieces. This length allowed enough space for the ribbon to be doubled over and a knot tied in the top.
Finished Playful Stars
And now you have your finished stars!
