pay it forward

i joined a crafting event at the beginning of this year to create hand-made items for a few followers on fb and the initiator. in return, i would receive gifts from them. so far i have received photos by my friend joe, of his parents' farm, and salt mix & drawstring bag from katie. the salt mix is delicious. i pretty much put it on everything i've been cooking.

so this weekend, i worked on my gift for katie. i chose to make a scarf with hand sewn beading from McCall's M6253, view D.

the project required me to work with very light fabrics, such as chiffon or georgette. i found a gorgeous dark teal green chiffon at hancock this weekend at the clearance section for 2$ a yard. score! also found two strings of amber colored beads from mangelsen's. i think...they're crystals? a lot heavier than plastic regardless.

i have never worked with chiffon before. or satin. or anything thin and slippery. boy, was i in for a treat. i prepped the fabric by spraying it with sullivan's spray stabilizer, hoping that it will magically handle like cotton after it dries. much to my dismay, it didn't. the fabric stiffened up somewhat, but still slipped around when cutting, which resulted in some length discrepancy in the end. the pattern called for 1/8" seam allowance...lolwut? i had to double the seam allowance after my machine tried to eat the fabric. attaching the beads with hand sewing was actually a lot easier than i thought. it required rouching every 7/8" or so in between attaching beads. here are some pictures of the wip:

close up of the beads:

it took me about 2 hours to attach all the beads. a rough estimate about 50 beads? probably more. i don't know. it was pretty relaxing, as i was watching law & order: svu marathon while sewing. here's the end product:

as you can see, my scarf didn't turn out exactly as pictured....the two long ends should be facing each other...rather than away from. i am expert at following instructions, can you tell? haha! i actually think they look fine either way. false comfort, maybe!

pattern snapshot

pattern ease: super easy
pattern accuracy: seam allowance is too small. cannot work with 1/8" on thin & slippery fabric.
fabric suggestions: i can't imagine this scarf in anything but super lightweight fabrics like chiffon or georgette. maybe really lightweight silk as well...?
will i make this again? while the project was fun, i was also super frustrated with trying to handle chiffon. so...no :(