#lolita tutorial

Crossposting my little video here on trimming fur around usakumya's face to make it cuter!

I think this is a common practice for Chinese and Japanese lolitas, but it seems to not necessarily be too well known overseas. I recall watching a video by Cordelia in the Summer who edited a clip by BABY shop staff about it, and wanted to try myself!

T-shirt refashion from regular unisex shirt to cute lolita-style cutsew! No serger/overlocker machine used, only some elastic.  So happy to have finally  redone this shirt to something that fits and is comfy but cute. Base tee shirt from https://preciousbbyz.com/

Check out the tutorial and video here!

Ruffled maid-style headdress tutorial.

Someone asked for one of these, and I made a very complex bonnet tutorial and then remembered that I wasn't supposed to be making a bonnet.

Start by measuring the top of your head. I wear glasses sometimes, so I just ran it from one earbar, over the top of my head, and over to the other earbar. This is about the size of the headband that you're going to put it onto.

Cut yourself a piece of double-fold, extra-wide bias tape to be about 1" longer than this measurement. Fold the ends in and iron it so they stick around.

The ruffle itself is going to be a strip of fabric about 1.75x-2x the length of your bias tape. We're using this piece of silk dupioni that I pulled out of my sewing room trash, but you probably want to use a fabric that coordinates with your dress. This would work pretty well with quilt cotton, so take advantage of the crazy number of prints you can find on quilt cotton.

Sew a line of basting stitches at the bottom of your ruffle. Normally, you'd use two lines of basting for gathering, but I usually use one when it's less than a foot long. Mark the middle of the ruffle and the middle of your bias tape.

Pin the ends and middle of your bias tape to the ends and middle of your ruffle.

Note: I overlocked the edge of my ruffle here, but I ended up wishing that I hadn't done that, so don't get confused by that line of stitching.

Grab one of your threads on each end (make sure you're grabbing the same thread, eg both side you're grabbing the bobbin thread) and pull on them to make the gathers. Once you have your thread to be the same size as the bias tape, you can move the gathers around until they look even.

Again, I overlocked and rounded the edges of the ruffle first. It made things harder. Just use the raw edge of your ruffle.

Fold your bias tape over onto the ruffle, encasing the gathered edge.

Note: bias tape has a long side and a short side. When you look at a new piece of bias tape, you'll see that one lip of the tape is longer than the other. For this, you want the top side that you're putting the pins on to be the shorter side. It will just look better if you do that.

Once you've sewn that down, take your scissors and round the edges. This is really hard to eyeball when the ruffle is flat. Gathering it up changes the shape, so it's best to draw the shape in after it's gathered.

This is also a good time to hold it up to your head and see if your ruffle width is too wide. Mine was about 2" wide, but a more crisp fabric might need to be shorter since the fabric would have more body.

To finish the other edge, we're going to apply a flat lace onto the raw edge.

Your lace will have a decorative edge and a finished/sealed edge. I'm using a piece of paper here because I forgot to photograph this and I don't have lace on hand.

With the decorative edge facing inwards, sew the lace on. Make sure that the bottom of the lace is hanging off the raw edge of the fabric a bit (second picture.)

Then, flip the lace around by folding your fabric so that the lace edge points away from the fabric. Since your finished lace edge was sewn hanging off the raw edge, it will now cover the raw edge. Then, you just need to sew that finished lace edge down, and you've added lace and covered your raw edge all in one go.

Full, perky, and symmetrical bows are essential to lolita. Sure you’ve watched videos on how to tie them, I know you know how to do it. Every bow you tie comes out perfectly. But when it comes to actually tying your waist ties behind your back before you go out... You’re stuck.

A lot of people don’t know how to a nice bow. Unless you live with a sailor, chances are you’re not going to be able to teach your roommate/partner/parents to tie a nice one for you because beyond tying their shoes, they just don’t really give a damn.

Fortunately most waist ties come unattached to the dress, which means you don’t need to find a sailor to tie your waist ties. You can do it yourself!