Faux Piping in Acrylic for All of Your Seriously Inconvenient Piping Needs
1. Paint the top edge a lighter color and blend.
2. Take a darker color and make a very thin line right above the lighter area. This simulates the shadow that would be created by a 3D pipe sewn on.
3. Take a few steps back and see if anything looks weird, or draws your eye. Do this in natural lighting, or in lighting similar to your debut venue. Optical illusions are tricky. Fix anything that looks fake.
Painted depth is not very convincing from the side, but very nice from a normal distance and much cleaner than a real pipe would be on this crazy seam.
(Also an example of recycling vinyl by refinishing it with acrylic.)
Have fun! ;p
Embossing Tutorial for Raised Designs on Fabric
While working on this year’s AN costume, I found a raised design. Applique might have worked, with a thicker fabric, but it seemed more embossed, so here’s my solution for adding some depth!
- Take your pattern, and sketch the design you’d like to emboss on it. Trace the new design onto a new template.
- Transfer your design to a piece of foam. One layer is probably enough, but if you need more height, cut more layers.
- Check your foam layer against your garment to make sure it fits as you’d like.
- Sandwich that foam between two layers of fabric. I’ve cut two layers of the original pattern piece for this, but you could probably make patches if your design is small and far from seams. Pin it in place so it doesn’t shift while you sew.
- Start sewing the two pieces of fabric around your foam. Try and be snug. You’re probably going to want to hand-stitch this if your design is more complex than straight lines. Here’s my design in-progress, with the holes still open.
- The effect will look different on different fabrics. I’d recommend at least one fabric be with out stretch, because the foam will not stretch. Also, the thicker your fabric, or more textured, the less noticeable your foam layer will be, and may need bulking up to compensate.
This sort of embossing hasn’t come up often for me, but hopefully this will help someone else!
also called trapunto or trapunto quilting. I used this for my Ganondorf with great success, but I used felt cut outs rather then foam because I needed the movement.
