We consider ourselves pretty artistic around the old Appel household. And my wife, one
of her favorite things is dance. That’s right she is part of the super cool African
inspired Drum and Dance ensemble. And one of the cool things we get to do a lot of the
times is costuming. So today on Man Sewing I’m going to show you how to make their
easy wrap skirt we call the Lapa. Let’s get started.
Now a Lapa is a lot like a sarong but it has a belt attached to it. So we’re going to
make a very, very simple version of this today. And I’m going to show you how to make and
install the belt as well as how to cut down a standard piece of 45 inch goods. So today
we’re using this awesome print called New Wave by Carol Bryer Fowler, one of my all
time favorite quilt makers. Carol, one of these days I hope I get to meet you. So if
you’re watching this video, send me an email, please. Rob@mansewing.com so we can have coffee
together, right? I’m buying. Now back to this. And we have a link down in the description
below where you can get this in a bazillion different colors. It’s fantastic. We also
have some of the basic instructions of what we’re doing today. So if I’m going a little
fast because I’m super wound up as always, don’t worry just go ahead and print this
out and you can see what we’re doing with the math and the numbers. But we’re going
to take a yard and a half which is 54 inches of this print. Straight off of the bolt. And
we are going to prepare to cut it.
We’re going to start by making the belting. So as this comes straight from our local quilt
shop, right? You have the selvedges here on both sides. And what we’re going to do is
we’re going to fold this, and I’m focusing on my folded edge. I want to make sure that
that part stays as crisp as possible. And I’m going to be cutting the selvedges off
so I’m now positioning it so that it’s ready for my right hand that cuts. And I’m
going to fold this one more time. Now the girth of the skirt is going to be a bit dependable
on your height. So we’re going to be able to adjust that towards the end of the tutorial.
Right now we’re just making the belting so I’m coming down here. And the first thing
I’m going to do is I’m looking at my ruler along the fold that I’ve created. So I have
a nice and crisp cut this way. And we’re just going to remove the selvedges. I’ve
got several layers in here so I’m going to push nice and hard with a sharp rotary
blade. And of course you also notice my hand is out of the way in case my blade were to
jump there. We’re going to set that aside.
The next thing we want, we’re going to want two cuts that are five inches, right? So first
thing we’re going to do here. And now I’m going to spin this. And this is my clean edge
now. So I’m going to lay my ruler on here so that it is five inches here. And if you’re
not sure if you folded it correctly, the best thing you can do to double check is open this
up and make sure that you have two that are cut at five inches because that’s exactly
what we needed. The two by 54 inches created the rest of this that is left behind becomes
the body of the skirt, right? Ok so I’m just going to now set that aside for a few
moments. And we’re going to start by making the belting. Get some of this stuff out of
the way. And the easiest way to make the belting is we’re going to join these two pieces
on the bias. And one of the fun tricks when you’re joining things on the bias is you
have one piece of fabric laying, I’m just going to call this horizontal. Then this next
piece of fabric is going to touch. And these are right sides together. And these are going
to lay now vertical. And I’m going to sew from this top edge down to this bottom edge.
Now when I’m doing it with my binding it’s a little easier because we’re only dealing
with about 2 ½ inches worth. So for the trick I’m going to do now is I’m going to bring
this over to my iron. And I’m going to set a crease in this piece of fabric so I have
a good visual of where I’m going. So I was coming from this top edge down to the bottom
edge. So I’m going to fold it over like this. And I’m squaring up my outside edge
here. And then I’m just put a little bit of a warm iron on top of that. And what that
does is it sets my seam allowance so that I can see it, ok? Now I bring this right back
over here. And we’re going to go to the machine and we’re going to stitch from the
top down. Make sure you have both pieces of fabric secure, ok? And now once that is trimmed.
Another good thing to do to make sure you’ve gotten it right before you cut it is you want
to open it up and make sure that you’re on the bias and you have a long strip that
has started to form, ok? Once you know you have it cut right, we’re going to trim off
this excess. And we can do it just like we’re making our quilts with a quarter inch seam
allowance. So I’m laying the ruler there. Oop, and I’m taking the blade off of the
cutter. We’re going to pause for a small commercial break while I go ahead and take
care of that.
Now that the blade is securely back on the rotary cutter we’re going to cut that line
with my quarter inch right? Just like that. We’ll set those aside for another project.
And now we’re ready to start building our belting. We’re going to tri-fold this, meaning
I want to sew one inch here and the other edge or I’m going to say iron it that way.
Make it easiest on myself though, let’s fold this in half and set a center line so
we can see what we’re doing. Ok so as I have both of those raw edges now pressed towards
the center so we can just fold this over as we get ready to stitch. Let’s talk about
building the body of the lapa before we can put our belt on. So I need the piece that
I cut those edges off. And it’s very simple but take a minute, slow down. Remember the
length, the 54 inches goes around us this way because we want to be able to wrap it
at least once, once and a half if possible. So the edges I’m talking about right now
are these outer edges which should be about 35 inches because we cut about ten inches
off when I made the belt. It’s a really easy process. You’re just going to fold
over, I’m going to call it a quarter of an inch and then a second time, just like
this. And go right into your sewing machine here and just ride a nice straight stitch
right down the edge of that. And you’re going to do it on both sides. So that when
it’s all done it looks just like this, ok?
So you can see there’s that finished edge as I was working. And I have it on this side
and I have it on this side. There you go. Now we’re going to put the belt in and we
need to find the center top of our fabric. So if this print had a direction right like
it was little drums or something fun like that all along the print you would want to
make sure you’re working on the top edge. I’m going to simply go ahead and put a little
finger press. I could hit it with my iron if I wanted to. I just kind of want to know
where the halfway mark is, ok? The next thing I want to do is I want to know where the halfway
mark is on my belt as well. I’m going to set it like this, come back around and we
can trim the edges of our belting off also to make this adjustable when we’re done
or adjustable to your body size. So I’m not worried about finishing those edges yet.
We’re going to get to that at the very end. Once I found the center here I’m going to
spin this around like this, ok? Then what’s going to happen is I’m going to lay that
just like this, raw edge and everything. That’s right, we’re not even going to worry about
finishing this upper edge. We’re just going to close this belt over. And what I want to
do is I want to put several pins in here to secure where I’m working. And I’m going
to be stitching it from this top side so I can see what’s going on. So that means that
I want my bobbin thread to match on the outside of my lapa as well. And I’m going to pin,
let’s say about every ten to 12 inches. And what I’m doing with my fingers right
now is I’m feeling in here with my fingers that this top edge of the belt and the bottom
edge of the belt are lining up.
So it’s all secure and it’s ready to go to the sewing machine. I want to think about
what’s going to be the easiest way for me to stitch this. So the easiest way for me
to stitch this is from the top down with all of the body of the lapa and the belting and
everything over on this side. Again there’s many a way to skin this cat. Easiest for me
is to start all the way up here at the edge of the belting. Folding it in half so that
there’s no longer any raw edges. And we’re going to lay this thing right under the presser
foot and we’re just going to start stitching away. I’m not even going to backstitch here
because that’s going to be trimmed off. Now the nice thing about doing this right
now is it’s going to give us the opportunity to make sure that our thread and our needle
and everything is organized and that the stitch is laying right where I want it on the belting.
So I’m looking. And the edge of the belting is very very close to the edge of the presser
foot. It’s like the opposite of a quarter inch seam allowance . And here we go. I’m
going to jump into caffeinated mode. Ok and now we are just about two inches away from
where the belt meets the beginning of the lapa. So I’m just making sure everything
is nicely organized. I’m looking at the edge here. And I’m just going to go ahead
and begin sewing. And I’m going to take my time. And I’m using my fingers. And I’m
pinching my finger and my thumb over here a couple inches back to make sure that nothing
is shifting around so that I’m capturing both edges. We don’t sew over pins. So I’m
pulling that out as the pin touches the presser foot . And we’re just going to keep running
this down. I’ve got a lot of focus right now on the pinch of the fabric between my
finger and my thumb so that when I’m done the whole thing is stitching. And you can
probably see this real nice. It’s catching the edge of the belting right there on the
outside. So this is why I’m saying, you want your bobbin thread to be something that
matches very nicely on the outside because it’s the bobbin thread that will show on
the outside of your costuming or your wardrobe there. So I finished off the belting and it’s
completely secured. We no longer have any raw edge at all up in the top of our lapa.
Turned out really good if I may say so myself. We have the finished edges on both of the
sides. So we only have three raw edges left. We have the bottom of the lapa which we’ll
adjust once we try it on. And the tails of the belt we need to deal with once we’ve
tried it on as well. So to try it on, the way this works here is it’s going to start
by going around our back. Then we’re going to put one of the ties and we wear it right
above our hips but I’m to make sure the tie comes out. Then this comes around like
this way. And of course I should have probably taken my cell phone out. You can feel it on
my hip there. Now if you want or if you’re not a 58 inch waist like I am, ha ha. You
could technically tie it in the front. But most of us will just take and we’re just
going to tie it in the back. The belting here has gotten myself secured. And I know that
once I’ve gotten my loops created in the back that I still have extra tail that I can
cut off. So I know that I can trim that there. And then I’m just looking down and I realize
that it’s going to hit me. I want this to come just below my knees so I can take about
an inch off the bottom. But I’m just going to fold that and sew it instead of cutting
and then sewing. Just to make life easy.
So let’s talk about how to finish these belt ends, right? So if I want to finish the
belt ends, one of the first things I’m going to do is I’m going to get myself a clean
edge, ok? So we’re just going to take a second and clean that up. From that point
on I’m just going to go ahead and pinch inside and start to push. And a lot of times
I’ll grab a little scissor or something to push all of that raw edge into the inside
of the belt. And then we’ll just topstitch it closed. So this won’t have any raw edges
so it won’t keep unraveling. Now that that’s turned in there, I’m just going to come
in here and stitch across the top. And I’m going to take two layers. All the way back
and a little bit forward. And that locks all that in. And then I’ll just trim off those
thread tails. And of course you want to do that to both sides. And then for the bottom
all you would do, and I find it’s easiest when I something the bottom to simply take
this up here. And I’m going to fold it up once and stitch it. Try it on one more time
to make sure I know right where I want it. And then I could adjust it by two inches,
three inches or anything like that. And the heavier the hem the more it’s going to drape
down towards the bottom. So that ends up working out real nice.
So it doesn’t get much easier than that does it? Today’s tutorial is almost wrapped
up. I’m going to point out these are also a great beach cover up. And I do believe I
hear the beating of the drum so I’ve got to jam. And we’ll catch you next time here
at Man Sewing.