Happy Monday! Okay so I’ve dodged and avoided sewing fur for the longest. There was something always a little taboo about it for me. I was intimidated by the “pile” (more on that later). And the cutting process…oh, and I was convinced that there was absolutely no way that I could mush all of that fabric underneath my presser foot. I was wrong. Like really wrong. 
So when Minerva sent over this lovely fabric I decided that this would be the year I would give this a try. I asked for extra fabric in case I made a mistake and watched my peers on Instagram explain away every excuse I had for avoiding this project. 
So here’s a few things I learned during my project (and I promise it is not that scary). By the way, I used McCall pattern 7847 and the directions were really straight forward. 
1. Pile: how thick the fur is! (A new vocabulary word for me!)
2. Nap: this should be familiar. But make sure that all of your nap is going in the same direction. I drew an arrow on the backside of my fur to remind myself of the direction.
3. Trace all of your pattern pieces on the backside of the fur with a sharpie.
4. Cut all of your pieces with the fur side facing down. It will help with precision.
5. Use really sharp scissors. You will notice that when you start cutting you will feel a difference between a good snip and a bad snip. The good snip avoids all of the fur and really only cuts the base fabric.
6. Tuck all of your fur inside as you sew. You will definitely need wonder clips and clothes pins for this step.
7. Widen your stitch length. For me I widened it to the widest length and it worked perfectly. And then I readjusted it back for my lining pieces.
8. Use a walking foot. I found that this helped keep all thicknesses together much easier than any other foot.
9. Hand baste your sleeve. There was no way that I was going to be able to baste stitch all of this on my machine. So I broke out the needle and thread.
10. Try it on as you go! Seriously! It will build your confidence! 
RAVEN MAUREEN 