If you’ve read our Pasties ‘how to’ Make yourself Professional pasties Pt 1 then you already know how to make yourself some basic (un-decorated – we’ll get onto that in the last part!) pasties with tassels… but what if you want to make some that are a more ‘specialist’ shape? Here is the low down on making shaped pasties…  

You will need: 

Card

Compass

pencil

some idea of the shape you want to make – have a look on google at some basic shapes and print out…

Your imagination!

Step 1

Draw out a basic circle on your card – make it bigger than you would usually need. Find the centre and cut out, cut up to the centre and then pull into cone shape. Do not stick – you will need to unstick to make this shape into your template, instead secure with a paper clip or some bluetack.

Step 2

With a pencil, draw out your desired shape. I’m making a pair of diamonds… Points to remember here: try to fill out the circle – making notches on the circle edge will help you scale your pastie. Also, remember to incorporate the join – I usually put this on the bottom of the pastie as it is less obvious. Here’s another tip, if you want a straight line, remember you are drawing onto a curved shape so your straight line can’t be drawn with a ruler – try notching the edges of the circle, where you want your line to finish and end, then using a ruler and a lamp, use the shadow of the ruler on the card to draw the line (when you open up the card pastie template it will look slightly curved – this is perfect – don’t be tempted to straighten once the template is flat). Once you are happy with the shape, go over it with a pen, and add any decoration details so you will know where to place them later when you decorate.

Step 3

Undo your card template and cut out. Here’s where your template stops looking like what you want it to be! Once you’ve cut out, you can then use this as your template. Here’s what you need to remember at this point – when drawing your template onto buckram and backing, after drawing one, turn your template over and draw the other pastie. This will give you a pair, rather than two pasties that face the same way. Do the same for the backing.

step 4 +5

Cover your buckram with your choice of fabric and sew up the join, sew the join of the backing and then sew the backing to the front. If you are adding a tassel, add it before you put on the backing (basically, follow step 3 of our pasties part 1 in the link above if you are unsure). Once you have done this, then transfer any design details from your template with tailor’s chalk. Now you are ready to decorate – which is the next part of our pasties how to!

Some popular template ideas…

…And some ‘interesting’ shapes I’ve made, just for inspiration! You really can make any shape you like, the only limit is your imagination! Here are flowers, a star, a heart (definitely remember to do a L+R of this shape!) Aladdin’s lamp (ditto L+R!) and a cross – where I found that drawing straight lines isn’t that easy on a curved shape!