Faux Fur Shrug Tutorial

In order to be super prepared for any weather situation on my wedding day, I decided to sew up luxurious faux fur shrug in white to compliment my wedding look. Luckily we had PERFECT weather for the special day and I didn’t actually need to cozy up in this shrug to keep warm, but really happy to have made it since it sewed together quite quickly and easily – just see below! And now I have a fabulous shrug for the holiday season to keep me warm. I also talk about this shrug in the recent Sew Cozy episode of Sew & Tell Podcast.

I wanted the style simple and short – and this Burda Style pattern was it. It is actually a plus size pattern, but the silhouette was a bit oversized anyway so it wasn’t a problem and I opted to sew the smallest size 44.

The pattern only had two pieces, and I really loved the front lower curved hem shape. I also was looking for a pattern with minimal seams as I feel that works best with faux fur fabrics.

Speaking of faux fur, for this shrug I used this amazingly soft and real looking fur from Shannon Fabrics. It was their solid mink fur in white and for the lining I used their silky satin fabric in off-white. Even though one was white and the other off-white, they worked together beautifully and matching both my wedding looks in case I needed to wear it during any point of the evening.

I tiled my pattern together, added my seam allowances and transfered my pieces to the backing of the faux fur. I like to first pin the pattern pieces just to the backing and use wax chalk to mark around the edges also catching things like notches.

Once every pieces is laid out (keeping the nap of the fur in mind too!), I unpin my pieces and grab my trusty knife to cut them out with. Do not cut faux fur with scissors or a rotary cutter, you don’t want to give the fabric a hair cut but simply just cut the backing of the faux fur.

The first seam to sew was the shoulder seam, so I pinned my fronts to my back matching up the sleeve hem edges as well as the neckline. The nap had the faux fur laying downwards so it was easy to pin this seam with the fur already tucked into the seam.

I actually like to keep my pins in when I sew with faux fur, and I also sew very slow with a slightly longer stitch length. Instead of using a walking foot, I find it easier for me and my machine to keep on my regular foot and just to actually lighten the pressure of the foot, especially if the backing of the faux fur is knit and stretches. This prevents the top layer from stretching out as you sew (the pins also help with this).

After I stitched both of my shoulder seams on the outer fur shrug, I cut my lining pieces and also stitched together the shoulder seams from sleeve hem to the neckline. I didn’t bother finishing my fabric edges since they would be enclosed in the shrug, but I did press them open.

Now here come all the pins! So I had my lining and my outer shell sewn just at the shoulder seams, so it was time to put them together. I laid each piece out and with the right sides together I first matched up the shoulder seams. Then I continued pinned down each front to the notch after the curve passing over the back neckline too. I really spent the time year using a lot of pins and pushed up the furs into the seam. You can see where the notch is at the base of the curve where the fur naturally lays. Doing this now prevents combing the furs out of the seam after sewing.

I also pinned the back lower lining to the hem of the faux fur from notch to notch pushing the fur into the seam and using a lot of pins.

I stitched each seam back stitching at the notches.

As well as the lower back seam, then I flipped the entire shrug to the right side though the open sleeve tunnel.

Ta-da! Loving the look of this so much already.

The sleeve seam was still unfinished, so that was next to sew. The edges at the top and bottom come together at bottom of the shrug to create the under sleeve seam.

I first peeled back the lining…

…and brought the faux fur edges together, pinning and stitching from the sleeve hem to as close to the notch as I could get.

Then I flipped my lining pieces along the sleeve seam to pin them right sides together to the notch.

This way of stitching the sleeve seam leaved the sleeve hem edges unfinished, so I pressed my lining allowance to the wrong side and pinned to the fur.

Then using a hand sewing needle and double thread, I whip-stitching around the sleeve finishing the edge.

This shrug is fully lined and finished, and looks chic to wear pretty much over anything!

Really love the simplistic design and it doesn’t take much faux fur fabric to sew it either.

I can just snuggle up in this shrug all season long!

Here I’m wearing it over the 2nd wedding look that you can see here.

Now all I need are some long gloves to complete this elegant look. The limegreen under fabric in my look is also Shannon Fabric silky satin! I used the off white and limegreen silky fabric for more wedding projects including eye masks for my bachelorette party, my getting robe, and a slip for my honeymoon – more tutorial posts to come.

Hope you enjoyed seeing how I sewed this faux fur shrug together.

Happy Sewing!

Meg