Trimming the Fringe

Before trimming – uneven fringe.

This is the fringe.
This is the fringe all tattered and torn (well, just uneven, actually).
This is the fringe all tattered and torn, that made the woman all forlorn.

This is the ruler and cutting mat.
That is that.

I cannot rhyme an entire post. Sorry.

Anyways, to trim the fringe on a newly woven item, I use a rotary cutter and mat, with a clear ruler. I love it! So much better than scissors and a ruler. If you don’t own a mat/ruler/rotary cutter, it is well worth asking to use your friend’s/mother-in-law’s/neighbor’s to do this job.

I prefer to leave fringe trimming until after the fabric has had it’s first wash, and has dried. This finishing relaxes the fibers, so you’ll have less deviation in the final length of the fringe.

1. Examine both ends to be fringed, to see how long the shortest yarns are – this dictates the length of your fringe. On this scarf, it was 5.5 inches .

2. Line up the area where the scarf meets the fringe with a straight line on the mat. You might find it useful to lay a heavy book on the scarf at this point, so the scarf doesn’t move.

3. Smooth/straighten out the fringe.

4. Lay the clear ruler over the fringe, lining it up with another mark on the mat the determined distance from the area where the scarf meets the fringe. At this point, don’t mess with the fringe. If you see a yarn that seems out of place, don’t just pull on it – the weight of the ruler is enough to hold the yarn in a stretched state, and after you trim and remove the ruler, that yarn will spring back and be shorter then the rest. If you want to adjust the individual yarns, take the ruler off first.

4. Use the rotary cutter to trim the yarns extending past the edge of the ruler.