Sewing Tips

Below you will find general tips that my students hear from me over and over as I teach. Following that is a description of notions (1), sewing terminology (2), and then a general guide for estimating yardage (3) needed for most projects.

Tips for Beginning Sewers and Others by Connie Rohne, Fields Fabrics Sewing Class

If you want your sewing projects to have a professional finished look, you won’t want to skip these important steps.

LEARN YOUR MACHINE

Every machine has its nuances. Before you start any project, make sure your machine is in good working order and that you understand the basics of your machine. Your machine manual will be a good friend, if you don’t have one, find one online. You must know how to:

1. Thread your machine

2. Fill and load your bobbin

3. Know parts of machine and their importance

4. Select stitch, length and width, and how to back stitch which will secure your thread.

5. Use your presser foot and needle position to secure and move your fabric

Most machines can do more than the basics. You will learn what different presser feet are used for. Your machine probably has extra stitches to help create a professional look, such as a blind hem stitch, built in buttonholes stitch, stretch stitches, and decorative stitches that are fun for creating fancy top stitch finishes. Other important things included in your manual are needle size, thread weight, stitch details, and care of your machine.

IRON

Iron your fabric to remove wrinkles before cutting and during construction. (If you are using shrinkable fabric you should wash it first, but not many fabrics shrink nowadays.) To iron delicate fabric, use a damp washcloth between the iron and the fabric. The steam created helps remove the wrinkle, and the heat doesn’t get put directly on the fabric.

Iron your seams open. Iron the finished sides nice and flat. This is the one of most important things that affects the professional finished look of your project.

PINS

Use straight pins to hold your pattern in place as you cut, and your pieces in place as you sew. Ball point pins are the narrowest and will not leave a hole in fine fabric. They will bend the easiest as well, so use sturdier pins on heavier weight fabrics.

Place your pins in your fabric with the head toward the center and the point toward the edge. This will make sewing easier as your pin head will not interfere as you move your fabric under your machine’s presser foot. (If you are serging, be sure your pins are more than ½ inch from the edge of your fabric, so you do not chance them catching in the knife of your serger.)

STRAIGHT AND CONSISTENT

The straight stitch will be most used. Sewing nice straight lines at a consistent distance from the fabric edge is one of most important things that affects the professional finished look of your project. 5/8 inch is the standard seam allowance width. You should know at a glance which guideline is 5/8 inch. Watch the guidelines on your machine when sewing. You should backstitch about 3 stitches at the beginning and end of every seam, like tying a knot. This will keep your seams from unraveling. Practice makes perfect!

READING A PATTERN

Once you learn to read and follow a pattern, you can make almost anything. They tell you what and how much fabric and notions (thread, buttons, zipper, etc.) you need; how to layout your pattern on the fabric to conserve material; and how to construct your project. A store-bought pattern contains a guide and tissue paper pattern pieces. READ your guide as well as look at the images for each step. Use a 5/8-inch seam unless the pattern guide says to use a different size.

OTHER HELPFUL ITEMS

A tape measure and a four foot ruler are almost necessities if you plan to sew a lot.

A white or blue fabric marking pencil will come in extremely handy for guiding you as you sew and cut.

A French Curve is extremely handy when you need to alter a pattern, or if you want to create your own.

Learn About Fabric on my website: https://sewconnie.com. Click on About Fabrics in the nav bar.

A serger is a specialized sewing machine that generally uses 3-5 threads and 2 needles and binds fabric together with an overlock stitch. This is the finishing stitch you see on many manufactured shirts and garments that you have right now. A serger makes a very professional looking seam. The threads lock around the seam to prevent fraying, and the machine also cuts off the seam allowance as it sews. Additionally, serged seams are ideal for stretch fabrics because the stitches can stretch with the fabric. Sergers are very fast and make sewing knits and fabric that frays much easier. A serger is not a stand-alone machine– it can’t replace a standard sewing machine. You need to have the standard sewing machine for things like topstitching, zippers, and sewing inside corners and things like buttonholes.

If you are a new sew-er, print the following out and keep it by your machine until these things become habit.

ARE YOU READY TO SEW?

1. Fill your bobbin and place correctly in the machine

2. Thread your machine correctly

3. Hold end of top thread and rotate the handwheel (top toward front) until needle thread goes around bobbin and pulls bobbin thread up through the needle plate. Brush both threads (about 5 or 6 inches so needle will not unthread when you start sewing) behind pressure foot.

4. When fabric is ready to sew, with needle raised place fabric under pressure foot and line it up on the right side with the 5/8-inch guideline, and the front edge with back end of the presser foot.

5. PUT PRESSER FOOT DOWN before sewing

6. Sew a stitch or 2 and BACKSTITCH 2 or 3 to secure threads, then sew the seam and BACKSTITCH at the end to secure and keep your seam from unraveling.

7. Remember …. NO question is a dumb question!

You can learn about more sewing notions and sewing terminology below from information provided by Sure-Fit Designs.