Wealth of Experience: Sewing Tips

A post of tips - anything you wish someone had told you when you started to sew, that you figured out yourself since!

Machine stitching
If you're new to sewing with a machine and you find that your seams are wobbly: keep your eyes on the edge of the fabric as it goes through under the sewing foot. I remember that when I first started I stared at the machine needle - but looking at the fabric edge gives you a more even result.

Take it slow
It is so tempting to race through stitching something together but puckers and slipped layers are very frustrating. Take it slow when sitting at your sewing machine: check that all your layers are lying flat and that no fold of fabric got in the way. Particularly when sewing in sleeves...

Sew shortest seams first
When you have a narrow collar or buttonband, or any similar pattern piece, that you need to sew to something at its narrow end - sew those seams first. If you leave this until after you sewed the longer side, it is incredibly difficult to get the angle right. The narrow end is likely to slope in one direction or other and will be too long or too tight. As a result, the garment will look less well sewn.

Sew onto flat pieces first
I did a blog post about this one. It is easier to attach pieces like a patch pocket, a pocket flap, collars, etc... to a pattern piece when it is still flat and hasn't been sewn to many, if any, other pieces. The sewing instructions that come with your pattern may have you do these kinds of pieces last but that makes it more difficult.
After all haute couture does a lot of construction in flat pieces and only pulls it all together right at the end.

Zipper length
If your sewing pattern specifies a zip of say seven inches but you can only find one of eight inches or longer, don't despair: get the longer one.  If the difference is only one inch, you can let that dangle inside (easier to sew in as well!) and if longer than that then stitch the zip teeth together tightly on the inside and cut zipper off below. Worse like a charm.

Pinning a concave and a convex piece together
Put pins in perpendicular to the fabric edge but don't align the edges of the fabric pieces. The longer outside curved edge will need to pucker a little at that edge to make sure that the stitching line (the seam allowance's distance away from the edge) of both pieces gets pinned together smoothly. You can get the fabric pieces to come together flat at the stitching line when you hold the layers between a finger and thumb (at the stitching line) and make sure they are smooth and flat to the previous pin. It takes a bit of trial and error but you'll get there!

Double-folded hems
These are really tricky. Mine often produce these slight diagonally dragging lines from the folded edge to the stitching line - because one of the fabric layers shifted away from the other layer. Basting the hem may help; you can try a walking foot; or at the very least using lots of pins! Set thepins into the fabric perpendicularly. If you still have problems: do baby hems instead!

Baby hems
Try these instead of double folded hems. You need to serge/overlock the edge of your fabric to be hemmed. Then machine baste along the line where you want to fold the fabric up (before folding it) - this is using the longest straight sttich on your machine. Then fold up and press the hem with your iron: the fabric will fold easily at the machine basted/stitched line. It works beautifully!  Once you have your hem pressed, stitch at a suitable distance from the folded edge from the right side. Experiment with how deep you want your hem to be or if you literally only want to fold up the serged/overlocked edge and top stitch very close to the edge (which is then called edge stitching)

Use a tailor's awl
When it is tricky to sew over the bit where one fabric layer has a seam (you get loads of those when sewing patchwork!), then use a tailor's awl to hold the seam allowance down so you can sew smoothly over this bit. A tailor's awl is a straight spike with a handle at the end. It saves your fingers from going too close to the machine's needle. Don't use your fingers too close to the needle, it's not worth it.

Pulling pins before stitching
It is tempting to sew over the pins where they hold the fabric layers together. It is safer to pull each pin as you approach it. You can either stop stitching to remove each pin, or if it is a long straight seam and you're going slow, you may be able to remove pins before you get too close to sewing over them (and before the screw at the side of the machine foot comes plunging down onto your poor fingers). If your needle ever hits a pin straight on, the machine needle can break at the neede's eye and the pointed end will fly off at a high velocity. You really don't want it ending up in your eye, take time to pull the pins instead. Much safer.


What tip would you give yourself if you could go back in time?  Please post in the comments!

Please contribute: tips for sewing a simple skirt

Shall we do a collaborative blog post?  All about tips for sewing beginners about sewing a skirt.

At our monthly meetings we often get the question from sewing beginners: "I would like to sew but I never have before and I don't know where to start".  We have lots of advice and tips so how about collecting it all in one place?  Like right here!

We often recommend that a beginner sew a simple skirt first. There isn't quite as much going in terms of different elements that a dress or trousers would demand (getting sleeves to fit into the armhole, or doing a front zip on trousers).

First tip: when you want to use a stretch fabric and you have never sewn before then pick a firm jersey fabric that is a bit thicker than the cheaper jerseys that are very saggy and extremely difficult to sew with. Sewing with thin jersey fabric is something that I still can't do. Avoid it if you want to retain your sanity. Honestly.

Woven fabrics are much easier to sew with (as far as I'm concerned), but because they don't stretch they need to be fitted to your shape to look good.

There are different skirt styles with different degrees of difficulty. A gathered skirt made from two rectangular pieces is the easiest, - circular skirts and skirts made from flared panels are also relatively simple.

The more pieces your pattern has the more sewing you'll do, but you also get more opportunity to fit the garment to your shape because you have more seamlines you can adjust.

Sewing in a zip isn't as difficult as I feared when I was a beginner but you may want to go with a button closure on a first project. See how you feel.

A commercial pattern is useful because it has instructions: not just how to sew but there is also the layout of the pieces for cutting out, and it tells you which piece to interline. There is also really useful guidance on seam allowances and how to do the different ways of stitching (like top or edge stitching, under stitching, stay stitching, or how to stitch for gathering - all kinds of information).

The sewing pattern size is not the same as your dress size in shops. Measure your waist and hips and compare to the measurement table on your pattern. Most pattern envelopes have multiple sizes in them, often split by the smaller and the bigger sizes.

Above all pick a skirt shape that you are excited about! I often make the mistake of falling in love with the pretty fabric they used and forget to check the line drawing to see if I actually like the style. Which is kind of important.

Now I've gone on much longer than I meant to. I haven't even said much about sewing itself (the things we discover as we go along) - I hope that other Dressmakers Club members want to give tips and advice in the comments!

The Beginner's Guide to Dressmaking By Wendy Ward.

This book was written by a teacher of dressmaking, pattern cutting and creator of MiY Collection patterns.  Wendy has held classes specifically for our members so, of course, I had to see what the book was like when it was published in November.  Here's a picture of the book and its twin in cake taken at the Launch Party.  The cake was made by 2 of Wendy's pupils, the lady who iced it also spins her own wool  and knits with it as well as doing perfect top stitching and making collars with beautifully sharp corners. 

 Unlike other books for beginners that I have seen, Wendy plunges the reader straight into what those buying a book on dressmaking want to do- make clothes.  I think some people are put off by wading through pages of technique or making aprons before getting to any mention of making a garment as with some books for beginners.  There are 6 full size patterns with this book ranging from bust size 84 cm (33 ins) to 101 cm (39 3/4ins).  You do have to trace these off and they overlap but they are on stiff paper and clearly marked ( forget about the nightmare experience of trying to trace a pattern from the flimsy overcrowded pattern sheet of a Burda Magazine).  The brief introduction describes how to use the book followed by the tools you will need  and then it is straight into the projects, which start with the easiest and gradually increase in complexity.  Each project has the techniques that you will need listed and these techniques are described and demonstrated in the rear section of the book.  I like the way that the finished measurements of the garments are clearly given so you know how much ease there is in the pattern.
I thought that I would try making a garment following the instructions to see how easy it would be for a beginner.  I am not a beginner,   more of a "can put a garment together but definitely could do better if she paid attention" type of sewer.  I adored the zip jacket, project number 5, and this seems to be the item that most people pick on as a garment they would like to make so here is my version and how the construction went.

First I wanted to know how the jacket might fit me so I took a commercially made jacket that I had with the sort of fit I was hoping for and measured around the chest of the jacket to compare it with the finished size that Wendy gave for the size I was making, size 1.   Bingo, what a match!  Please remember when you are measuring to make sure you are using an accurate tape.  If it is an old one it may well have stretched or distorted so check it against a solid (metal or plastic) ruler.

 Next I traced the pattern using Waitrose greaseproof paper, which I like because it is white- do not use baking parchment because it is not so easy to write upon and, if you have to stick sheets together with sticky tape to get the width , it does not stick.  Below is a picture of the pattern sheet and the paper laid out and weighted down to stop it sliding while I trace.  Always check that your tracing paper has not shifted once you have completed tracing the piece, you need to be accurate in your tracing.  Some people use a highlighter to emphasize the line of the size that they are tracing and this would be particularly useful if you are grading between 2 different sizes, for example if your bust size is a size bigger than your hip size.

Here are the finished pattern pieces, traced and ready to use.  There are only 3 pieces in total, front, back and sleeve, for the simplest version of the jacket and you will cut two pieces of each piece.  You cannot see it very well in the photograph but I have penciled on the pattern all the marking, notches, grainlines etc that are on the sheet.

Wendy gives the yardage necessary for the garment and a cutting layout.  However I suggest you trace out your pattern before you go to buy the fabric for it and play around with various layouts and fabric widths for the pattern you have created to find out how much you will need to buy.  I found that I needed less fabric than stated for the 140 cm wide fabric I was using.
Once you have cut out your fabric and transferred the markings to the fabric then I suggest you pin fit the garment.  That is you pin the darts in position and pin the shoulders and sides together and, very gingerly, try on the garment.  This will give you a good idea of how it will fit you.

As you can see, the body of the jacket looks fine - but always check the sides and back too.  Below you can see that the back of the neck gapes.

 Luckily there is a centre back seam so I could easily deal with this by increasing the seam allowance from the neck and gradually tapering it down into the back.  With this jacket there are no facings or lining so that you do not have to make alterations for these.  There is limited scope for alteration with the patterns (taking in or letting out at side seams and lengthening and shortening) although Wendy says that she has designed these patterns to need little alteration.  She does not recommend making bust adjustments on any of the sleeved garments in the book, and this is an area where many women find it hard to get a good fit, so there is no information on how to do this.

Taking the pins out, and dropping a few on the floor, I was now ready to apply the fusible interfacing.  Wendy suggests cutting strips from iron-on interfacing of the appropriate weight for the fabric, and this is a good way of using up those odd bits of interfacing you get stuck with but cannot bear to throw away.  However I had some fusible seam tape, already in narrow strips, so I used this.  I would have liked to see Wendy draw attention to the need to identify which is the fusible side of the tape because I have heard even seasoned dressmakers bemoan the fact that they put the tape on with the wrong side facing up so it stuck to the iron or press cloth and not the dress fabric.  Be warned, check and double check and, if in doubt about which is the side to go face down on the fabric, test a tiny bit on a waste fabric scrap.  Below is my seam tape in position ready to be fused.

And here is the seam tape fused along the front and a view of the back seam finished with bias binding.

I followed the making up steps as described up to and including step 9.  Then I decided to insert the zip (Step 11) before setting in the sleeves.  Unfortunately step 11 refers to positioning the zip stopper level with a notch.  This notch should have been marked on the pattern sheet but, as I discovered, it was left off.  I checked and checked the pattern sheet and re-read the instructions and then just guessed where it should go- not that hard.  The right hand side of the open-ended zip needs to be pinned and tacked  to hold it in the correct position for sewing.

Then, using a zipper foot, sew the zip in position close to the zipper teeth so that, when you flip the seam allowance over, your zip teeth just extend beyond the jacket edge.

I then went to step 12 and finished the jacket fronts with bias binding.  This covers the edge of the zip on the right hand side of the jacket enclosing the raw edge that you see to your right in the picture below.  Wendy's technique instructions for attaching bias binding as a facing  instructs the reader  as the final step to stitch the binding to the wrong side of the garment by machining.  This gives the effect of topstitching.  However I did not want the look of topstitching so laboriously hand picked all the facings and hems.   Next time I think I will topstitch!

Then I jumped to step 16, attaching the left side of the zip.  This is because I felt that I could better ensure that I could get the bottom hem of the jacket level by doing the hem after inserting the rest of the zip fastening.     One of the problems with inserting a zip is getting around the zip stopper while maintaining a straight line.  I  open the zip partly and sew up to a point before the zip stopper.

 Then, making sure that the needle is down in the fabric, I raise the zipper foot and pivot the fabric 90 degrees. 

With a bit of tugging I can then pull the zipper closed up to a point past which I have already stitched- sometimes, depending on your machine, you can remove the zipper foot, close the zipper and replace the foot.  Pivot the fabric back to the start position, lower the presser foot and off you go, continuing your stitching from where you left off.

Jumping back to step 10 in the order of work I set in the sleeves.  I always have difficulty with the fit of sleeves so I was very pleasantly surprised to find they fitted reasonably well for me.  I  might add a sleeve roll as my shoulders are a bit narrow  and I am distinctly lacking in biceps so the sleeve needs to be narrower  But I can live with it as it is.

Finally I hemmed the bottom of the jacket and the sleeves.  I wanted to conceal the loose top end of the left side of the zip.  I toyed with the idea of a button but eventually made a knot from a tube of the jacket fabric and sewed it in place.

 Here you can see how the bias binding finish looks on the inside of the lapels.

 My verdict, yes, a beginner could do it on their own by paying close attention to the instructions.  I was lucky to get a reasonable fit with only a simple alteration and I would be interested to hear how the fit worked for other people.

Wendy encourages the reader to experiment and develop their own take on the garment and I have certainly been inspired  to do another version of this jacket.  Also, in view of the lack of fitting difficulty encountered with the jacket, I may well have a go at the shift dress, graded as the most complex of the patterns and see how that would work for a beginner.  I have some of this fabric left, not enough for a complete dress, so I  will be looking for another fabric to use with it and how best to use the two together.