The clapper - highly recommended sewing gadget

Have you ever heard of the clapper?  Sometimes known as a clapper board? No, not the black thing they use in filming, this is the wooden instrument that helps you put a beautiful finish on your dressmaking project and labour of love.

It produces crisper creases, at hems or along seams where you want them to lie flat and smooth.

The way to use a clapper is to first press a seam or hem with the iron using steam, then press the clapper onto the area that's hot from pressing and either just hold there some seconds for easily creasing fabrics, or press down a bit harder for fabrics that crease less easily. The raw wood of the clapper will absorb moisture and heat and leave the seam or hem cool to the touch - and the material will "remember" to hold this crease.

You can use it on hems, seams like shoulder and collar seams and it works beautifully on darts too.

I wouldn't have thought so myself before trying it, but it does work - the waterfall collar jacket I am making at the moment does look just that bit better than it would without using a clapper.  I am really pleased with the result!

It is made from hardwood, has a handy groove along both longer sides for easy handling:

And one side is narrower than the other:

As with everything, the best gadget does not guarantee an absence of user error - which is what I managed today: I was using my newly purchased clapper with abandon and delight on the seam between sleeve and body - to get the seam to lie that extra bit flatter, which it did...

...then I discovered that I hadn't removed the basting stitch and was therefore producing a crease where I didn't want one. Noooo! Just imagine...

Luckily my Jacquard-type fabric did forgive the rough treatment: with a bit more steam I was able to get the fabric to crease where I wanted it to, and the first crease in the wrong place did come one. Phew! Now that's a relief.

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Press, press and press again

A good press with the iron makes sewing so much better! 

One of the most valuable sewing tips I can give is about pressing your work as you go along.  One caveat: I sew mainly with woven fabric, the need to press may or may not apply to jersey fabrics.

I used to underestimate the difference it would make.  I dismissed the need for pressing and felt it was just a bit too over-the-top, too fussy and pernickety - I wanted to sew!  Which meant that anything that was not about sitting at the sewing machine and putting my foot down (literally, on the foot pedal) didn't feel like 'proper sewing' - it just didn't count in my book.

I used to get incredibly impatient with the need to cut out the fabric, mark it, overlock, baste or pin and when I finally got to the sewing stage I just didn't want to stop for anything.  Getting the iron out?  What for?!

Well, I learned from experience that sewing over unpressed seams produces an end result that I am not happy with. Fabric has this habit of not creasing by itself: it will hold a certain rolled shape at the seam until you press it flat.  If you are really stuck without an iron you could try to use your thumb nail to crease a seam flat enough to be able to sew over it, but it is not ideal.

You will need the iron anyway for attaching interfacing but keep the ironing board out, or you could get an ironing mat you can spread out on a table - quilters use this a lot but their projects start smaller than full-size garments. It is so very much worth the time to set this up because you can wander on over whenever needed. Use it often: if in doubt, press!  Except, perhaps:

...there are areas where pressing is not wanted at some stages of construction: when you make welt button holes or pocket openings you don't want press the welt lips flat because it would distort them before you carry on with further steps. A skirt waist edge that will be understitched to stop the facing or lining rolling up into view should also only be pressed once the understitching is done.  There might be other occasions, let me know if you can think of other elements.

But most of the time a quick press is hugely important for a good result that brings joy as opposed to the frustration of a bodged project: it feels very demotivating to have put all this time and energy into a sewing job and then it doesn't turn out very well.  You're not quite sure what went wrong so you don't even know how to fix it next time.

Pressing seams flat might just make the difference.  Try it!


What are your experiences of using an iron while sewing?  Any mishaps, any tips?