14-Day Learn to Sew Series - Seams for Knits

Let's learn about how to seem knit Fabrics. Now, we all love to wear knit Fabrics, right? T-shirts and all kinds of comfy stuff, but it is one of the most difficult things to sew. But the good news is, yes, you can sew knits with your regular sewing machines. And I'm going to give you some tips on some kind of unusually tools to make it really easy. So, don't despair. I am super excited for you to learn how to sew knits, with your regular sewing machine. So, let's get started. Now, when we talk about sewing with knits, it's important to understand which stitches are appropriate for sewing with knits. So, when I look at my little card here for my sewing machine. You can see here there's several utility stitches here on the top of the card, and we start with the straight stitch. This is called the second stitch here. Number two is called a reinforced or stretched straight stitch. We have a zigzag. This is a satin stitch. This is a reinforced Zigzag. This is a triple step or multi step zigzag Now we have some other stitches here that are kind of funky looking, and some of these are also good for using with stretch. This stitch here that looks like, very nasty set of teeth stitch number 10, that is a stretch blind hem stitch, and some of these other stitches, stitch 11 is called... some people call it the lightning stitch. This is also a stretch straight stitch or almost straight stitch. And then these here 12, 13, and 14, are also intended for using with a certain amount of stretch. And these kind of mimic the kind of stitch that you might see on an overlock or Serger machine. Now, stitch number 18 is a buttonhole for knit fabrics. Um, generally speaking knit fabrics aren't real for using button holes, but, sometimes you need one. And you can see the zigzag stitches here on the bars on that button hole. So, these are all stitches you can use for knits. And they are stitches you probably have on you sewing machine. Now, the critical thing you need to know when you go to sew a knit fabric, is do you need that seam to stretch or not? And how strong does it need to be. So, when you look at that card and you like a stitch number one, you can see that just a plain old straight stitch. Now, this isn't a very strong stitch for knits because it doesn't have a lot of give to it. But I do sometimes use it to just baste a seam. In other words, temporarily stitch a stretch seam. Just to check it for fit, because it's easy to rip out a plain stitch. So, I do actually use that sometimes for knits. If I just need to check the fit. But otherwise, sometimes I will go ahead and use stitch number two. Which is a reinforced straight stitch. Alright, so that is one that you can go ahead and use. Now more commonly we tend to use a stitch that has some stretch to it. So the stretch straight stitch, does not actually have any give to it. It's a reinforcement straight stitch. So it's a very strong. Now sometimes you may not need any stretch, in that. Do you really need the side seams of your T-shirt to stretch length wise? No, you probably don't. So, you can consider using that. And, if you use a straight stitch it means you can press the seam open, and sometimes that is desirable. But, most of the time with knits we're going to use a zigzag stitch. Alright. So, working with knits and we are going to test out some stitches. Knit fabrics can be really challenging to sew because they do stretch and they do move around. So, one of my tips for you for learning how to sew with knits, is that, my secret weapon is I actually will often use a spray starch. And I starch my knit fabric before I even cut it out. So, you can help tame your fabric before you cut it and sew it by simply treating it with some spray starch. Here in the U.S. we can usually find this at the grocery store. Where they have detergent and things you can get your spray starch. Um, in other countries it may be in different places. But, it's pretty easy to get a hold of and if you go ahead and spray the spray starch on your fabric, let it dry. It will really stiffen it up. And that makes it easier to cut and sew. And then, when you're all done with your project, then you can go ahead and just wash it out. And, it will go back to being all stretchy. Okay, but sometimes you can't do that. So, here I have... I'm do my first test samples on this double knit. And double knit is a little more stable, but this double knit still has a lot of stretch in the cross-wise direction. But not really much in the length-wise direction. So, I've cut these samples so I'm sewing in the direction of stretch. So, I am just going to go ahead and sew the plain zigzag to start. Now, when you sew a zigzag you are going to want to make sure, that the foot you have for your machine is a zigzag foot. Okay, so I am going to place it on my machine here. Um, but remember that the back of the zigzag foot has this tunnel here, and that tunnel, that indentation allows you to go ahead, and lets the stitch flow behind the foot after they have been stitched. So, you don't... you want to make sure you don't have a straight stitch foot on your machine. You want a zigzag foot. Now, it... another tool that could be very handy. Is on this machine I have something called dual feed. But you can actually buy a special foot called a walking foot. And the walking foot works with your feet dogs to go ahead and help feed that fabric evenly through the machine. That can be a huge help with knit fabrics. And those are available for pretty much every brand and every model of machine. I think you can even get it for a Singer Feather weight machines. So, you might look for a walking foot if you like to sew knits. Alright, I'm just going to sew this without doing anything special to it. And, another thing to really check with your knit fabrics is to check you seam allowances, because some patterns for knit will say only a 1/4 inch seam allowance. So, if that's the case you don't want to be sewing 5/8 of an inch. Right, so I am going to start by just selecting stitch number 3, which is a plain zigzag. Stitch 3, and I am just going to go ahead and start sewing a quick back stitch. Make sure my edges are even here. Alrighty, let's take that out and put it on our over head camera. So there... and you can see that may not be completely obvious. But, I did have a little tiny bit of stretching going on, not too bad. And, sometimes if it is just a little bit just a quick press, will take care of that. So, don't worry if there's just a tiny bit of stretching. Don't worry about that. Its not a big deal. Alright, so when we stitch knits, we always want have little scraps available. Because we are going to test. We're are going to see... Does trying this and see as much as I can stretch this that zigzag stitch is holding just fine. Now, it doesn't always want to pull back all the way. That's called recover, So, this particular knit doesn't have world class recovery. It's not pulling itself all the way back. But it's not horrible. But it's good to know that in advance. You want to test for those kinds of things. But I can give it a little press. Now, if I did have a case where I wasn't getting... If this was easily breaking if I pull really hard. There we go, pull really hard I can make the stitches break. And that's where we can get into using a multi zigzag, But before we sew that, I want to show you a couple of other tools we have here. This is a wash away stabilizer. So, this... It has a paper backing because it's sticky on one side. It's sticky on one side and there is a wash away seal. So, if I peal this off, I can stick onto my seam or if I was sewing a hem. And this will keep the knit from stretching. And again this will wash off, after things done. You can buy wash away stabilizers in big rolls and things. But this, I cheated. I found some that was available already pre-cut on a roll, which was nice. So, this really helps. So, if I put this on there it can't stretch at all. Right. So, that is really handy. But I want to be able to test for strength. So, I am going to pretend I didn't put it on that side, but I wanted you to see this. Oh, another tool I really like to use, for stretch fabrics is glue sticks. So, I use a washable glue stick a lot. And you can use glue stick to baste this together, as well. Now you notice I am not using pins, that just kinda normal for me. But of course, you can use pins to sew this, as well. Alright, so I am going to take this to the machine and this time I am going to select a triple zig zag. So this is stitch number 6. And, if you watch this as I sew it, you see that instead of just going zigzag back and forth. It will actually take multiple steps. So, its like zig, zig, zig, zag, zag, zag. Another thing I can do, to help keep this from stretching is I can kinda push... Keep the fabric kinda loose in front of the machine. I could also lighten up the pressure foot, pressure. Now, I didn't bother to back stitch because it's just a sample. But, let's take this to our board. So, there you can see. So, again um, this is a multi step zigzag. So, it's going to have a little more give to it then just a zigzag, zigzag. So, again I can pull on it, and I have to pull much harder. Actually, I don't think I can get it to break. It's a little stronger because of the multiple stitches between each zig and zag. So, if you want to have a really strong seam? Consider using that multi step zigzag. Now, another fabric that can be really difficult to sew. I've been sewing with double knit, but this is a Jersey knit. And Jersey knits curl up. They tend to curl especially if its really light weight. And this is especially where you want to bring your tools. your specialty tools into play. Because of that rolling. So, there are two different tools that I would tend to use for this, one is my glue stick. And with the glue stick, what I will do... Now, remember that you always want to sew the right sides together. So, with the glue stick, what I will do is in the seam allowance I use a tiny bit. I am using just kinda the edge of the glue stick. And I'm going in, just little short strokes here. Towards the edge of the seam allowance. Now, this doesn't work with a seam that you can press open. This is only going to work with zigzag or your stretch stitches. But this allows you, with some of these fabrics that tend to curl. If you don't have the sticky stabilizer to stick on there. Even just using a little bit of glue stick, will help to keep those edges from being able to curl up away from where you are stitching. Which can really help. Okay that can really help. Now, this is still really sticky stuff. So, I am going to grab my... My stabilizer. But, if I had sprayed this with spray starch, that would've helped a lot too. Okay, so I can take this to my machine. And, I can go ahead and sew it with whatever stitch I want. And, I am just going to sew on my stabilizer. So, maybe this was in since were at a 1/4 inch seam. It's really difficult to sew a 1/4 inch seam on a regular sewing machine if you don't use stabilizer. Because it's just gonna want to curl up and you going to be miserable. So, there I was able to stitch on this Jersey Stitch on the Jersey. There's no stretching. It didn't... couldn't do anything bad. It just lays there and behaves. Now, this again will wash out, when I wash this fabric. This will dissolve and all I'll be left with is my seam. So, if you use some of these tips and tools. I think it would be very helpful for you, to be able to sew you knit fabrics with success. So, just remember to test first, to see what kind, how much stretch you need. And to use some of this little cheater tools. To make things a little bit easier for you. And you'll have success every time.