14-Day Learn to Sew Series - Sewing Curves and Corners

Now that you've practiced and mastered the art of sewing in a straight line, it's time to learn how to sew shapes, curves and corners. Now, there are two types of each. They're outside, or concave curve, or convex curves. And then there are inside, or convex curves, or concaves. See, I get those mixed up, curves. And then, there's outside and inside corners, as well. So, I'm gonna teach you how to navigate those with ease. So, it's really all in the hands, when it comes to doing curves. So, I'm gonna demonstrate on my overhead camera. When you sew a curve, you want to basically use your left hand like a pivot. You want to pivot that on the fabric, as you sew. So let me demonstrate. Now, I just have my machine set for a straight stitch. And we would, this is sewing right sides together, as if we're doing a seam. So, I want to keep my eye on my five-eighths inch mark. And I don't have my little cheater tape here. But, I'm gonna keep my eye on the five-eights inch mark. But as I do, I'm letting the feed dogs do the work. But, I'm going to use my left hand as a pivot. And just let those feed dogs work. And if you need to reposition your hand, you can. But you just want to let your hand pivot as the fabric feeds through your sewing machine. So that is the trick. You just pivot. Let the feed dogs do their job. Let me just cut that thread. But let the feed dogs do their job, and just pivot as it feeds, keeping the edge of the fabric along your guideline. But just let that hand guide as a pivot. Try to kind of hold it still, and let it pivot as you go around the curve. Now, it's a slightly different approach with an inside, or a concave curve. And that is, we're gong to actually manipulate the fabric a little bit to straighten it, as we sew. So we put it in the machine. And I'm just gonna use it, a more narrow seam allowance on this one. So, we're just practicing. So as I'm sewing, I'm basically going to straighten out the curve. Now, you'll notice the fabric is just kind of bunching up here to the side. That's okay. The only thing that matters is what's going on under the needle. What it looks like over here on the side doesn't matter. So, I'm just going to straighten my curve. And if you need to, you can set your needle down. You can release the fabric. Just take your time. And again, just straighten that curve as you sew, and you won't have any trouble navigating this. Now for corners, I find the secret to perfect corners, and this is really important when you're making, say a collar, or pockets, or even the corner of clothing, or maybe it's even home dec, maybe it's a pillow, or curtain, or something. If you need those corners to be obviously exactly matching, I find the secret is to make sure to mark. Now, I've used a heat away marking pen, and you do want to test this. So, I like to go ahead and test first, to make sure that it really is going to erase. Now this would be, if this is going to be a seam, then, this would be on the wrong side of the fabric. But it never hurts to test to make sure you can remove things. But I've marked both my outside corner I'm going to stitch, and my inside corner. And this allows me to make sure, again, especially if this is, if you're doing a collar, you want those collars to be absolutely identical, or your eye is going to see the difference. So, it's really important to take the time to mark, mark that intersection, mark that corner exactly where it needs to be. So when I go to sew this, and I marked this on the five-eighths inch line, so I need to make an effort to actually stitch a five-eighths inseam. So, I'm going to sew, and as I approach this, I can see myself coming closer to that corner. Now, if my stitch length doesn't work out perfectly, I can always shorten my stitch length up slightly, or even quite a bit if you need to. But I will sometimes go ahead and shorten my stitch length as I approach that corner, to make sure I hit it right on the spot. And if I have to, I can cheat a little bit, and lift the foot, and kind of nudge the fabric. But they were right on the spot. Now to turn a corner, you drop your needle, so drop the needle into that corner, pick up your foot and pivot. That is how you turn a corner. You drop your needle, pick up the foot, and pivot. And then, you could stitch away from the corner. And, I'm gonna go ahead and set back to my normal stitch length. And you can just go ahead and sew as you normally would. Ta-da! So again, remember, drop your needle, and pivot. And you will have, I wouldn't say my stitching was perfect, but my corner is right on the mark. All right, so inside corners, same idea. So I have my mark here. Just need to line up my foot, to stitch on the mark. So again, I'm going to sew to the corner. And this time, I'm just going to, if I need to, I'll lift my foot, but now it looks like I'm going to hit mark. So again, I'm going to drop my needle. Whether you have to turn the hand wheel, or you can do it by tapping your sewing foot, it just depends on the machine. But pivot, and then stitch away from the corner. And that's all there is to it. Wasn't that easy? Just a little bit of practice, and some careful marking and preparation, you'll be sewing any kind of shape with ease in no time.