Practical Sewing Tips & Techniques Session 8: General Sewing Tips

So let's talk about some miscellaneous sewing tips. So these are some of my frequently asked questions that I think will help you in your sewing. So I promised that we would talk a little bit more about sewing with knits. So if you're getting these wavy seams, not only just at the edges with hems, but any seams, if you get these weird puckers and waves, that's a result of the fabric stretching as you're stitching under, as you're stitching it as it's going under the foot. So to prevent the fabric from stretching as it's going under the foot, we can do a couple of things. If the presser foot is smashing down on that fabric with so much pressure, that can cause it to stretch out as it's being fed under the foot. So you can adjust the presser foot pressure on a lot of machines. Some you can't, but check your manual. You can contact a dealer to see if they know what adjustment to do to decrease the pressure there. So that will just lift the presser foot up a little bit. So it's not pressing down so hard and stretching out the fabric as it's being sewn. You can also try a roller foot. So this nifty foot has this little steam roller on it. And it's got little textures on the roller too. As it's rolling over the fabric, kind of grips the fabric and just pulls it under the presser foot at the same rate as the feed dogs are pulling it. So that feeds everything along at the same rate. A walking foot will also do the same thing. The walking foot kind of walks the fabric under the presser foot. So you can try that to feed everything through at the same rate. And that will also help if you're getting shifting. Your upper layer and your underlayer fabric, if those are shifting. And at the end of you seam, you're getting uneven seams, this will help feed both of those layers through at the same rate. Or like I mentioned before, you can use tissue paper. If one layer of tissue paper underneath the fabric isn't enough to stabilize it, to keep that from stretching, you can do another layer on the upper layer of fabric. So kind of sandwiching your fabric between layers of tissue paper to help stabilize it, to keep it from stretching out. So that's another something that you can try. Now, let's switch gears. And we're going to talk about commercial patterns. So commercial patterns come with all of these markings on them. So let's talk about what those markings mean. On the guide sheet, a lot of times they'll have this key that tells you some of those symbols. So the grainline is marked by a double-headed arrow. You want that grainline to be facing the same way on all your pattern pieces when you're cutting your pattern out so that your pieces are all lying on the same grain. And they will all hang correctly. On the actual pattern piece, the grainline is marked only with one head as an arrow, but it is marked as grainline, so you know what that is. These cutting lines, these solid lines that are graded for different sizes, but that's your cutting line. And you want to cut right at the very edge, the outer edge of that line to get the correct sizing. Some patterns, like this one, the size lines are marked with different kinds of lines. Which is especially helpful when you get somewhere like down here where the lines are, the grading between the sizes get closer together. So the size lines are marked with different kinds of dots to help you differentiate between those. Seam allowances are not usually marked on commercial patterns. On some vintage patterns they will be, and they'll probably be marked by a dashed line an equal distance away from the cutting line, like this stitching line. This is a skirt vent. So you've got your stitching line here. So you'll want to stitch along that dashed line. Lengthen or shorten lines. This pattern says, lengthen, cut along the dotted lines. To shorten, fold along this line. So to shorten, you would fold along that line. Or to lengthen, you would cut along that line and open that up. And on the guide sheet it even gives you some extra instructions on how to cut that open and pull that apart to add some extra fabric in there and lengthen that skirt. Anywhere you see a circle or an X or a square or notches, those are for you to match up. So these notches, this one here is along the side seam. So on the corresponding front skirt piece there'll be a single notch. And that is to remind you to match those points together so that your seam stitches together evenly. Single notches match to single notches and double notches match to double notches. And that's most notably, you'll notice that on armscyes. So an armscye will have a single notch on the front and a double notch on the back. And a sleeve will have a single notch on the front and a double notch on the back so that you know to insert the sleeve with the single notch at the front and the double notch at the back. So all of these, so here's a circle for matching. You want to transfer all of these points to your fabric when you're cutting out your pattern pieces. This is the zipper end point. So that's to remind you and your zipper stitching here. And then for darts, darts are these triangular shapes. You've got your dart end point here to match and two dart points here, these circles. So you can mark those on your fabric and that'll give you another point to match up when you're sewing your dart. If you have something that is cut on the fold, you will see a bent double-headed arrow like this. So that is to tell you to place this pattern piece on the fold of the fabric. So you're cutting out half of the pattern piece. And when you unfold the fabric it'll be a full sized pattern piece. On this princess dart, you've got a lot of, since it's such a long dart, you've got a lot of different match points. And this circle with the cross hatch through it, that marks the bust point. So there's your bust point. And this symbol is often also used to match or to denote the hip line. So down here, it's denoting the hip line right here. And here it's denoting the waistline. And this pattern has actually even sizes. So at the waistline, the size eight is 30 inches. So that's handy to have. Anywhere you have something with a placket, you're going to have these straight solid lines. So you're gonna have two fold lines. So mark your fold lines on your fabric, you're gonna fold here and here. And this is the center line of the garment. And that is marked on the pattern as center front. And these eye shapes, those are button holes. So you wanna mark those on your pattern. Or on your fabric. And on a sleeve, you have points to match. So this center point of the sleeve will match the shoulder seam of your bodice. And the armscye will have points to match these points to when you're easing in the sleeve. This circle with the cross marks denotes center of the sleeve. You've got some more lengthen and shorten lines. So for lengthen and shorten lines, you would simply cut in between those lines and open it up to add more or fold along that line to shorten it. And anytime you shorten or lengthen, you're gonna wanna true the side seam as well, 'cause that gets pinched out a little bit. True that down back into a straight line. And a lot of pattern companies have symbols that are similar but some are a little bit different. So check the guide sheet which will tell you some of those symbols. So that'll tell you that the circle with the cross mark indicates the bust line. So those are some general pattern symbols to watch out for. Now, let's talk about cutting out the size of your pattern. So on the back of the pattern, it's got this chart. They'll look different from pattern company to pattern company, but it'll have the bust, waist, and hip measurements. And the measurements of the different pattern sizes at those points. So you'll want to measure yourself, the bust, natural waist, and the hip, which is the widest point below your waist. And your measurements are not going to match up with one pattern size. That doesn't happen. So you'll have to choose the measurement of your body that most closely corresponds to the bust measurement of the pattern. And if you had a 34 1/2 inch bust you'd want to round up to 35. So you'd cut a size four pattern. So always rounding up because the bust alterations are more difficult to do than alterations on the other areas of the body. So cut out the pattern that most closely corresponds to your bust measurement. But before you even cut out your fabric, we can do some alterations to get the pattern to more closely fit your body measurements. So we can blend between pattern sizes. And that is a really, really easy thing to do. So you've got your pattern and your size lines. So say you wanted to, say you were a size four at the waist and you wanted to blend out to a size six at the hip. You would simply take a pencil and blend from this point into the next size line. Kind of following the curve of the pattern as much as you can, simply bringing it out to the next size line. And you can do that anywhere. You can do that, if you were going from a larger size at the underarm to a smaller size at the waist, you would simply blend between those size lines. And that will help take the pattern a little bit closer to your body measurements before you even cut anything out. So that's something really easy you can do before even cutting anything. So we made it through all of that information. Thank you for hanging in with me. I hope you got some good takeaways from these lessons and thanks again for joining me.