Beginner's tips

We've had a few introductions lately, so this seems like a good time to discuss the things we wish someone had told us sooner.

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When you put a piece of fabric away, pin a note to it saying exactly what it is. The invoice will probably do.

If you are quite certain that you will cut it within a week and can't possibly forget, this advice is even more important.

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Whenever you use a pattern, write the date and a code by which you can recognize the garment made from it on every piece that you use. Note any changes you made.

Usually a brief description of the fabric will serve to identify the garment -- but that breaks down badly when you make five shirts from the same length of fabric. Once I resorted to embroidering a four-stitch flower on one sleeve, and coding the pattern with a sketch of the embroidery.

Once upon a time, I thought I'd duplicate the date-and-description list on the envelope of the pattern, and paste a snippet of the fabric beside each code -- but it's been eight years since I put a pattern back into its envelope, and now I don't bother to provide an envelope when I make a new pattern.

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Joy Beeson

Good Ideas Joy , But i would sew the note on with one stitch rather than pin it , since i have had pins that rusted ,, mirjam

Everyone hates to rip out seams. But using a seam ripper or a razor blade is not only dangerous (to you and the garment), you have to go back and pick out all those whiskers. Learn instead to pull the threads. Pull one side until the thread snaps, or snip it with you seam ripper at right angles to the seam every few inches. Then turn the work over, and pull the thread from the other side until it breaks. You can sometimes get the entire seam out in this manner with three or four pulls. I learned this years ago when doing conservation work in a museum. We were not allowed to use seam rippers. It has become second nature, and I wouldn't dream of using a razor to remove stitches.

Teri

Learn how to pin in the right direction so the sharp end is facing your sewing machine needle while you sew!

(Oh wait, that is on my wishlist of skills to acquire LOL - I can't pin in the right direction ever for some odd reason)

Michelle Giordano

That's how my mother taught me to rip out mistakes as well. And I agree with you, that it's faster in the long run than having to go back and pull out thread ends.

Beverly

Good Idea, and on a non-sewing issue.....

Don't reply to the trolls, no matter how tempting it may be to make a witty comment. Quite a few of us have them KFed, and it's only when regular posters make a comment that we get to see them.

??? When I pin baste (and that's almost always), I run the pins perpendicular to the line of stitching, and sew over the pins. Only rarely do I pull pins out as they approach the needle, usually just to be sure I don't break/bend the pin.

Beverly

That's the way I have always used a seam ripper, it never occurred to me to use it the way it is designed. I can't remember when I learned how though.

Lizzy

But when you do have to pick out thread ends, a whisk broom is a BIG help. More than half the snippets brush off, and the rest stand up for easy plucking.

Joy Beeson

Good point! I forgot it because all my pins are stainless steel, and humidity in the house is too low more often than too high.

Since I use long, very thin pins, they bend fairly often, so I stick slightly-bent pins into the lid of a wool-covered box on my dressing table and use them to secure scarves, pin notes to fabric, etc.

Joy Beeson

Dear Friends,

Why are you still using pins to secure seams before sewing them? They really cause more of a problem than they help. Here's how to make a perfect seam without pins, no matter how long the seam. Put the two pieces to be joined under the needle and put the needle down in the seam. Grasp the opposite ends of the pieces, and hold them together throughout the sewing process, lifting your work every five or six inches. When you get about halfway through the seam, let go of the ends to see how you're doing. If there's too much difference in the ends, take the work out of the machine and start from the other end, lifting as before every four or five inches. No fair cutting off extra at the ends. To put in a sleeve? For the flat method, have the sleeve next to the machine. Start the seam as above, and hold the work at the center notch in the sleeve to the seam of the shoulder. It will slide right in. For the set-in method, sew two, I said two, rows of basting stitches along the cap of the sleeve, one right on the

5/8-inch line, one a quarter inch inside the seam allowance. Pull them up, and arrange the gathers so that there are no puckers. If using wool, you can even steam the shape into the cap at this point. Match the underarm seams to the seam of the sleeve or the symbol for the underarm, and sew, starting at the underarm seam. It will slide right in, and you'll wonder why you were ever afraid to do a set-in sleeve.

When you pin, the fabric has nowhere to go except to make a bump up against the next pin. No pins allows the fabric to ease itself in. I have been known to get five inches of bias eased into a straight piece without the slightest pucker. The trick is to always have the larger side (bias, a sleeve) next to the machine. The machine takes up the lower piece faster than the upper one, thus easing the easing process.

Teri

Saying this is like saying "Heinlein" on rec.arts.sf.written. Except we on alt.sewing are civil.

If I sew over one of my extra-thin pins, it bends and has to be discarded (or reserved for non-sewing use). Folks using thicker pins have to inspect them to make sure the needle didn't nick one, which takes more time than removing pins. And you have to do it immediately, so that you can throw out the needle if you find a nick. And you might find out right after making the nick, by the way holes and pulls appear in your seam. Even when all goes well, the pin pushes the needle a bit on some stitches and make them slightly irregular.

Not to mention that sewing over pins increases the odds that the needle will break. The shards of the needle aren't particularly likely to fly toward your eyes, but they aren't particularly likely

*not* to.

Pinning in the stitching line does a better job of holding the fabric. It secures a segment of line, where a right-angle pin secures only a point along the line. (So I use right-angle pins to match points, and stick in-line pins between the points once I'm sure the lines are in the right place.)

A ripple that forms ahead of the presser foot wants to flatten out as it approaches an in-line pin; one that approaches a right-angle pin wants to crest, fold over, and become a sewn-in pleat. (Once you master taut sewing, you won't see the ripples -- but in-line pins mean that the sewing doesn't have to be quite so taut.)

In awkward spots, I used to grab a pin with tweezers and let the machine pull the fabric off it, so that the fabric was controlled until it was sewn. But when I switched to glass-head pins, it turned out that the head of the pin fit neatly into the crack between the free arm and the flat-bed plate, with the point of the pin between the toes of the presser foot, so I just put my finger on it.

Joy Beeson

Things I wish I'd learned sooner:

1) machine needles have fronts and backs. Get 'em in backwards, and you get skipped stitches or none at all.

2) cheap thread is poor economy. ditto cheap fabric. Good fabric and thread at a good price is entirely acceptable, though, says she who just scored 10 yards of Pendleton Black Watch plaid wool at $2/yd...

3) Zippers go in SO much better if you increase the seam allowance in the zipper area to a fat 3/4" inch or 7/8". And zippers go in so much better if you do them like the pros do instead of how the zipper package says.

4) Make sure your patterns are balanced.

5) Always walk a sleeve pattern to see if it will actually fit the armscye or if someone drafted it after being awake for 72 hours. The "awake 72 hours" patterns make wonderful wastebasket liner.

6) If you have to ease anything (e.g., sleeve into armscye), put the bigger side next to the feed dogs. Yes, I know you think you want to check the easing as it goes under the presser foot, but try it my way anyhow. Bet you'll be surprised.

7) A whole lot of sewing problems are actually inaccurately cut pattern problems. Pay scrupulous attention to grainlines and cut the fabric on paper to help stabilize it for accurate cutting.

8) Commercial sewing patterns don't use enough interfacing in most cases, and it's often placed in the wrong spots (like having it stop at a hemline, instead of crossing the hemline, so it can do some good!).

9) Interfacing sold X yards in a plastic bag for a "special price" is generally junk.

10) You can't judge a fusible interfacing by how it feels on the bolt. You have to fuse it and then decide if it'll work or not.

11) Just like fabric, interfacing has grain (well, a few odd sorts don't, but most do!) You need to match the grain of the interfacing to the grain of the fabric... lengthwise grain to lengthwise grain.

12) Some of my best and cheapest sewing lessons have involved a well made but ugly or worn out garment from a ragbag or thrift store. Get out the seam ripper and take it apart, trying to figure out in what order things were sewn. Note type of interfacing used, and where and how it was applied. Digital cameras make it easy to document the project for later reference.

13) Sometimes it's the sewing machine that's screwing up.

14) Most of the time, it's the sewing machine operator screwing up.

15) If you're stuck, chances are there's a sewing buddy available out there someplace on the internet... even at 2 am!

Kay

The sticky lint rollers work really well too. Especially the ones marked with dogs and cats on the label. They are a little stickier (to get pet hair off better.) I run the razor blade through the seam I'm taking out, then follow with the lint roller and All Done in a flash!

Sometimes it is better to crack the seam and unpick. HOWEVER, I will tell you that on lesser quality poly satins, and remember I do A LOT of prom and bridesmaid alterations, that is the absolute worst possible way to take apart a seam. (and I don't care where the dress is purchased, if it's bought off the rack and not custom, it's not likely to be high quality fabric, and it's practically guaranteed to be poly.) No matter how careful you are, if you crack and pull to get the seam taken apart, somewhere on that seam, you will get a snag or a run in the fabric. I don't know exactly why this happens. And yes, I do mean when you only pull on the thread. I wonder though, if it is poly fabric, and poly thread (and it usually is) then perhaps when the seams get pressed, the polys might melt together a little bit. I dunno. All I can tell you is what I have seen.

As far as the worry of cutting myself or the garment with the razor blade, I'm just really careful...so far so good....knock wood.

Sharon

YMMV

The most important tip of all: when we forget to say "Your Mileage May Vary" after giving advice, it's because it's so obvious that advice doesn't apply to everyone that we didn't think of saying so, same as nobody who explains the burn test has ever said "don't perform this test when you are up to your knees in aviation fuel.")

A more subtle point is that even when advice applies to you, it doesn't apply all the time. For that matter, advice that doesn't apply to you doesn't not-apply all the time.

Engage brain before putting scissors in gear. If you don't understand why you are doing what you are doing, odds are that you're doing it wrong.

Joy Beeson