Handy sewing hint of the day #11

First of all Happy Easter.

Whatever your own spiritual and religious beliefs IMO there is something to mediate on today, basically the concept that when you think it might be all over it isn't, when you are down you might not be out. A worthwhile message I think.

Now smoothly transitioning to interfacing.

I talked a few hints back about how to apply fusible interfacing and I have written about it before but there are two things I want you to consider:

1. Use more than one kind of interfacing in a garment.
2. Use way more and in more places than your pattern suggests.

Just like a good bra and character, interfacing is one more demonstration that what is underneath shows on the quality of the outside.

It is helpful to think first of what interfacing is supposed to do:

• Shore up the fabric under busy/heavy areas. This would be front facings where you are going to be inserting buttonholes and buttons for instance, parts of the front of a jacket where you are going to be inserting a welt, slot, or in loosely woven fabrics vulnerable to drooping, a patch pocket. Here I have interfaced the top hem of a patch pocket so it will stay flat against the jacket:

• To freeze a loose weave so it will hold up over time - for example I would fuse a light knit interfacing to the wrong side of a homespun or loose raw silk so it won't bag with wearing.
• To change the characteristics of a knit fabric to something more stable - for instance by fusing narrow strips of fusible interfacing along shoulder seam lines, in the seam allowances where you might be inserting a zipper. I also fuse interfacing on the wrong side of a knit under where I am putting a patch pocket, both to support it and to make sure I can top-stitch the pocket down without waves.

Fusible knit, cut lengthwise in the direction of no stretch, fused into a shoulder seam area in a T shirt

Interfaced seam allowance in a knit where I am going to insert an invisible zipper

The zipper inserted without puckers or wrinkles as a result

• Add definition to a detail or an edge. This includes collars, cuffs and in many, many instances, hems - at the bottom of a sleeve for instance, or to add structure to the bottom of a straight skirt, or in other cases where the fabric is soft and might pleat a bit when it is turned up, to add uniform softness to the turn of the hem. In this case you would add a soft interfacing, either a weft insertion (a kind of somewhat fuzzy fusible often used in tailoring) or even a strip of bias cut flannel inserted into the hem allowance - an example of a hem that could have benefitted from that treatment is here:

Here is how that hem could have been interfaced, again with a fusible knit to even it out but not to change the hand of the fabric, cut crosswise to do that:

To recap, you are smart. 

Look at your fabric and your pattern, experiment with samples and start adding in non-prescrbed interfacing wherever you feel it might be helpful. 

Don't be afraid to use more than one interfacing in a garment either. 

I often use something crisp in a collar, something lighter in the front facings where I want support but not stiffness, and something lighter still in the hem areas. 

When tailoring of course it is routine to interface entire front pieces, the cap area of sleeves and the upper back from the bottom of the armhole, over the shoulder blades and scooped up a bit for movement along the spine.

Thrift store snooping of old tailored jackets is most educational too. Please go to the brilliant sewing lawyer for an example of how interfacing is used in tailoring and done well.

Handy sewing hint of the day #9

Layout and cutting.

You wouldn't think there would much to say about this subject. 

You would be wrong.

There is a reason that the cutters are the highest paid workers in a good sewing shop - in their hands the inventory can be used, or wasted.

First of all the most important thing you have to do is to pay meticulous attention to grainline. There are some areas in sewing where you can take shortcuts, but measuring both ends of the straight of grain line to the selvage edge is not negotiable. 

Grainline is everything.

The pay off will be garments that will hang properly without twisting (we have all had collars that seemed to lie right over one shoulder and stood out stupid on the other).

Fold your fabric in half carefully keeping the selvages even, if cutting double.

If matching patterns or stripes however cut single layer. Lay that pattern piece, that should be on the fold, on flat, not folded, fabric, cut it out, flip that piece, still pinned to the fabric, over, making the centre front a fold, match patterns or stripes and then complete the cutting out. (Tell me if this makes sense or not- I can see it my head can you see it in yours?).

Back to basics like pinning.

It has been my observation that many sewers either use too many pins (this can be a problem as each pin picks up a little bit of the fabric and consequently can produce a fabric piece larger than the pattern) or too few - which can make for wobbly cutting.

My advice is to put a pin at any pivot points, corners for example, and about a hand length apart. 

The hand length is important. 

When cutting lay your hand on the pattern piece to hold the edge still and cut from the bottom of  your hand length to the top, stop cutting, re-position your hand, and start cutting again. Flatten the pattern with your hand, cut that length, pause and cut again. Start, cut, stop. This method also works really well if you use weights to hold your pattern pieces down (like the infamous tuna fish cans or beach rocks) and a steady hand on the edge of the pattern keeps things still. 

For hard to cut and slippery fabrics I prefer to use weights actually, less chance of a "lift" with the cut and eliminates the issue of too many pins consuming fabric.

This might be slower than you are used to cutting but is far, far more accurate.

The other thing, and this makes a huge difference to an accurate cut,  is to keep the pattern piece to the right of your scissors if you are using right-handed scissors, and to the left if you cut with left-handed scissors. This might seem like a small detail but try it - you will see a difference.

Of course to cut this way, keeping the pattern piece on the same side as your cutting hand, can be awkward, so do what I do and "chunk cut" some pieces so you can rotate them as necessary to maintain this relationship of the pattern piece to your scissors.

Tomorrow you can be surprised to learn that I have strong opinions about marking.

Thanks for hanging in with me on this.

Handy sewing hint of the day #4

Before I go any further I have to say the best stuff on this blog is in the comment section. 

Make sure you read the comments too. The handy hints that are coming in there are terrific. One point of clarification, when I wrote opaque on the subject of pressing cloths, I could have meant translucent, I guess almost transparent - but I probably should have just said thin. As in thin, worn cotton or linen, thin enough you can have a sense what's underneath would work.

Just don't be suckered into those thick so-called pressing cloths for sale.

Now onto ironing boards.

The kind of ironing board a sewer needs has to have the qualities of a steady table. You are going to be using it a lot, pressing down on fusible interfacing, pressing down with your own weight on a clapper to set a sharp crease (more on that later) and you don't need wooble. This is a sewing occupational health and safety issue.

What you don't need is your average rickety modern Walmart ironing board such is produced by a culture that really doesn't do much ironing anymore.

They just won't hold up to real sewing pressing.

Now you can pad an actual table, cover and use that, and buy a sleeve board or something to put on top for the bits that need some kind of point.

The other idea, and what I myself did, was to buy a yard sale old school ironing board of the kind that weigh like they are made out of iron and some family is getting rid of so they can buy a modern, light rickety unit from Walmart. Maybe your mom has one you can talk her out of, maybe your grandmother.

Or, alternately you can go to the Melrose Avenue street yard sale in June and Mrs. Smith will sell you one for $2.00

After you have had someone help you lug this monstrosity home, by someone who invariably will say to you "I thought we were getting rid of our junk not buying more of it" you have to cover it.

Do not, repeat, do not ever use one of those silver teflon "modern" ironing board covers that are supposed to increase the efficiency of your iron by reflecting back the heat.

These things are sewer's Kryptonite and will, guaranteed, fry all your good work, on both sides and do lots of other bad things that I would list now if I could think of them.

You need to go natural and you need to cover that old ironing board in wool because wool will absorb the moisture of your steam iron and slowly release it back to the underside of the fabric you are pressing (now that is how you really increase the efficiency of your iron) in a nice, friendly, reasonable, professional way.

I covered/padded the top of my own ironing board with some thin wool blankets that were given to my mother when she went into nursing school in about 1950 or thereabouts and even have her initials on them. 

Perfect. 

I just wrapped those blankets around the top of the ironing board and fastened them on the underside with baby diaper safety pins (we throw nothing out around here, you never know).

Next you have to cover the top of the ironing board with 100% heavy cotton. I favour something with stripes so you can use the surface for lining things up straight or big checks etc. because this is also useful.

Now other sewers over to you, what are your ironing board thoughts?

Handy sewing hint of the day #2

This one is for you Jodie.

Read your instructions sheet right through and apply your own logic to what you do, when.

Most instruction sheets have you work from one garment area to another.

Change this.

You will increase your efficiency and effectiveness if you do two things:

1. Do as much as you can to each flat piece before you attach it to another
2. Once you have done all you can to the flat sections, next try to make up all the units, as far you you can, and then put those units together.
3. Do as many like activities at the same time 

For example this means:

Sew all your darts anywhere in the garment, sew on all patch pockets, put in the zippers, sew all shoulder seams (garment and say facings) - you get the drift.

Only press when you have run out of anything else you can do at the machine pick up all pieces and move them over to the ironing board for one ironing session.

When I say put together the units this would mean, for example, sewing the sleeve seams when you are doing a lot of seam sewing, press them in a pressing session, and then, rather than attaching the sleeves to the garment body, put the cuffs on, or hem the sleeves, before you set them in.

Bottom line, forget the instruction pattern instructions and trust yourself. Do like things together and keep units hand-sized as long as possible before you put together a large garment.

Make sense?