Introduction
In this course Cindy Owen and Crissa Lancaster will give you a solid foundation in sewing with a machine. Cindy will teach you all about the parts of the sewing machine and basic maintenance as well as how to set up and adjust your machine. All the basic, essential notions and tools for sewing will be discussed in detail along with different types of fabric and threads. She’ll then teach about different stitch patterns, such as the zig-zag stitch, and how and where to use them. She’ll help you practice using these stitches and sewing a straight seam with her “stitching sampler”.
Then Crissa will help you put what you are learning into practice with 12 different projects ranging from a simple bread cloth to pillow cases and aprons. She’ll walk you step by step through each project, from laying out, to cutting out, to sewing it together. She’ll also go over multiple variations on each project so the total number of projects you can make with this course are far more than the 12 listed!
This course has been developed over the past decade through teaching scores of children and adults from around the country through our hands-on Ploughshare classes. It is designed to address the many issues that Cindy and Crissa have found plague most beginning sewing enthusiasts and they have worked to find the best solution for each of these common problems. When you finish this course you will have a solid foundation in sewing and will have the confidence to tackle more complex projects.
What you’ll learn in this course
- What to look for when buying a sewing machine
- The basic parts of a sewing machine
- How to setup and adjust the machine
- How to use a sewing machine
- Different fabric types and their uses
- The best notions/tools for sewing
- The importance of understanding fabric grain direction
- How to sew a straight seam
- The importance and art of pressing
- You’ll practice these skills with 12 projects:
- Tissue Holder
- Shoe Bag
- Gift Bag
- Double Drawstring Bag
- Bag Caddie
- Bread Cloth
- Basic Pillowcase
- Lined Drawstring Bag
- Pillowcase with Band
- Flange Pillow
- Tote Bag
- Apron
Additional Resources
For patterns and additional instructions, see: Resources for the Online Sewing Course.
About the Instructors
Cindy Owen has been sewing for over 40 years. Nearly 25 years ago she began to teach her daughter Crissa to sew and then used the experience of teaching her daughter to develop this sewing course. She has taught scores of children and adults in her local community as well as teaching hands-on classes at The Ploughshare.
Crissa Lancaster has been sewing for almost 25 years—since she was six years old. When she was nineteen she started helping her mother develop this sewing course. She has taught many people in her local community and taught at The Ploughshare. She is now teaching her own young children to sew.
Overview
Introduction to Sewing
In a disposable world, essential items of lasting beauty are increasing in worth. Experience the fulfillment of creating heirlooms for succeeding generations with your own hands.
I'm Cindy Owens with The Ploughshare I grew up in an environment of sewing. My grandmother sewed and my mother sewed all my sisters' and my clothes for all our growing up years. I always assumed that I would sew too.
But my formal education didn't begin until I took home economics in school when I was in the eighth grade. Each girl made a garment that took three months to complete because the garment was also a practice. Still, it had to be perfect. So we each sewed and ripped out repeatedly, until we all decided that we hate sewing.
But I soon learned that sewing my own clothes was necessary since I'm tall. And once I had my own home, I found that sewing things myself, you could decorate affordable. So I kept on sewing. It came almost as a surprise to me that I discovered that I loved to sew when I made my first quilt.
When my daughter [? Chrissa ?] was little, she wanted to sit in my lap while I sewed. And I usually ended up stopping my sewing to help her sew something too. I must have rethreaded her needle hundreds of times. But sewing became something fun that we did together.
By the time she was 10, she had already sewn miles by hand, and quilted a baby quilt for her little brother. When I began teaching her to sew in the machine, we made a deal. I would rip out her mistakes and she would rip out mine.
It wasn't long before she could out sew me and then began to sew for me. I wanted to share with others what we had learned, so I began to write a hand sewing curriculum along with some other friends, on how to learn to sew and at the same time stay inspired while you increase your skills. I'd often ask [? Chrissa ?] to work out the pattern on an idea for a new project.
Then she started working out her own ideas and eventually drafted garment patterns, and learned to custom sew. Now she's sewing for her own home and children, and teaching them to sew as well. Things have a way of coming around full circle.
So in this course, I'll be teaching you the foundational skills of sewing, and the basics of using a sewing machine. From there I'll hand it over to my daughter [? Chrissa. ?] And she'll guide you step by step through twelve projects using these skills.
We developed this curriculum over the past 20 something years, as different ladies in our community begin to impart sewing skills to our children. At first we just tried to think of things they could sew for out communities annual fair. But we soon realized that we needed to order the projects in such a way to build their skills, as well as to make it fun for them.
I for one, know I did not want to teach them how I learned to sew on a big project first that took months to complete, and had hard techniques that had to be ripped out repeatedly until I got them perfect. I wanted to keep the projects small and fun. Something the girls could enjoy making, finish quickly, and do something with to inspire them to sew more. Because I knew practice is the only way to master skills.
Our communities annual fair gave us a focus and the girls did learn, and excel. Some of them are now sewing extensively for them selves, as well as for others. And are now teaching sewing classes to other's and continuing to develop patterns, and our curriculum.
In this course, we'll discuss the first most basic, and important skills, and habits to develop in learning to sew on a machine. We'll talk about how to best learn to sew and how not to learn to sew. We'll go over the basic parts of the machine and learn how to use it. Then we'll practice using the techniques and machine functions to get comfortable using the machine, before we go on to sewing actual projects.
Gaining any skill requires a commitment of time. If you want to learn a musical instrument, you don't begin by playing a complicated piece. You begin to practice regularly on simpler pieces that increase in difficulty.
Sewing is also a skill that must be developed over time. Though there are some shortcuts that can be taken with sewing on some specific projects, there's no shortcut for gaining the skill of sewing. There are many facets involved in the skill and it's impossible to master all of them at the same time on one project.
This difficulty is what many people encounter when they attempt to sew a dress or a shirt as their beginning project. They usually end up not finishing it or never wearing it because it didn't turn out very well. Some even proclaim, sewing just isn't for me, I'm not good at it. But that's not a fair assessment.
For you wouldn't expect to play "Clair de Lune" on the piano after your first lesson, and then reject music when you found that you couldn't do it very well the first time. All skills including sewing are gained by repetition. The shorter the interval between practice sessions the more quickly the skill is acquired, and the better it's retained.
This curriculum provides an abundance of projects ordered in a way to increase skills step by step. But the most important factor in acquiring the skill of sewing is the time you invest in gaining it by practice, practice, practice.
Introducing the Projects
[MUSIC PLAYING] In this course, we're going to be learning to sew on 12 different projects. We're going to be teaching different skills in each of these projects as we advance to harder projects.
The first one we'll start with is just a plain lined tissue holder that you can put in your purse. It's a very nice gift.
Then, we'll go on to making a shoe bag. When you're going on a trip, you can put your shoes in. It's a nice, simple project, a very easy gift item to make. Then, we'll be going on to a gift bag that has a little separate lining and learn some techniques in that.
Then, we'll be doing a bag caddy that you can store bags so that you can reuse them. Then, we'll be doing two different kinds of drawstring bags. This is just a basic drawstring bag. And we'll be teaching some different techniques on using a casing with that, and then a different kind of casing on this drawstring bag.
Then, we'll go on to making a pillowcase, that's just a plain, basic pillowcase. We'll learn how to make a French seam in that.
And then we'll go on to a more difficult pillowcase that has a contrast band and a little trim, where we have a kind of unique method for making it so that there's not a seam exposed anywhere inside of it or out. Then we'll learn to make tote bags and a flange pillow with upholstery fabric.
And we'll make bread cloths, which we'll teach edge stitching on this. And then we'll go on to make aprons, which we have some basic construction techniques for going on into garment making on this project.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Notions & Fabrics
In this video, we will discuss the basic supplies that you will need to begin to sew and talk about kinds of fabric to buy for making the quilt projects in this course. Of course, the main piece of equipment that you'll need is a sewing machine in good working order. Don't try to learn to sew on a machine that is not working correctly. So make sure you've got one that's running well before you start.
The other major piece of equipment you'll need is an iron that's working well, an ironing board. And a sleeve board is very helpful, if you'd like to add that to your supplies. One thing I'd like to mention about the iron is after many years of ironing, I have decided that my favorite iron for using these kinds of projects is just a mid-grade iron. Like a $30 iron is really fine. You don't need a really big expensive fancy one. And if you use distilled water in it, it will keep going for much longer.
Basic supplies are usually called notions. One of the main supplies that you'll need is thread. There's lots of different threads on the market. And you'll want to think about what your purpose is, what you're going to be sewing, whenever you choose your thread.
If you're sewing on cotton, people often recommend using all-cotton thread to sew an all-cotton fabric. If you're sewing on any synthetic, people recommend most using polyester threads for that. So you want to try to match your fiber of your thread to the fiber that you're going to be sewing.
There's many different brands of sewing thread. Some of the American-made threads I've used for many years. I've not had any problem with them.
But some machines are very sensitive. And many of the machines are made in Europe. And the European threads are said to sew much better and have less trouble on those kind of sewing machines. So you might want to check into looking for-- the Gutermann and the Mettler threads are made in Europe and are high-quality threads that many people do prefer.
The main kind of thread I would say not to use is to not use old thread that's from Aunt Susie's sewing box that you inherited. Don't use that old thread because it may be brittle. Really cheap-quality thread can break and cause a lot of problems in your tension. So I would say to use the best thread that you can afford.
The spool pins on your basic machine are usually made to fit this kind of a spool. If you do choose to use a spool of thread that's larger than the standard one that was developed for your sewing machine, a thread stand works much better for feeding through your machine.
Another thread that I would say to avoid to use for sewing is a serger thread. Serger thread is excellent for serging. But it is a bad choice for sewing with a machine because it has one ply less than good-quality sewing thread.
One of your most basic supplies that you'll be using are pins. And there's many different kinds of pins on the market. I find that I use these the most. They're extra long. They're easy to pick up, with a large head on them.
But sometimes, you're sewing with things that are a fine fabric. These are a finer-head pin. They're a glass-head pin. So that if you do use pins with an iron, they won't melt. The other kinds of pins will melt.
So this is nice because it has a glass head. It still has a nice long shaft, but it had a very fine shaft. So it's a very nice quality pin especially for clothing sewing and for accurate pinning. This is a very nice kind of pin to use.
You'll also need a pin cushion. The magnetic ones are very nice. This is a standard one that's been around for a long time.
This one's a very nice one because it makes the pins parallel to each other. So it makes them very nice to pick them up. You can also use, of course, a regular pin cushion. But these are the ones that I prefer to use.
You'll also be using bobbins for your thread. You want to make sure that you use the right bobbin for your machine. Do check on that. When you go to the store, it'll say on the package what kind of machine it's used for. You must use the right size bobbin for what you're doing.
And this is a nice little bobbin holder. I recommend getting something. There's all different kinds that you can get that will hold your bobbins. But I would say you'd probably want to start with one or two dozen bobbins because you'll need one for every color thread that you'll be sewing with.
Another basic supply, of course, is your scissors. You'll need a larger pair of scissors for cutting out fabric. And there's different brands.
I would say get the very best that you can on scissors. You want really good working scissors. And you don't want to leave them around where your little boy can cut paper with them, because that does dull them.
I also want to show you that there's different sizes of scissors. If you're teaching children or if you have small hands-- this is a standard-size scissor. But you can see, this is 8 inch, and this is a 7 inch. It's much smaller. And so smaller hands can handle this kind of scissor better.
You'll also want a smaller pair of scissors that you'll use at your sewing machine that will just help you to cut threads. You just need something small. There's no need to have the big heavy pair of scissors at your sewing machine. And I like to use a small pair of scissors there.
Some of your other basic supplies is needles. Now, there's many different kinds of needles. And it can be a little confusing to somebody brand new to sewing.
But the needle is very, very important for your sewing machine. You want to get the right kind for your machine. And you also want to get the right size for the thread and the fabric that you're sewing on.
For instance, if you're sewing on upholstery fabric or you're sewing on denim, you want to use a very heavy needle. It's often called a jeans or denim needle. There's different numbers on the bottom of the different kinds of packages. There's one number that's going to be a metric number that they use in Europe. And the other is the American number.
So this is the jeans needle, in this brand is a 16. That's a size 16 needle or a size 100 needle, depending on which your manual tells you to use for your sewing machine. It's the same size needle. It's just the American and the metric.
If you're sewing on something that's fine, on very fine fabric, you'll want to use a smaller needle. I recommend a size 12 or a 14 for sewing most things from your sewing machine. 12 is a little bit finer.
And it's a very nice needle. It's a little bit smaller, has a little bit smaller eye. So if you want something a little bit bigger, a little bit heavier fabric, or you just want to have a little bit bigger hole so you can see to thread it, you can go up to 14.
There's also ball point needles. You want to avoid those for woven fabrics. We're just going to be working with woven fabrics in this curriculum.
But sometimes people have ball points. They don't know what they're for. But they are for sewing on knits.
There's also many other kinds of needles that you'll learn as you sew that you might want to try some different kinds of needles. But these are the very basic ones. Size 12 and 14 will be all you would need, really, probably to sew on the things in this level.
Another very important tool in sewing is this thread ripper. If you sew, you will find that you have to pick out some seams every once in awhile. There's all kinds. These are really very inexpensive. But I find they roll off and they're hard to find sometimes.
But this is my very most favorite seam ripper. It's very thin. It's very sharp. And it never rolls off.
You'll also need some things for turning corners and poking corners out. Now, you don't necessarily have to go buy something for that. They have some very nice ones. These work very well. This is my favorite one.
But there's all different kinds. A crochet hook works. I had this little poker that came from somewhere that works, too. Sometimes, I've even used a pencil if I just turn the lead back. I've used that to poke with.
The main thing you want to remember in poking corners is don't use your scissors. Because you might poke right through your fabric. So it's better to have some kind of a tool handy that you can use for poking out corners.
We also use this sometimes for turning things and poking out corners. This is a very nice tool. It's not necessary, but it is very handy. And it's one of my favorite notions.
You'll also need something that's called a bodkin. It's been around for a long time. It's something to help you thread through elastic and things into a casing. This is a very nice, little, very simple, very workable bodkin.
There's all kinds of others. There's just endless varieties of things like that. But I'll have to say that most of the girls that we sew with, most of the ladies, prefer a large safety pin. So this will work just fine. You don't have to get those unless you want to.
You'll need some kind of little rulers for when we turn up the hems on things. These are metal seam gauges. These are really nice.
You can iron on them. There won't be a problem with that. You can move them to set the mark.
Some people use a little acrylic ruler like this. It's very accurate. It's very easy to see what you're doing. But you have to be careful, because it can melt. On the project videos, we'll also show you a way that's even better than this for marking things to iron. So you'll learn that in the different projects.
On marking tools-- you'll need something to mark your fabric with. And there are just dozens and dozens and dozens of different kinds. I think I've probably bought all of them trying to find the perfect one. I can't say that I've really found the perfect one that has everything I want in it.
But I did have some thoughts on some things. There's no right or wrong on what you want. You just have to think about what you're going to be marking. Am I going to be ironing over it right away? Am I marking on the back of it?
Does it matter what it looks like? Or am I marking on the front, and I can't wash it? So you'll have to learn to ask yourself questions so you'll know which marking tools do I want.
Probably the least expensive ones are going to be something along the line of a pencil. They have chalk pencils. There's ones that they call water-soluble pencils.
One thing I do not recommend-- I don't find a need for it-- really too much are colored pencils. They are very hard, if you ever do want to get the mark out, they are the hardest to get the mark out. So I actually don't too much use colored pencil. If I use a pencil, I'm going to use one that's a water-soluble one that's white. And you will need a nice little sharpener to keep them sharp.
Another pencil that I use is just a basic mechanical pencil. I have to say this is probably my most favorite marking tool, just a simple pencil. I like how this mechanical-- it always has a nice sharp point. And I find myself using this very often.
Another marking utensil that is very handy to have are these kinds of markers. What's nice about them is that these purple ones will actually disappear with air. You don't have to use water or anything to get them out. They'll just disappear on their own.
The package says they'll last for 12, 24 hours. I found that they sometimes will disappear in maybe as fast as 20 minutes if you're in a humid environment. So just your different pens and the different fabric will actually mark different also.
There's also blue pen. And this comes off with water. You can spritz it with water. You can wash it.
You can use a damp rag to get the marks off. The main thing to know about blue pens is that you should not iron over it before you get the mark out. Because it can leave a residual mark on there.
Some people prefer not to use pens like this because they're concerned about-- is the residue, the chemical that's in it going to appear later on? I have not had any experience with that happening. But I think it is possible, especially if you iron over it before you get the mark out.
Now, there are two different kinds of-- well, there's a lot of brands for these kinds of pens. The ones that are like this have a much finer point. If you look at them, they're a very fine point. The drawback to them is that they don't last as long.
This style pen lasts a lot longer than this style pen. But this style pen has a very fine point, where this has a very wide point. So if you're marking very precise things, this works a little better. And it also has less chemical going in because the line is finer than this style pen.
Now, there's also some other kind of mechanical-type pencils. There's ones that have different colors and different kinds. And they have some special kinds of erasers that help erase them.
If you do want to get something out, they can come out. They do take a little bit of effort. And sometimes using the erasers will kind of rough up your fabric a little bit. So these are very nice, very exact precise kinds of pencils.
But I find that what I would use them for, I can also use this for. However, this is really going to be almost impossible to erase out, where this can be erased out with some effort. So you can make that choice on what you'd like to use.
Another kind of pencil is a fine graphite pencil that some people like-- this kind of thing. But it has the same issues as the other graphite. Graphite is sometimes hard to get out. Even if it says, this will come out with water, I have a hard time really getting them out without messing up the fabric.
Some other markers that are very nice-- soapstone is a very nice marking pencil. It comes out with water. It's very easy to use. But it does break easily. And some people prefer not to mess with that for that reason.
Another very, very nice marking utensil is to use a chalk pencil of some sort. There's all different brands, all different styles of them. This one is my favorite.
But what it does is it just marks a chalk line. And I can even mark a chalk line. And it brushes right off. And so I really like this because it's so easy to brush off.
One of the oldest marking tools is tailor's chalk. And this works very well for most of the things that we'll be using. It's pretty inexpensive. So this is another option for those who like to use that.
So there's many kinds of marking tools. There's many more even than what I've shown you here. As you sew and as you work on different projects, you'll find your own favorites. My favorites that I end up finding myself using over and over again are these right here. These are my favorites.
Another tool that's nice to have in your sewing box is masking tape. This comes off really easily and it doesn't leave a residue on your machine. And I'll use it sometimes for making seam guides that I want for a different measurement than what's actually on my machine.
You'll also want to have some good-quality sewing machine oil. You never want to cut your corners on oil. Don't ever use something from your husband's garage to oil your machine. Only use high-quality sewing machine oil.
You'll need some kind of a lint brush to clean out your machine because it will get linty. You'll need some kind of a little screwdriver that will work with your machine. And then an iron cleaner is very nice for if you ever get something on your iron where it has a drag to it. This iron cleaner's very handy. I use it frequently.
Some other very nice tools to have are rotary cutters, a rotary cutting mat, and rulers to use with your rotary cutters. They're very accurate, makes a very accurate cut, very neat, very clean edge. And I recommend it very much for cutting out these projects.
It's also used a lot in quilting. But we can use it a lot for other kinds of sewing, as well. If you choose not to do that, and you don't want to invest in that or for whatever reason you have, you can use just a regular cardboard mat for cutting out.
This is very nice for cutting out garments and things. In one of the project videos, we'll be cutting out an apron. And this will be very nice for that.
If you don't want to use the rotary cutter, you'll need to make some kind of a pattern which you can use. You can buy this with the interfacing at the store. It has the 1-inch grid marks so that you can make your own pattern. If we need something that's 3 inches by 18 inches, that could be cut out this way.
Or you could just mark this off. It's in 1-inch increments. And you can make your own pattern, 3 inches by 18 inches, and pin it on. So you do have an option. You don't have to go that route if you don't want to.
You can also make patterns out of tissue paper. That's a little thin. We often use this kind of paper for making patterns. It's the same kind of paper they use on a doctor's examining table.
And it's a little bit thicker than tissue paper. So it works very well for making your own patterns. Of course, really nice patterns that you're going to use a lot, that you're going to repeatedly want to use over and over again, you can actually make your pattern on fabric or on interfacing.
So while there's an abundance of notions that you can use for sewing to make things go easier and things that you like to work with, these are the basic ones that we recommend for using for sewing this course. You'll need some good-quality sewing thread, bobbins. And you'll need colors to match the projects that you'll be working with.
Some shears for cutting things out, and some smaller scissors for cutting threads to the machine. You'll need some good-quality sewing machine needles. Size 12 and 14 are the main sizes that we recommend. You'll need a few hand-sewing needles. You'll need some basic pins and a pin cushion of some style.
You'll need some marking utensils. And we like these three probably the best, though others do have their place. A good-quality seam ripper, some kind of a bodkin or a safety pin to thread things through your casings.
A point turner of some sort, small rulers for ironing with and marking seams. You'll need masking tape for marking seam guides, oil, screwdriver, and lint brush for cleaning your machine. Sewing machine, iron and ironing board.
We highly recommend the rotary cutter system with a mat, a rotary cutter, and a ruler for cutting out the projects. And this is what we use in this course. We demonstrate with.
If you choose not to use the rotary cutting system, you can also make your patterns using a cardboard mat that's used for cutting out fabric and garments with. And work that with your paper or tissue paper, cutting out your own patterns. Or you can use this pattern paper with the 1-inch grid on it to make your patterns.
We will make most of the projects for this course out of light- to medium-weight cotton fabric. Some of them will be made with a drapery-weight fabric, like for the shoe bag we used a drapery-weight fabric that has a little heavier feel to it. It has a nice body to it. So it has a nice shape fit for some bags.
We'll also be using some upholstery fabric for making the flange pillow and the tote bag. There's many different kinds of upholstery fabric. Not all of them are going to be suitable.
Some of them are really heavy. So if there's anything that's really heavy, I'd avoid that. Some of them have kind of a plastic backing on it. And you want to avoid something like that.
And then some of them also have a feel to them that feel kind of plasticky or nylonish. I would avoid those and just stick with something that has a nice soft-- actually, what we call it is a hand-- to it. It has a very nice, soft feel to it.
I'd stick with those. That'd be the safest in beginning. There's a place for some of those other things. And you can learn that as you go along.
And the other thing I'd like to say about the fabrics is that stripes and plaids often look very nice. But if you want to work with a stripe or plaid, you need to be willing to take the time to cut it out a little more carefully, trying to get it along the stripes so that it looks nice.
Another thing to watch for is directional fabrics. Like on this, this has a direction to it. This upholstery fabric has a direction. So when you're cutting out a directional fabric, you have to take a little more care to make sure that the up side of the pattern is up on your fabric.
The Sewing Machine
There are a large variety of sewing machines available. We offer only a few thoughts that may be of help to you as you decide what machine you will use. You'll need a machine that does a straight and a zigzag stitch, and that has a buttonhole feature.
These are the basic functions needed for most sewing projects. An older machine that has all-metal parts, is in good working condition, and has an instruction manual is often a good choice for a beginner. There are also many new computerized machines that have multiple features, such as embroidery, quilting, and many fancy stitches. These features add a lot of cost to the machine and may be intimidating to beginners, though some of these machines also have convenient features such as automatic threading, automatically raising the needle at the end of each seem, making a 1-step buttonhole, and other features.
Regardless of which kind you choose, first learn how to oil and care for the machine from the machine guide, a repairman, or someone else who knows. This is important to know and be able to do regularly. Also plan to spend time learning how to thread it, wind a bobbin, make a backstitch, change stitch length and width, and adjust the tension before you sew on a project.
And finally, don't try to learn how to sew on a machine that is not in good working order. It's important to remember that you won't enjoy sewing, or be able to sew well, if you can't operate the machine. So choose a machine with this in mind. When you buy a machine, practice on scrap fabric first to familiarize yourself with it before sewing on a project.
While all machines differ a little bit in their particulars, the basic parts of a sewing machine will remain the same on the difference sewing machines. The different parts are the hand wheel that makes the needle go up and down by hand. There's a bobbin, winder of some sort-- this one goes from here to this pretension winder. And we'll show you how to wind a bobbin a little bit later. But this is for winding the bobbin.
You have the spool pins that your thread will sit on. You'll have little hooks of some sort that will go through the tension disk. Different machines have the tension disk in different places, but this is a very important part, that you thread your machine properly. So these are the tension disks.
This is the take-up lever. We'll be talking about that. At the beginning of each seem that we sew, we want to make sure the take-up lever is in the "up" position. So this is the take-up lever. And it's moved by the hand wheel.
There's a little lever on the back that raises and lowers the presser foot. And this is the presser foot. We use this-- it's called a presser foot because it presses against the fabric and holds it in place.
This little thing underneath here-- I'll move the wheel so you can see it. This moves back and forth. This is called the feed dog. It is actually what's going to feed your fabric through your machine. You don't have to push or pull it through. The feed dog pulls it through at an even speed.
This is your adjustment knob for adjusting for the width of your zigzag. This feature right here is for the length of the stitch. And also, when you go all the way up, it makes a backstitch on this machine. You'll need to familiarize yourself with your machine and your manual. That will tell you if there's anything that's a little different on your machine.
This particular machine has a table that comes off. And this exposes the bobbin part of the machine. In this machine, there's a bobbin case that your bobbin fits inside. And we'll go over how to thread your machine and everything later. But this is your bobbin case. It goes inside there.
This knob is for making buttonholes, which we don't do in this particular course, but you'll probably want to learn how to do in the future. And this knob here, right in the center, adjusts whether the needle is in the center position or off to one side. So sometimes you're sewing, it's kind of nice to be able to adjust your needle a little. It'll still do a straight stitch, but it'll put it exactly where you want it to be.
This is the tension control knob. This is what you use to tighten or loosen the tension. And you'll again need to refer to your particular machine's sewing guide to learn how to adjust that.
Machines also have many different stitches. This machine has a lever on top so that you can choose a different kind of stitch. For regular, straight, and zigzag sewing, we don't have to make any adjustments on these levers. I'll lay this down at zero. And this for zigzag and straight stitch. But if you want to use any other kind of stitch for blind hemming or any of the other fancy stitches, these levers work together to make an adjustment for these other kind of stitches.
You'll also have your foot pedal. The foot pedal works just like an accelerator in a car. The harder you press, the faster it goes. And in our foundational practice, we're going to be working on getting control of the speed. You want to be able to control your machine. And you'll be wanting to practice on how to do that, and keep a nice even speed for your sewing.
Again, there's many different kinds of machines. This particular one has a nice feature of the free arm. Some machines have a flatbed. And ones that have a flatbed often have a drop-in bobbin rather than using a bobbin case. Again, you'll just have to check the manual for your particular machine to see how it works. You can also use the Q&A section below to ask us any questions on particulars.
Sewing machines are sensitive to dust and lint, and must be cleaned periodically. If your machine did not come with a small cleaning brush, you can purchase one at a fabric store. Lint accumulates at places where the thread is pulled through a small opening and in the bobbin area.
Lint, or a small piece of thread that gets trapped in the tension disk is often the cause of a sudden, unexplained loss of tension while your sewing a seem. A simple brushing between the disk and in the bobbin area will often dislodge the lint. Some machines are more easily brushed out than others. Follow the instructions in your guide on how to clean your machine.
On this sewing machine, I looked at my guide to see where it says to oil the machine. Now, this gives us a few places to oil. And I'm going to follow the directions. It tells me where to oil. I use a very good quality sewing machine oil. You don't want to use cheap oil. You want to use good quality sewing oil.
And you only want to put just one drop. You don't need a lot of oil, but you do want that one drop. I'm going to put it in a couple places that my machine guide tells me to put it. And it just tells me to put it in three places.
Now, I know from using this machine for many years that it needs to be oiled more than that. Any repairmen I've ever talked to has always told me to put oil wherever metal moves against metal. So you can either follow your guide and just do that much, and you can take it to a repairmen to do oiling beyond that. But I always go ahead and oil, put a drop of oil everywhere, when I turn the hand wheel, that I see metal touching metal.
On your machine, it'll be different. So you want to look at that. There's places on the side here also where metal touches metal, and moves against metal. And so I'll put a drop of oil in those places.
Now, I want to show you how to change a needle, because changing the needle is a very important thing. A needle gets dull, or burred, even-- if you hit a pin, it'll actually burr the end of it. But even just from going up and down so many times in your fabric, it'll actually dull. And a dull needle is the cause of many, many sewing problems. People don't realize what's wrong with their machine, they take it to a repairman, only to find out all they needed was a new needle.
So I'm going to take the needle out. Again, your machine will tell you exactly how to do it. I'm just loosening this screw and taking my needle out. And I'll show you in a minute how to put it back in. Now, I'm going to take my presser foot off and slide that off.
Now, I'm going to open my bobbin case. And there's a little lever here. And again, your machine guide will tell you how to get into your machine. This is probably the most important place for cleaning. Now, I don't know if you can see it here, but there is lint built up right all in here around the feed dogs. This lint is what causes lots of problems in your sewing.
Sometimes the tension problems that might encounter with sewing are really lint that's built up in there. So that's what your brush is for. You're going to brush out all that lint. See that lint coming out? I like to get all that lint out.
There's also another place on this machine that I can open up, the bobbin case area, and take this out. A very important place to oil on this machine is right at the bottom of this race here. So I'm going to brush that off, brush this out. I like to give it a good blowing to get anything out of there that I need to.
And I'm going to just put one drop of oil at the bottom. There's also some places along here that you can oil-- any place that metal touches metal. It just makes your machine run smoother. It helps it to last longer. So I'm going to put it back inside there. Now I'm going to replace this.
Now, I want to show you how to put a needle in. We talked before about the size needles. 12 and 14 is the most common sized needle that we use. It's very important that you put your needle in the right direction.
On this machine, the flat side on the shank-- there's a flat side-- the flat side goes to the back. Some machines, it might go to the side. But you need to find out which way, because your machine will not work right if the needle is not put in properly.
So in this, I'm going to slide it all the way up to the top, making sure on this machine that the flat side is to the back. You can tighten it by hand, but I find that it stays in a little bit better if I'll just slightly tighten it with a screwdriver. You don't want to overtighten that area. So now the needle's in and I'm going to put the foot back on. And then we'll be ready to sew.
The sewing machine guide for this machine says that you should oil it every 30 to 40 hours of sewing. Other people say that you should oil your machine after every three or four garments that you sew. You can choose whichever you like. One thing that is for sure, you need to keep it oiled.
Some people think they don't need to oil it because it was oiled and I haven't used it in a year. But the oil does evaporate, so it most likely will need to be re-oiled. The area down here in the bobbin case, though, does need to be oiled much more frequently. This guide says that you should oil it every three or four hours of sewing, so that would mean that spot would need to be oiled much more often than the rest of your machine.
All machines have some problems from time to time. And part of learning how to sew is learning how to solve many of those problems yourself so that you can continue sewing. Some situations will require a repairmen to service your machine. But try to learn when you can to keep your particular machine going.
The following is a basic list of the most common things that cause problems that are easily fixed on your own. Using old, brittle thread, or thread that's too heavy for the size of your needle, will mess you up. If your machine is not properly threaded, that'll be a problem.
Your tension may have been bumped. Usually, it should be in the middle position. And sometimes, it's your needle that's not inserted correctly into the machine, which is often the cause of skipped stitches. A needle that's dull, burred, or bent will also cause problems with your machine not working right.
Also, if your needle's not the right kind or size for the thread you're using and the fabric you're using will also cause problems. Lint or thread could also be caught in the tension disk or around the bobbin case. Another cause is if your machine needs oil.
If you're having trouble getting a nice stitch, you may want to try this routine. Totally unthread your machine. Unthread it. Rethread it, making sure that everything is in the right place.
So thread it back through. Now, you can just turn your tension disk. This adjusts the tension on it. And I'm going to turn it all the way in one direction. I'm pulling the thread. I'm going to turn it all the way as tight as it will go. And then I'm keep on pulling it while I turn it all the way as loose as I can go.
What this does is if there's a little piece of fuzz or lint or something that's in the tension disk, that'll often pull it out. And then you always do want to reset your machine, usually in the middle position for your tension. You can also try taking your bobbin out, brushing it out, and if you do these things, if it still doesn't work right, I'd stop and clean and oil my machine. More than 99% of the time, that will get your machine up and going again. Those other small percent, you might need to take it into the repairman. But most of the things you can take care of yourself and keep on sewing.
After you've oiled your machine, it's a good idea to make sure you wipe off any place there might be oil. And I'll even take just an extra piece of fabric and just sew a little bit on it to make sure there's no oil on it for when I start my projects. A few other tips for keeping your machine going is to keep your machine covered when it's not in use to avoid dust buildup and protect it.
Make sure when you transport and store your machine, do it carefully so that you won't bump any of the settings or parts in transit. A padded sewing machine case is helpful for this. Another thing to keep in mind is to not ever store your machine where there's high humidity, such as in a garage or attic. The reason for that is that rust can build up in your machine. And so it'll last longer if you store it in a place that's somewhat climate controlled if your area is very humid.
Don't neglect regular oiling and cleaning of your machine. This is the most common cause of machine problems, and you can learn to do this yourself. Most importantly, make peace with your sewing machine. If you do not learn the basics of caring for your machine, setting the tension, and fixing minor problems, you'll likely not enjoy sewing.
Cutting Methods
[MUSIC PLAYING] Now I'd like to teach you basics of rotary cutting. A rotary cutter is basically a razor blade that's round. It's shaped something like a pizza cutter, but the whole edge all the way around it is a razor blade. So it's very sharp. So safety is a very important consideration when using a rotary cutter.
There's many different kinds of rotary cutters. There's different sizes. This is very large. It's very nice for really thick, nappy fabric that has a very large nap to it. It's more thick and fluffy like fleece or something. So a big one is nice for something like that. And they have small ones, even smaller ones than this, for cutting little curves and all.
My favorite one is styled like this. It's very comfortable. It has a lock for locking it open or locking it closed.
There's different kinds of mats and different sizes of mats. There's a very large one, which is very nice when you're cutting out large projects. This is a basic one that most people start. It's a 18 by 24 inch mat. And this is the one I'm going to show you how to work with today.
There's also many, many different sizes and styles of rulers. This one is six by 24 inches. This is the most standard size. If you just have one ruler, this is the one to get.
I also like to use this one that's a little bit smaller. It's 12 inches, but it's also six inches wider. I use this also. But if you only get one, this is the one to get.
So what I want to show you about the rotary cutter is first you need to fold your fabric so that you're cutting your pie-- most of your pieces are going to be cut on the grain. When we're cutting fabric, there's a grain line on the fabric. There's lines-- whenever the fabric is on the loom. There's great big looms they have. There's the warp and there's the width, the crosswise threads.
So any time on a pattern when it says lengthwise grain, the length runs along the edge of the selvage edge. OK? This woven-- these two sides of the fabric are called the selvage, right? That's the selvage. And the length-wise grain runs along the selvage. The crosswise grain goes the other way.
Now when we cut, we want to cut strips that are going to be along the grain line. This is a grain line going this way, and this is grain line going this way.
Any other direction like this is called the bias. OK? And this is really stretchy. So most of time, we avoid cutting right on the bias. They'll be some particular times as you sew that you'll want to use the bias, like when you're doing triangles and things like that. But for most of these projects, we're going to be cutting squares and rectangles. We're going to be cutting along a grain line.
So the first thing I want to do is I want to get my fabric, where both of these layers of fabric are on the grain all the way across. And I'm going to do that by first lin-- I'm going to line up my selvage edge, both the selvage from this side and the selvage from that side, right along each other.
Now I want it smooth all the way up to the fold line. And I want to make sure that there's no twist along the fold. I'll show you what I mean.
If I was to lay these layers like this, see how there's a twist like that? And that's going to cause me problems when I'm cutting. So I want to make sure the edges are parallel to each other, the selvage edges are parallel to each other. But that there's not a twist either.
Now I'm going to tuck the selvage edges toward my body. And the fold is away. I'm going to bring that folded edge, and I'm going to line it up with the selvages so all the lines are parallel.
Now I'm going to make a straight cut. Now on rotary cutting, of course, the most dangerous thing is to think about cutting your finger with that blade. So there's a few rules of safety with the rotary cutting. One is to always cut away from yourself. Try not to get in positions where you're cutting at awkward angles because that's the likely time that you would have a miscut and cut yourself.
So you want to cut away from yourself. Every time you lay your cutter down, you want to make sure that that blade is closed. You don't leave it open because if it was left open-- if I was to leave it open like that, it would be very easy for me to draw my hand across it and cut myself. Or if I accidentally knocked it on the floor, it might fall and hurt someone. And if you have children in the house, that could be a problem, too.
So I always make sure that I close my blade. My blade is closed whenever I set it down. I'm going to cut away from myself.
Now because I don't want my finger to be over here, if I use a six inch right ruler-- I've got a large hand for a lady. If I put my little finger against that side, I can't get my finger over there. So I know if I make that my habit, I know I can't cut my finger if my little finger's over here.
There's also another reason why I want my little finger to be over there. Because it does give a little bit of a bumper so that I don't shift my ruler as easily.
Which brings me to my next point. You really do want to hold your ruler perfectly still while you're cutting because there's no point in using the ruler if while you're cutting, you're moving around with your ruler.
So I'm going to use that as a bumper. But I'm also going to put a quite a bit of pressure, more pressure than probably what you realize, on holding this ruler down because I want that ruler to stay steady and still. All right?
So I'm going to straighted the edge of this fabric. I've got all my grain line matched up by the way I folded the fabric. So I'm right-handed. So I'm going to cut this direction. If you're left-handed, you'd need to reverse it.
Now I'm going to line up that folded edge with one of the lines on my ruler. I'm going to place my hand or my little fingers over the edge. And I'm going to bear down. I'm going to open my rotary cutter. And I'm going to cut straight, away from myself. I'm not cutting this way. I'm not cutting that way. I'm going straight up and down.
I'm setting my rotary cutter down with the blade closed. And I could take this piece off. And now I have a very nice cut that's right on the grain line of my fabric.
Now if I was going to do quilt making, or I'm going to cut a strip for the ties of an apron or something like that, I would rotate the mat around like that. So now I could cut strips two and 1/2 inches wide or however wide I want to make it.
In this case, I would look at my ruler over to the 2 and 1/2 inch mark. And I would line up again my double fold with one of the lines that are going this way and the 2 and 1/2 mark going that way.
Again, I put my hand down. Put pinky over the edge. Bearing down. Cut away from myself. Close the blade to set it down. And there I have a very nice 2 and 1/2-- very accurate-- a nice 2 and 1/2 inch strip.
Now another way to use the rotary cutter and the mat is to actually go by the measurements on the mat. What I was just doing was going by the measurements on the ruler. But now I want to show you that you can actually use the mat. And we'll use this in some of the projects for cutting some things out.
So say I want to cut a piece that's 10 inches by 12 inches. First, I would want to cut off my selvage edge because in sewing, that selvage edge is woven tighter and it sometimes causes a problem in your seam line. So for most projects, I prefer to cut the selvage off. That way, I know it's not going to give me a problem later on.
All right. So I want to cut a 10 by 12 inch piece of fabric. So what I can do is I can take my straightened edge. I have a nice straight edge already that I just cut. And I'm going to lay it on my mat. And I'm going to actually offset this one inch so that I can see those numbers pretty well.
The only thing about offsetting you have to think about is that if I move this over an inch, I'm going to have to add an inch to my numbers. Like if I'm going to cut a 12 inch piece, if I put my cut right here, I'm going to actually cut at 13. But that'll give me 12 inches.
You could do whichever way you want to. If you always cut right here, for one thing, you can't see the numbers. And for another thing, you'll end up totally cutting away your line right there. So I like to do the math.
So if I want to cut a 12 inch piece, I'm going to cut at 13. So there's that line right there. And I can measure this right here. I've got this right along the one inch mark. I've got this right along the 13 inch mark. And I'm going to cut. I cut on the 13 inch mark.
Now I want to cut it 10 inches. So I can just lay this on 10 inches. This is on zero. And this is on 10.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So now I have a perfectly cut 10 by 12 inch rectangle.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you choose not to use the rotary cutting system for cutting out your projects, there are other options. One is to use a cardboard mat, such as this. This is very nice to have for cutting out garments and other kinds of sewing, too. It has a nice one inch grid on it.
What you can do is you can use paper, tissue paper. You can use interfacing for a longer lasting pattern. You can even use unbleached muslin or white muslin. If you'd like to, you can see the lines through that, also, to make a pattern that lasts a long time if it's something you're going to be using often.
I'm going to use it. For my purposes here, I'm going to use the grid. I can see through my paper. And I'm going to make a 10 by 12 inch pattern.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to line up the straight edge of the paper right against this mark right here. And I'm going to use the ruler. You could use another kind of straight edge. It doesn't have to be this particular kind.
But I'm going to make a mark right along this line that I can see, right through here. I'm going to make a mark right along 12 inch. And I'm going to turn it this way. And since these numbers go backwards here-- they don't start at zero-- I want to make a 10 inch cut. So I'm going to subtract 10 from 36. So on the 26 inch line, I'm going to make another mark. Now see, I can see very easily the line through there.
Now this edge isn't straight on this side. So I'm going to make a mark right along the zero line right here.
So now I can just cut out along my lines with my paper cutting scissors. I can cut that out. And then I can use this pattern piece and lay it on my fabric for my project, put it on, and use my fabric scissors to cut around it.
There is one other method for making a pattern. And this is a very simple one. You can purchase this in fabric store. And it's called-- it's really like interfacing. But it's called pattern making paper. And it has a one inch grid on it. So if I wanted an 8 by 10 piece of this, it's a very simple matter to count over eight squares and 10 squares this way. And cut out a pattern piece. This way you can avoid using mats and rulers and all that. You can just use the lines as your guide.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Foundational Sewing Practice
In this video, we're going to go over our foundational sewing practice. The first thing we're going to do is learn how to wind a bobbin. The first thing you do is put your thread on your spool pin, and referring to your machine's guide, you'll wind it for the bobbin.
So on this machine, it tells me that I'm going to wind it around this pre-tension knob. I'm going to wind it in this direction because there's a little arrow that tells you the right direction. I'm going to go over to my bobbin-- now, the best way to wind a bobbin is to put your thread in the middle and come up to the outside, in one of the little holes there.
The next thing I'll do is to push this in, so it will activate the bobbin. And then I'm going to loosen the tension right here. There's a little knob that's inside the big knob on the handle of the machine. That deactivates the needle from going up and down while I'm going to wind the bobbin.
Now I'm going to wind the bobbin. I'm just pressing on the pedal. You'll notice I'm holding the thread. And I'm going to stop, and I'm going to ahead and clip this little thread off. What I don't want to happen is, I don't want that thread to get caught up down in with the other thread as it's winding. I just want to cut that little end off like that.
And now I'm going to continue winding. It's not necessary to go super fast-- there's a tendency to do that. But sometimes the bobbin doesn't wind as smoothly, if you go really fast. And I want it to be wound on there really nicely.
For the machine to run properly, it's very important that the thread is wound up very smoothly on the spool-- which, it comes that way. But you're doing it out on the bobbin and you want to wind it so it'll be very smooth. If you see that your bobbin is not winding smoothly, you want to stop and try again.
So now, the machine-- on its own-- stopped because it was full. And I'm just going to cut the thread between the two of those. I'm going to tighten this back up, because I want to reactivate the needle.
So now we're going to thread the machine. So I'm going to put this spool on the spool pin, and I'm going to hook it on that guide. Again, your sewing machine will have directions on exactly how to thread your machine.
It's very important that you thread your machine exactly how your machine should be threaded. The tension will not feed properly if your machine is not threaded correctly. There's several little hooks that your thread needs to go through so that the tension will feed very evenly through your machine and get a nice stitch.
So now I'm going to take it and go hook it on this hook. Go up to the take up lever, and hook it in there, and come back down. There's a little hook there for it to go through.
And then I'm going to thread-- for this machine, it threads from the front to back. It is important that you thread it in the direction for your sewing machine. Usually, it's from the front to the back. And then I'm going to take that thread end and I'm going to pull it into the presser foot.
So now I'm going to insert my bobbin. We're going to open this up. And this machine has a bobbin case. Again, for your machine you need to put your bobbin in the correct direction. For this machine, as the thread comes off the bobbin-- and see how there's this little appendage sticking out right there? This is going to one direction, and the thread, as it comes off the bobbin, is going in the other direction. So just look on your guide to see which way your machine makes it work.
So now I've got the thread right there. And I want to bring it through this. This little plate is what adjusts the tension for the bobbin. So I'm going to slide it through there, and it'll click right in there. Now, this has a little handle. I'm going to hold that handle out and slide it in. This little appendage is going to go straight up for this machine, and I can kind of turn it gently, and I can feel that it fits right in place. And I'm going to let that little handle go.
Now I've got my thread tail right here, and I'm just going to close the door on my bobbin case with that thread hanging out. So then the next thing to do is to pull this thread up to where it comes out at the throat plate right there. I'm going to use my hand wheel and I'm going to turn it toward me-- that's the best way to ever turn your hand wheel is toward you. It works best that way.
Just down and up, and pull on the top thread. You see that little loop that comes up? That little loop is the bobbin thread. So I'm going to use something to just pull that out. So now, I'm ready to sew. I've got my top thread threaded, and my bobbin thread is threaded and comes up through the throat plate.
So we're going to get set up, and we're going to get ready to sew. Couple of things to think about-- wherever you do put your machine, ideally your table that you use will be at a height where your arms can be as flat as possible. This is actually a little bit high, but it can work. If you're going to be sewing for a long period of time, it's nice to try to find the right chair and table adjustments so that you're not having to be in a real awkward, uncomfortable position. So get something as comfortable as you can.
Another thing is, when you're sewing, there's a tendency for people to sit with the machine like this, where their body is centered in front of the machine. But really, you want to center your body right in front of the needle. Another thing is the foot pedal. There's a tendency for the foot pedal to [INAUDIBLE] as you sew.
Another thing is that people tend to-- if you're right footed, and you use your right foot, there's a tendency to have the foot pedal off to the right. But for comfort, especially for sewing for long periods of time, it's probably better for your body if you put it directly in front of your body. But you can choose whatever you prefer.
Now, we're going to go over some habits that are good to develop for sewing. Really, for almost anything that you sew, these are just some basic habits, things that you want to become so natural to you that really don't even think about later on. And so while we're going to be making projects later, right now we want you to focus on just thinking about how your running your machine, how to backstitch at the beginning and end of your seam. We want to concentrate on using your foot pedal to give it a slow, steady speed and not trying to sew too fast.
And we want to practice them on a practice project before we go on to sewing on one of your projects. And I'll show you some of the basic habits to develop as we start sewing on this project.
So this is our foundational sewing technique practice. While we're learning how to sew on a sewing machine, we're going to focus on some techniques before we actually go into sewing a project.
So the first thing we're going to do is, we're going to set our machine to the regular sewing length, which is two and a half on this machine. American-made machines sometimes will say 12, for 12 stitches per inch. Most European machines say a two.
But you may have to adjust this. Your machine may have different increments of measurement. Basically what we're doing is we're changing the stitch length, then changed the stitch width, so you can see how the two things work together to change the stitch. So that you can choose different stitches later on as you're sewing.
So we're going to take this piece of fabric-- it's actually folded in half, so you'll be sewing on two pieces of fabric, which is what you'll most of the time be sewing on. I'm going to put it under the machine. And this tells me right here, I'm going to set my stitch width to zero and my stitch length to two. And I'm going to put it about a quarter to a half an inch in from that folded edge. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to backstitch to begin.
So, one of the things about backstitching is that backstitching actually functions as a knot at the beginning and end of your seam. And most at the time-- the exception is like with most of quilt making, you don't backstitch-- but for most other sewing you do want to backstitch in the beginning and end. So you want to make that a habit.
Another habit you want to develop is you're going to hold those threads. You can hold them like that, you can hold them like that. But the main thing is, hold them tight. If you don't sometimes it'll come unthreaded, but sometimes it'll make a jam. Especially with beginners, there's a problem with jamming and have like a bird's nest on the bottom part of your fabric. It's a very frustrating thing, and it happens a lot to beginners. Holding your thread will often keep that from happening.
So we're going to take a backstitch. This is the stitch length regulator, like we talked about before. So now we're going to use it. We're going to set it to two and a half. We just want a regular stitch at two and a half. I'm going to raise it all the way up to its highest position, and that'll give me a backstitch.
So I'm actually holding onto those threads, and I'm going to backstitch. Now I'm going to go forward, and I'm going to try to sew straight on my line, just a straight stitch. Try to maintain a slow and steady speed sewing on the line.
Now, the position of your hands is important. There's some people want to hold their fabric like at the edges. But you don't have much control over it when it's like that. You want to hold your hands pretty close, but you don't want to hold them so close that sew over your finger.
Another thing I'd like to show you is that you don't want to actually watch the needle as it goes up and down. You want to watch something to be your guide. So see, on this presser foot there's a little groove right there that's the center of the presser foot. It's right where the needle comes down. I can see it's right at the center. So while I'm sewing, I'm not watching the needle. I'm watching this line as it approaches that little groove.
Your presser foot may be a little different, but it'll have some kind of a marking for that, or else it'll be slightly open so you can see the line. I'm looking right at this line as it enters the groove. At the end of the line, I'm going backstitch. Now I'm going to use the hand wheel so that my take up lever comes up all the way to its top position. I'm going to lift my presser foot.
Now, if you pull the fabric toward you, there's something in the tension mechanism that wants to lock up. The way it was actually made to do is to pull up out and away from you, like about 10 or 11 o'clock as if you were looking at a clock face in that direction. And I'm going to clip the threads off close to where they came off of the fabric. And I'm going to also clip threads at the beginning. It's a good habit to cut your threads off at the beginning and end each time you sew. It keeps your work much nicer in the long run.
So now we're going to start again, just like we did before. I'm going to go in about half of an inch, with my groove right on the line. I'm going to hold my thread like before, backstitch, and then sew forward.
Again we're going to keep our hands fairly close to the presser foot, guiding it through. I'm not pushing the fabric. I'm not pulling the fabric. I'm just guiding the fabric through. Keep your hands close to the presser foot. Aim for a steady speed. Speed will come as you practice.
I'm going to backstitch again, raise my take up lever all the way to the top. Lift up the presser foot, clip my ending thread, clip my beginning thread. So this is what you want to do on all of these first five lines.
If you need more practice than that, you can sew in between these lines. You can get a piece of fabric that's striped and sew on it. Whatever it takes to get you until you are comfortable sewing a straight seam is going to worth your investment of your time in doing it. Backstitch--
They say that sewing a straight line is one of the hardest things to sew. Take up lever all the way up, lift your presser foot, clip your threads, clip your threads. The more you do this-- you get to where you don't even think about doing it. And that's what you want.
I still have a couple more lines I want to sew. So I'm going to add another little thing to your practice that will help you. When you're sewing a seam, you're going to usually have your layers pinned together. Now, on this practice we don't really need to use pins, but I want you practice taking the pins out as you approach them when you're sewing.
Now the whole point of pinning is so that the layers don't shift-- so that your layers stay together. They're going to stay together right where you want them when you sew them. Because the feed dog, that we talked about before, is pulling the fabric through-- it's pulling through on the bottom, but there's nothing pulling through on the top. And because of that the bottom fabric actually feeds into the machine slightly faster than the top does.
And that's the reason machine quilting, and things like that, people use an even feed that actually has a feed dog on the top. So it works together, so you have a feed dog on the top and bottom. That's an attachment that you can get for most machines. But most the time you won't be sewing with one, so you want to learn how to adjust for that and work with that.
Pinning helps to keep your layers in place. What we want to do is take our pin out when we are almost to the pin. If you have a little bubble-- I'll try to sew, maybe I'll make a bubble and I can show you how to fix that, because it's a very common sewing thing. As you approach sometimes, there'll be a little fullness developed in between your needle and where the pin is. You don't want that.
Now I told you not to push and pull on your thread-- on your fabric as it goes through the needle. Sometimes there's a little tension that you want to give but it's very, very slight. And you'd only do that if you see there's a little fullness-- you're going have a hard time easing it in or something. That's when you'd want to do that.
What you don't want to do with a pin, though, is you don't want to get about this close and pull your pin out. You want to keep that pin in there until it's a little closer. Sometimes even I guess you could aim for-- your needle has just gone to this place right here-- to right about there is where you want to pull your pin out. So I'm going to sew, and we'll approach the next pin. When I get close to it, I'm going to pull it out.
If you'll notice I'm not taking the pin out at this point, because that's pointless. I want to take the pin out when I'm all the way almost to the pin, because wanting to hold those layers together. But I don't want to sew over my pan.
As we talked about before, with the needle, the needle gets burred very easily. If you hit a pin, it's not good for your machine. It can also mess up the timing on your machine. So it's really very important not to sew over pins. Pull them out as you go, sewing all the way almost up to them before you pull it out. Backstitch at the end.
Now you might want to use that-- take the pins out-- a number of times. Get comfortable with it. So I suggest you go ahead and put some pins across your line that you're going to be sewing, so you can actually practice taking the pins out. Again, I'm going backstitch, holding my threads. I'm going to sew on the line. I'm going to get nearly to my pin and I'm going to take it out, and backstitch.
So that's all of our straight stitch practice. Like I said, you can practice more if you're really having a struggle with that straight stitch-- do practice until you feel like you've got it.
Now the next thing we're going to do is, we're going to practice with the zigzag. There's different widths of zigzag. Remember from when we talked before about the parts of the sewing machine, this knob right here is what determines how wide a stitch there is. On this machine there's measurements from zero, one, two, three, and four. You may have to adjust it slightly to your own machine's zigzag numbers, whatever they have for your guide for that.
But basically what we're going to be doing is we're going to be making the zigzag slightly wider and narrower so that you can see what happens when you do that. So on our foundational technique we have w means width, and l means length. So I'll be sewing just a little ways and I'll be changing either the length or the width on each of these little sections. Then you can see all the different kinds of stitches you can make with just a straight and a zigzag.
So I'm going to set the width-- is at zero, like for a straight stretch. The length, I'm going to set at one. So I turn this little screw for the length stitch regulator to one. Again I'm going to start about a half inch to a fourth inch from the edge, holding my threads. I'm going to backstitch, and I'm going to go forward. Again you're practicing where you hold your hands, a constant steady speed.
Now I approach that line. When my needle is up, I'm going to change it to two. I get a little longer stitch. Now I've got to the next line, I'm going to change it to three. This is a still a longer stitch.
Now I'm going to turn it all the way to four. Four is a gathering stitch. The fabric goes very quickly when it's taking great big stitches. I'm going to go ahead and backstitch, raise my take up lever, lift the presser foot. Lift the thread at the end, lift the thread at the beginning. drop the thread in the trash.
On my next one, I'm going to turn the width to one now. And I'm going to turn my stitch length back to two and a half. So the length is two and a half, and the width is at one. And continue with my habits-- I'm going to hold the thread, I'm going to backstitch. I'm going to go forward, just a little tiny bit of a zigzag.
Now I'm going to change the width. When you change the width of your zigzag, you want to make sure that you turn your take up lever so it's all the way up. You don't want your needle down in the fabric when you change the width of a zigzag. Now I'm going to turn the width to two. I'm leaving the length the same. So now it's making a wider zigzag.
Raise my needle up, turn it to three-- a little bit wider. Now I'm going to change it to four. My needle's already up, so I don't have to do anything to it. Change it all the way to four width. That's a very wide-- widest zigzag.
Now we're going to change it to one half. It's almost zero. And I want you to see what kind of a different stitch it makes. See, it's almost a satin stitch. You can actually even make it a little tighter than that, if you want to. Sometimes there'll be a situation that you want a really tight zigzag. But see, now you can see what that looks like.
See how the stitch width is the only thing that changed. Your stitch length was the same on all this. It's just the width of the zigzag that changed. And it makes a very different stitches, just doing that one thing.
So now I'm going to change my width back to one. And I'm going to change my stitch length back to two and a half, which is standard. Put my presser foot back down, backstitch holding my threads. Now again, I'm not looking at the needle. The needle is actually not staying right on the line now. It's zigzagging.
But that's not a problem, because I'm watching the groove, not the needle. This is one of the many reasons why you don't want to watch the needle and what the needle is doing. What you're watching is the line as it approaches that center groove on your presser foot. Change the length to two. Change the length to three. The width is staying the same, and change the length to four.
Now we're going to change the length to one half, again-- real short stitch, little tiny zigzag. Backstitch at the end. Raise your take up lever. Clip your threads at the end. Clip your threads at the beginning-- in the trash.
So each time, we're just changing just a little bit. Now we're going to do the width at two and the length at one. Width at two, a litte bit wider. Length back to one. Hold the threads. Start a half inch in, backstitch. I'm going to go forward-- hands are close to the presser foot, length two, length three.
Raise my take up lever to change the zigzag to four. Again, I'm just watching the line as it approaches the groove, not watching the needle. A real wide zigzag. Now we're going to go back to a real small one half inch stitch.
Backstitch, pick up lever up, raise the presser foot. Clip your threads at the end, clip your threads at the beginning. I hope by now it's become a habit, that you automatically are doing that. That's your goal.
So now we're going to do it again with the width at three and the length at one. Backstitch, raise the take up lever, turn it to two. Watch the groove-- length at three, take up lever up, length at four. Take up lever up, and back to one half-- tiny length again. Clip the ending threads. Clip the beginning threads. Drop them in the trash.
We have one more line we're going to sew on here with this practice. Of course, you can do as much as you want to, if you use striped fabric or make your own guide. The width is at four and the length at one. Practicing each time, backstitching, watching your guide. Keeping your hands-- not pushing or pulling, just guiding the fabric. Length at two, take up lever up, length at three, length at four.
It goes through really fast on these big stitches. OK, now we're going to do the length at one half-- again, really small, with a really wide zigzag. And backstitch-- pick up lever up. I hope you're getting the hang of it.
Now, in some of the projects we're going to be sewing, we're going to be turning the corner. We're going to be pivoting. And so I want to show you how to pivot with a sewing machine. You don't want to just raise your presser foot at any time. What we're after is to sew on that line. When we come to a corner, we're actually going to make sure the needle hits exactly in that corner, and then we'll raise the presser foot and pivot the fabric.
So I'm going to turn the machine back to straight stitch, which is the width is at zero, and to a normal stitch length, which is two and a half. And I'm going to backstitch like we've been doing, because I want to keep up my practice on that-- holding the threads, backstitching. I'm going to sew close to that corner.
Now, it's a little hard to see exactly where it is. And I'm going to reach my head over where I can see right where there that needle's going down. And I'm going to leave the needle in there, lift the presser foot, and pivot. The reason why I want that needle right there is that the fabric can't shift and go somewhere I don't want it to go. It's right by where that's last stitch was.
I'm going to sew, and again, I'm watching the line as it approaches the groove. And I'm going to walk it the last stitch or so. Now this is actually hitting on the corner exactly. But probably one of these, it won't hit exactly. And when it does, I'll show what to do.
Always remember, when you're using the hand wheel to walk your machine-- make sure you're always turning it toward yourself. OK, so this is not going to hit exactly at the corner. Now, I'm going to lift up the presser foot very carefully, just a tiny bit, so that the needle is going to hit right at the corner.
So you usually don't want to lift up your presser foot, but if you want it to hit exactly on a corner, which is going to be important like when you're sewing collars on a shirt or something, you want it to hit exactly on the point you want to. So you can move it just slightly so it'll hit on the place you want to.
So we're going to keep sewing along the line. Approach the corner-- it's hitting right on the corner. Turn the hand wheel, and I'm going move it just slightly. It makes such a nice corner when you do it exactly on the corner. So I'm going to straight stitch to the end, and then I'm going to backstitch. So that's pivoting the corners. There's a few other techniques to that that you'll learn as you're more experienced.
So now we've sewn on all our lines. Now, most of time you're actually not going to be sewing on a line. Most the time you're actually going to be using your seam allowance gauge.
Now, remember I told you that we're not watching the needle. So now that we're going to sew with a seam allowance, and you'll see this on every pattern, I think, that you'll ever sew, will have somewhere marked at the beginning that'll tell you-- 5/8 inch seam allowance, or 3/8 inch seam allowance or 1/5 inch seam allowance. So this is the guide that tells you what your seam allowance is.
Now, some machines have a pretty big throat plate. This one is a little bit small. The way you know on your machine-- some machines will actually tell you, it'll have written on there whether it's 3/8 or 4/8 or 5/8 will be on there. Some don't. This one doesn't have a number.
Now, I know from sewing, because I've used this machine a lot, that this is 3/8 of an inch. This is 4/8 and this is 5/8. But for your m, you may not be sure which one it is. So I use a little ruler like this, and you can see right through that little groove-- you've been guiding your line right by that little groove that's right lined up with the needle. And if I put the measurement for 3/8 on my ruler-- I'll find the 3/8 mark on our ruler, and I'll put it right where that groove is.
Then I can look at the edge of my ruler and see that line is a 3/8 inch line. What that means is, there's 3/8 of an inch in between where the needle goes in the fabric and where that line is. And when I sew a 3/8 inch seam allowance, I'm going to be watching that guide and the edge of my fabric. I will not be watching the needle. It's very important that you do not watch the needle, otherwise you can't see to guide your seam allowance.
So what we're going to do here is, I'm going to line this up right there. I'm going to start just like we've done before. I'm going to hold the threads. I'm going to start in about a half of an inch. I'm going to backstitch, and I'm going to sew forward. My eyes are right here on this 3/8 of an inch guide, this little line. That's what I'm watching.
Do not watch the needle. Watch the edge of your fabric on that line and guide it. This is something you want to practice a lot. You can take strips of fabric and sew a lot of them. Accuracy is what you want for your garment or your quilt, or whatever it is you sew. You want it to come out looking right. You've got that practice using that seam allowance guide.
I'm going to backstitch. Pick up lever's up, clip my beginning and ending threads. Drop them in the trash. Now, I want to go ahead and sew on this other edge, too.
But we're going to sew from the edge of the fabric on 5/8 inch. Again, you're going to find 5/8 of an inch on your ruler. Put it where it matches that groove, and see that this last line right here is the 5/8 inch mark.
Now, I can sew with that mark. I really don't need more than that mark to see. But as a beginner, or if your eyes aren't real good and you'd like to have a little bit better guide to see by, this is a good use for this painter's plastic tape-- this kind of blue masking tape. It doesn't leave a residue on your machine.
I can just pull off a piece-- use my ruler. I see where my 5/8 inch mark is, and I'm going to put this piece of tape right along the side the ruler, real nice and straight-- really taking care to get it straight. I'm just going to tape it down. This is something that you can do on your machine to just give it a nice-- a really big guide for you to line your fabric up next to.
So we're going to sew a 5/8 inch seam allowance. We're going to backstitch, and we're going to go forward. Keeping my fabric lined up, with this as my guide. And like I said, you can just watch that. But if you have this it gives you a lot bigger area to guide your fabric along. As you see, the 5/8 inch is a long way away from your needle. And that's one of the reasons why you have a guide to watch and not your needle-- backstitch.
So we have one more thing that we're going to do on our foundational practice before we're ready to go on to the projects. We're going to zigzag the raw edge of the fabric here. And one of the main reasons why we zigzag is to finish off the edge. Fabric does fray-- as you see, this is starting to fray. And the more it's washed and the more it's used, the more it will fray. If we zigzag correctly, we can stop most of that fraying from taking place.
We're going to turn the stitch width to three, and we're going to turn the stitch length to two. If you were sewing on a thicker fabric, you might want to use the full width-- the zigzag width to four. But on this piece of fabric, it's real thin. We're just going to use the length at two.
We're going to start the seam just like we've been doing. I'm going to start with a zigzag. But one thing that is different is, I'm lining the edge of my fabric up-- there's a groove that goes all the way through the machine, that's just off center, right here. Your machine probably has something like that. This is also just on the left side of what I call the toe. So this is the presser foot, it seems me that this should be called the toe.
So just on the left side of that toe is going to be my guide, all right? I'm not using the line for my guide. I'm not using the seam guide for my guide. I'm watching where the fabric approaches the inside of that toe and that deeper groove right there.
Now the reason I'm doing that, I'll show you in just a minute. I'm going to backstitch to start. And I'm going to go forward. Now, what I'm doing is, I'm zigzagging. And I want-- the zigzag, of course, is a stitch that goes back and forth. I want the zig to go on the fabric, and the zag to go off. So when the needle is in the left position it's on the fabric. When it's on the right position, it's just off the edge.
What that does is, it encases the edge, the raw edge of your fabric, so that it can't continue to fray. So I'm going to guide it through, watching the inside of the toe as a guide. I'm going back and forth. The zig is going on, the zag is going off.
Try to sew real nice and straight. And this will stop the fabric from being able to continue to fray. I'm gong to backstitch, raise the take up lever, clip the threads. And now we're finished with this, and ready to go on to our projects.
This hand foundational practice sampler is available to purchase from up. Or you can make your own, using the downloadable diagram below.
Tissue Holder
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster with The Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a tissue holder. It's a nice, fast project. You'll need just basic sewing supplies, a mat to cut on, acrylic ruler, and a rotary cutter, some pins, scissors, and sewing machine, and thread.
First of all, I going to cut it out. This fabric is going to be my lining. And I need a 6 by 8 inch piece.
Your main fabric is going to be the smaller piece. And your lining will be the bigger piece. For my main fabric, I'm going to cut it at 6 and 1/2 half by 6 inches.
So here's my two pieces of fabric. I'm going to sew this right sides together and pin them. You want to pin your pins going this way so that your pin head is off, so they'll be easy to pull them out. Now I'm going to match this 6 inch edge up with this one, which will leave some fullness here from my bigger lining piece.
I'm going to so this with a 3/8 inch seam, which is the first line on my seam guide. A good habit to develop is to take hold of your threads and hold them when you start your seam so that the needle does not push your fabric down into the machine.
I backstitch just a few stitches. And now I'm going forward. Always pull your pins out before you sew over them. But wait until you're right up on them.
Now I'm to the end. I'm going to backstitch again. And I'm going to bring my take-up lever up to the top. If you don't do that, it will unthread your needle when you start sewing the next time. Now I'm going to turn this right side out.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now I'm going to press this. And I will want the outside fabric to be evenly centered with the little edge of the lining showing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can see the extra fabric from our lining rolls around to the front. And I'm just going to center it and try to press this with my lining showing as even and straight as possible.
Now I want to mark the center. And I'm going to do that just by creasing it, folding this in half with the edges even, and putting the crease down the center. And that will mark my center.
Now I'm going to bring this seam to match up with that center crease that I just made. Now this seam is also going to match up with the fold line and the other seam. And I'll pin that.
Now to make the twist and my tissue holder-- like this, it has the little twist-- I'm going to do these opposite. This side is going to come down first and match up with the fold. And then again, the seam is going to match with the fold in the other seam. And I'll pin that.
Now back to the sewing machine, this is going to be a 3/8 inch seam also. I'll pull out my pins just as I come to them. I'll backstitch.
Now I want a zigzag this edge. And instead of taking it out of the sewing machine, I'm just going to flip it over and turn my stitch to a zigzag and zigzag this edge.
So when I'm zigzagging, the needle is going off the edge. The zag is off. And the zig comes up and catches, and the needle goes off. And will encase the edge and make it not fray.
OK, now I'm going to do my final trimming of any threads to leave it neat and tidy. And now I'm going to show you what we've made. Turn it right side out.
I'm going to use a crochet hook. You can use anything that has somewhat of a point. A pencil, a mechanical pencil with your lead pulled in works fine too. I don't recommend scissors because they could poke through. But you're going to want to poke out your corners with whatever you have handy.
And now I'll slip a packet of tissues in. And there is your tissue holder.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So here's the finished tissue holder. These are a lot of fun to make. You can use all different kinds of fabrics, have fun coordinating two different fabrics together. You can make them as gifts to give to all your friends, nice little stocking stuffers. And it's a great Skill builder. Every seam you sew adds to your experience. And this is a fun way to do it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Shoe Bag
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster. In this video, I'm going to be showing you how to make a shoe bag. It's just a simple bag with a casing and a drawstring.
I'm going to use a 17 by 24 inch piece of fabric, and a 28 inch piece of ribbon. And then the supplies you'll need is just basic sewing supplies, a mat, a ruler and a cutter sewing machine, thread to match, and, of course, your iron and ironing board. I'll also use a bodkin. Or if you don't have that, a safety pin works just as well for threading the ribbon through.
I'm going to cut this out. It's a 17 by 24 inch piece of fabric. Since my cutting mat is not big enough to cut 24 inches, I'm going to fold this fabric in half to make it 12 inches this way.
I'm lining the folded edge up with the 0 mark along here, and then lining my ruler up with the 12 inch line. I'm going to turn my mat, square up the bottom edge on the 0 line, slide it over to 17. I'll fold it. And here is my 24 by 17 inch piece.
The next step is going to be iron the casing, which is going to be turned 3/8 of an inch, and then 5/8 of an inch. Now if you feel comfortable to just iron this by eyeballing it, you can. But if not, you can mark the edge.
I'm going to mark it by doubling what I want it to be finished, which is 3/8, doubled is 3/4 of an inch. I'm using a chalk wheel to mark this. And then 5/8 inch doubled is 1 and 1/4. So I'm going to mark 1 and 1/4 inches from my first marking line.
Now I'm going to go to the ironing board. So now I have my marking lines. And I'm going to turn this edge to the first one and press it down, and then turn again. Now I'll be back at the sewing machine.
Now I'm going to zigzag this edge before I sew it, because I want to leave an opening for the casing. Remember when you zigzag that the zig is on the zag is off. At the corner, I'll slow down and leave my needle down to pivot, lift up the presser foot, and turn the fabric, and back up the next side.
Now I'm going to pin it together. I'll fold this together right sides together, line up the edges that I just zigzagged. I'll start with pinning a pin on either side of my two marked lines. And I'm going to want to leave that open for the casing hole.
I'm going to mark a line right down the middle, just to remember to not sew that closed. I will also mark this corner so that I'll know right where to pivot. I'm going to mark a 3/8 inch line from that edge, and 3/8 from the other edge. Now I'm just pinning these edges together. The next thing that I'm going to do is sew the bag together along here, pivot at the corner and across the bottom.
I'm sewing with a 3/8 inch seam, back stitching at the end. I'll pull my pins out just as I come to them, and slow down as I come to the corner. I want my needle to go right in the center of my X that I marked, pivot, and sew up the other side.
Now I've reached my marking for my first casing line. And that's where I want to stop to leave an opening. I have this line here marked to help me remember to not sew my casing closed. I'll do a good backstitch here. That's going to secure where the drawstring is coming out. I'll just skip over to the next line. Again, backstitch well, and sew to the end.
Now I'm going to open this seam up and just press it with my fingers. See the little opening? Now I'm going to re-fold my casing back along those lines, the fold lines.
Starting at matching the seams, pin the casing. Now I'm going to stitch the casing down. I'm going to stitch right along this folded edge.
Starting at the seam, I'm pulling the pins out as I come to them. Here I'm coming up on the end. I'll overlap a few stitches and back up two. And I'm done. Take it from the machine, carefully trim the threads.
Now I'll go to the ironing board, turn it right side out, and put the ribbon through. Now I'm going to turn it right side out. I will lightly press the whole thing.
When you press a seam like this, you always want to try to roll the seam all the way to the edge so that you don't have any little tucks along your seam. Now it's ready to thread the ribbon through the casing. I'm going to use this neat, little tool. It's call a bodkin. And you can grab the ribbon. I'll slide the ring down so that it holds it. A safety pin works just as fine, too.
Now I'm going to slide the ribbon through the hole here. I'll pull it out, and then knot these ends together, and trim it at an angle so that the ribbon won't fray.
Here's the finished shoe bag, ready for you to slide your shoes in, pack them in your suitcase. If you'd like, you can make this same bag any size. I made this one 1 yard by 45 inch, just the width of the fabric. And it's a laundry bag.
And just remember as you sew that every one of these straight lines is one line closer to your goal of being able to sew anything.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gift Bag
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster with The Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to make a gift bag. This is a great project for practicing sewing straight seams and a little bit of top stitching.
They have three different sizes given in the pattern. Here's a small, a medium, and a large. It takes anywhere from a quarter to a yard of fabric depending on your size and a little piece of fabric for your contrast. There's a contrast band on the inside of each one of these. The tools you'll need to make this project are just your basic sewing supplies-- a mat, ruler, rotary cutter, pins, scissors, and of course, the sewing machine, iron and ironing board, and thread.
I'm going to make a medium-sized gift bag which is an 18 by 14 inch piece of the main fabric. Since the fabric is larger than my rotary cutter, I'm going to use the mat as my guide, and I'm going to cut off the salvage. You do not want to use salvages in your sewing. They will wash differently and shrink differently than the rest.
So I'm lining this here on the 18-inch mark, and now I'm cutting this at zero, so that gives me my 18 inches. And this piece of fabric is already 14 inches here. Now if you have a directional fabric, you want to make sure that your direction is going up and down, We don't end up with a bag with our flowers growing sideways.
Now I'm going to cut the contrasting band. It's going to be 18 inches by 3 inches.
Here's the main bag fabric, and I have it right side up with the top-- this is a directional fabric, so this is the top of my fabric-- and I'm going to put the contrasting band at the top of the bag, right sides together, and pin it on. I'm putting my pins 5 to 6 inches apart with the ball going off, so that when sew, I can easily pull them out.
Now I'm going to take it to the sewing machine and sew this seam.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm going to sew this with a 3/8 inch seam. I'm going to hold my thread so the needle doesn't push the fabric down and make a mess on the back. Being able to sew a straight seam is one of the fundamental necessities of being able sew well, and this is a project that's great for practicing that.
I'm going back stitch here at the end and bring the takeup lever to the top.
Now we're going to go iron it. I'm going to press the seam toward the contrasting band, and then I went to iron this a half of an inch down, like this. If you're not comfortable being able to eyeball a half an inch, an easy way to mark it is to mark an inch away from your edge. You can use a pencil or a chalk. A fabric chalk marking utensil works well, too.
I marked this an inch away because I wanted it to end up being half an inch. I'll bring this edge right to that line, and that will give me a perfect half of an inch fold. Now I'm going to fold this to the inside and carefully press this so that the seam is right along the edge.
Now I'm going to pin it. I'm going to bring this right sides together, line up the edges. I want this to match the same here, so I'm going to start with putting a pin right there. I'm going to put just enough pins to hold it in place and keep it from shifting as I sew.
Now I'm going to sew a seam along here and across the bottom. But since there's a corner here that when I sew down to here I'm going to need a pivot, I'm going to mark a line 3/8 inch from this edge, and then 3/8 inch from this edge. And that gives me a little plus mark so that when I sew down here, I'll know where to turn.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now I'm going to sew this with a 3/8-inch seam allowance, so I'm going to line my fabric up with the 3/8-inch mark. Back stitch to begin with. Carefully go over that seam.
I'm going to slow down as I near the corner. To pivot, I want to leave the needle down in the fabric, in the center of the mark, lift up the foot, and swing the fabric around. Now I'll sew across the bottom of the bag and back stitch at the end. Now I'm going to zig zag it at the edge, and without pulling the fabric from the machine, I'll just flip it over. Set my stitch to zig zag and zig zag the edge.
Now, when I'm zigzagging, the needle is going to be going on the fabric, and then off. This zig is on the fabric, and the zag is off.
Again, I'll slow down as I near the corner and leave the needle down to pivot. Lift up the foot, and turn the fabric. Now I'm zigzagging up the side.
I always trim any threads that are hanging loose.
Now we're going to turn the band and pin it. Since I've already pressed this, it's just going to naturally turn right at the edge. And I'm going to start with pinning, matching the seam. The seam is matching right here.
Then I'm going to come and pin the opposite side. Then turn it this way and pin in the middle. You want to keep it laying flat so that your and doesn't get a twist in it. You can use as many pins as you feel like you will need to keep it from shifting as you sew.
Now I'm going this top stitch this band down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you're sewing machine has a free arm, this is a very good time to use it. I'm going to slide this plate off.
The next step is to top stitch this down. I have red on the top to match my red band and green on my bobbin thread to match the outside of my bag.
I'm going to slide it here and start right at the seam. I'll drop my presser foot down, and I'm going to sew this down right along my folded edge.
This is good practice for top stitching following a folded edge. I'll pull out each pin just as I get to it. And then overlap my stitching a few stitches, and then I'm going to just back stitch a few.
And bring my takeup lever to the top, lift up the foot, and pull it from the machine. Carefully clip the threads on the top and the bottom, and now I'm going to turn the bag right side out.
I'm poking out the corners just with my fingers. Now, I'm going to sew the ribbon on at the seam. This is an 18 inch ribbon. I've cut the ends at an angle so that they won't fray. I'll find the center and then offset it an inch and a half or so, so that when I tie it, my bow will end up in the middle of the bag.
I'm going to line this us just below the seam and pin it in place. Now I'm going to go and sew a little line right here to hold the ribbon on.
Just a few stitches forward, a few switches back, and then forward again. Bring the need up, and pull it from the machine. And my gift bag is done.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So here's the finished bag. I have a jar of some homemade peppers I'm going to stick in here and tie it up. These are great, reusable gift bags. You can make them in any size or shape to fit whatever your gift is.
There it is.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Double Drawstring Bag
In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a simple double drawstring bag. It's just a bag with a double drawstring. All you need is a 32 by 12 inch piece of fabric, two 28 inch pieces of ribbon, your basic cutting supplies, and basic sewing supplies, scissors, sewing machine, thread, iron, and ironing board. I'll start off by cutting out.
My fabric is folded in half lengthwise. So I'm going to line up the folded edge with the zero mark and trim the first edge straight, slide my ruler over to the 12 inch mark and trim that. Now I'm going to cut out the 32 length, which since it's on the fold I'm going to get it at 16.
Now the bag is cut out. Now here's the 12 by 32 inch piece. The next step is going to make the casing. It's going to need to be turned 3/8 of an inch and then 2 inches.
I'm going to mark that to make it easier for ironing. I'm going to mark my first line at 3/4 of an inch. The second line will be at 3 and 5/8 inch from my first line.
Now I'm going to repeat this at the other end of the fabric. Again, 3/4 of an inch and then 3 and 5/8 from that first line. Now I'm going to press it.
The first turn is to the first line. That makes it 3/8 of an inch. My first fold is at 3/8 of inch. The second, bring it down to the second line, and that gives me the two inch fold.
Now I'll do the other end. Now I'll take it to the sewing machine. The next step is to zigzag the edges.
I'm going to zigzag the two long edges. You want to be encasing this raw edge. Always trim your threads.
Now I'm going to pin the bag together. I'm going to lay it right sides together and match the creases in the marking lines. Now I'm going to mark an opening for right here where the ribbon pulls through.
And that opening is going to be right here, an inch and a quarter below this crease line. And I like to mark it well so I don't forget. And so that opening closed, you can mark a little line, pin it with double pans, whatever works to remind you not to sew it closed. Mark it on both sides.
So the opening will be an inch and a quarter down from your top fold and 3/4 of an inch up from this marked line. All right, now I'm ready to sew. I'm going to sew both sides all the way down remembering to skip for my openings.
Sewing with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. Remember to back stitch at the beginning and end. Always back stitch very well at either side of it opening. That point is going to get a lot of stress. So you want to make sure it's well secured.
The next step is to pin the casing. I'm going to trim the threads away from the casing opening here. And then I'm going to just press this same open with my fingers, just do a quick finger press on both sides. And then refold it back to my original fold lines.
We'll start at the seams and then pin this together, pin it with the seams matching. I'll pin it at quarter points first and then in between each one of those pins. Now I'm ready to sew my casing down.
I'm going to use the free arm to do this. I'm starting at the side seam. I'm going to just start sewing. I'm stitching right along the folded edge.
Now I'm back around to the beginning. I'm just going to overlap a few stitches and then do a few very small stitches. Now I'll secure the ends. That's my first stitching line for the casing.
Now I'm going to mark for the second. My second stitching line is going to be 5/8 of an inch away from the first stitching line. So using this little ruler, I'm going to set it at 5/8 from that stitching line and mark it.
Just keep turning it and mark it all the way around. Now I'm going to sew along this line. And that'll make my other side of the casing.
Again, I start at the side seam and just start sewing. And I'll overlap a few stitches and then take a few really small stitches. Clip all the threads.
Now I'll turn the bag right side out and insert the ribbon. I'm just going to use a safety pin. Now here's a little hole from the little place in the seam that I skipped.
So I'm just going to lace the ribbon through all the way around and back out this hole. Make the ends even. Tie them together.
I'll go ahead and trim them on an angle to keep them from fraying. Now I'll insert the other ribbon starting on the opposite side. Again, make the edges even. Tie a knot then trim it on a slant.
So here's the finished bag. There's all kinds of things you can use it for. This one, I'm going to put my little boy's toys in.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Bag Caddie
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster with The Ploughshare. So in this video, I'm going to show you how to make a bag caddy. It's just a neat little thing that will corral all of those plastic bags that are floating around your pantry. It uses half of a yard of fabric, two 10" pieces of 3/8" wide elastic, a 5" piece ribbon, and the sewing supplies are just your basic supplies-- a mat, ruler, cutter, thread to match, an ironing board. You'll also need something thread the elastic through the casing, either a safety pin or a bodkin.
OK, I'm going to cut this 18" by 20". I'm going to do the 20" cut first. I have this folded here, and the fold is along the zero line. And I'll line my ruler up with the 10" mark on the mat. Cut that. I'm cutting the salvage off. I don't want the salvage to be in my project.
Now turn the mat. Now to make the 18" cut, I'm going to line my ruler up with the zero line on this other edge. Turn those edges even. Slide my ruler over to the 18" line. Cut there.
Now I have an 18" by 20" piece. The next step is to iron for the casing. You will iron the casing 3/8", and then 5/8" along both 20" sides.
I'm going to mark the first line at 3/4", because 3/8 plus 3/8 is a quarter. I'm using a mechanical pencil on this. Since this fabric is lighter, it shows up. My second line will be at 1 1/4" from the first line. Now I'll go to the ironing board to iron this.
Now I'm going to press my casing. Turn this cut edge to the first line. And there's the 3/8". Turn again, the second line.
Now I'll press the other casing. Turn this to the first line. There's the 3/8". Now for the 5/8".
I'm going to sew a French seam. A French seam is a very fine edge finish. It encases your raw edges. And we'll use this on some projects like pillowcases. It'll give a very nice finished edge, and this is a good one just to start practicing on.
You could sew it like a regular seam and zigzag, but I want to show you how to do a French seam. You put it wrong sides together, and pin it. I'm unfolding those folds that I just folded, and pinning.
Now I'm going to sew this seam with a 3/8" seam allowance. Remember to backstitch at the beginning and the end. Now I'm going to iron it.
With the French seam, it's very important that you don't have any threads hanging off of your seam. So I'm going to trim any. When we sew the second seam, any threads left there will be hanging out to the outside. Now turn it this way so it's right sides together.
I'm going to finger-press this seam open real well. We don't want a tuck there at all. And then roll the seam right to the edge, and press. I'm going to be very careful not to unpress my crease marks up here. So I'm just going to do it right at the very edge on both ends. Now back to the sewing machine.
This seam is going to be sewn with a 4/8", or 1/2", seam allowance, which is a little bit larger than the other one. You will be able to see why in a moment. Be extra careful to sew this seam straight. If it weaves around at all, your raw edge will show out on the outside of your finished bag caddy.
Now here's the finished French seam. There's no raw edge on the inside or the outside. Now I'm going to finger press the seam to one side, and refold back on my original folds for the casing.
Always start pinning right at the seam. I'll pin at the seam, and then pin directly across, kind of stretching it to make sure that this casing stays flat. It's easy for it to get a twist, and that'll just mess you up. So pin opposites there.
Now I'll pin right in the middle here, and then pin this opposite side. Now it's divided into quarters. And I can just put a pin in between every other pin. Now I'll pin the other casing, starting at the seam.
Now I'm going to sew these casings down. I'll slide off the table to make a free arm on the sewing machine. And start the casing right next to the seam. Always backstitch carefully at the beginning of the casing, because that's going to get a lot of stress when you run your elastic through.
Now I'm taking out each pin right as I come to it. But I do not want there to have any extra fabric bunch up before the pin. If you tend to have fabric bunching before the pain, you can slightly stretch your fabric as it goes through so that they always lay flat on top of each other.
Now sop about an 1" before you get to your starting point. Backstitch, and now we'll leave an opening that we can thread the elastic through. Now also, the casing on the other end, again starting right beside the seam. Backstitching well at the opening.
Don't forget to leave your one inch opening here. Backstitch, pull it from the machine, and trim the threads. Now I'm going to thread the elastic through.
Now I'm going to thread the elastic through the casing using the bodkin. I' clamp it on. I always like to start with going through the seam first. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get over the seam, and it's just nice to get that over with from this direction. I'm sliding it through.
And you want to be careful not to pull your elastic all the way through. Once it's hanging out about that far, stop pulling it, and just bunch up the extra on the backside. Now pull it out.
And this is the trickiest part of this little project. You want to overlap these 1", being careful your elastic is not twisted. Like, you don't want it to be like this. You'll end up with a twist in your elastic.
So making sure that it's staying flat all the way around, overlap it an inch, and pin it. Now we'll thread it through the other side. Starting again, going over the seam first. Now we'll overlap this, making sure that my elastic is not twisted. I'm overlapping it about 1". I'll pin it on both sides.
And this is the trickiest part of this little project. I'm going to want to sew this together with a W. That's the best way to hold the elastic together so that the threads won't break. So, to the sewing machine.
Now I'm going to sew the W's. Starting at the top, at an angle come down, turn to go back up. Down again, and finish it off. That will connect the elastic securely.
So there it is. Pop it in, and stretch it out, and there it this. Now I'll go to the other end. Backstitch well to the end, down to the bottom, and turn. You can just eyeball this, because it's not going to show. The purpose here is for your elastic to not come apart.
Backstitch again, and now I'm going to pop it in. Now I'm going to sew up this opening closed. This is the bottom of my bag, so I'm going to sew the bottom up first. I'll slide it on here.
And just take your time to do this neatly since it is going to show on the backside. Backstitch just a few stitches in the beginning. I'm stretching it, because the elastic's in there now. Overlapping, a few stitches, and backstitch one.
Now the bottom opening is closed. Now on the top edge, I'm going to insert the 5" piece of ribbon. Fold it in half, and pin it together.
This'll be the loop that you hang the bag caddy from. Slide it in there, and pin it. And then also, this casing opening closed, and sew the ribbon in at the same time. Backstitch to end. Pull it out, and trim all the threads.
Now I'll turn to right side out, and flip up this ribbon loop, and pin it. Then I'm going topstitch right along the edge here to hold the loop up. Make sure it's coming out straight.
Stitch across, and backstitch at the end. And here's the finished bag caddy. Here's your finished bag caddy, ready to corral all those loose bags in your pantry.
Bread Cloth
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster with the Ploughshare. In this video I'm going to show you how to make a bread cloth. It's just two pieces of fabric. You can use the same fabric or a contrasting fabric. You can use it as a napkin or as a bread cloth. It's a very basic technique of sewing two pieces of fabric right sides together, turning it out, and topstitching it.
The tools you'll need is a cutting mat, a ruler, rotary cutter, a marking utensil, scissors, sewing machine, an iron and ironing board, and thread to match.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The first thing I'm going to do is cut this out. Now, since my fabric is too big to fit on my mat, I'm going to have to fold it. First of all, I'm going to make sure that it's straight. This here is the selvage, and I want to make it line up with the back, with the other selvage. Smooth out any wrinkles. Make sure there's not a twist in the fabric. And my selvages are lined up. Now I'm going to fold this in half and match this fold up with the zero line on my mat.
I'm going to let the selvage hang off the edge here because I'm going to want to cut that off. I don't want to include the selvage. Smooth it all out. I'm lining up the edge of my ruler with the zero line. I'll trim that off. So I cut this on the zero line. Now I'm going to turn my mat around so I will not be cutting backwards. Match this up with the 18 and 1/2 inch line and cut.
Now, since this is on the fold, I'm going to measure up 9 and 1/4 inches and make my last cut. Always remember to close your rotary cutter when you're done. Now I have two 18 and 1/2 inch squares. Now I'm going to put them right sides together. And it's very important to have the grain line being the same. The edge of the fabric that has the selvage on it is your lengthwise grain and it doesn't stretch when you pull it like this. It's a tighter weave. Now this is the widthwise, and when I pull it, see the stretch?
I want to make my opening on the lengthwise side. If I put these going opposite directions, with the width against the lengthwise, when I go to sew up my opening the top one is going to stretch bigger and cause a lot of problem. So it's very important to keep your grain lines going the same direction. This is the lengthwise and the lengthwise.
Now I'm going to sew all the way around this. And I want to mark my corners so that I'll know right where to pivot and turn on my stitching line. You want to use a marking utensil that's not going to show through to the front. I'm marking 3/8 of an inch in because that's the seam allowance that I will be sewing.
Once you've turned 100 or so of these corners you won't have to mark this anymore. But when you're beginning it's very helpful to have the line to go by. Now I'm going to pin these together so they don't shift as I sew. I'm going to leave a five inch opening along one side so that I can turn it right side out when I'm done sewing it. I'm going to mark it with a double pin so that I don't forget and sew my opening shut.
So now the opening's marked and I'm just going to pin a few pins on each side. I'm putting the pins in going perpendicular to the edge of my fabric with the head of the pin off the fabric for easier removal as I'm sewing. Now I'm going to sew it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Always start sewing at the edge of the opening. I'm going to place the fabric and go ahead and take out my double pins. I'm sewing with a 3/8 inch seam. Remember to backstitch well so it doesn't pull apart when I go to turn it right side out. I slow down as I approached the corner. I want my needle to go down in the center of that X and leave it down. Lift up the presser foot and turn the fabric.
When you're learning how to sew a straight line your tendency is going to be to want to watch your needle. But you need to focus on the line that's guiding your seam. And always keep your fabric going straight into the machine. If your fabric is being pulled crooked like that it's going to pull your seam off.
Now I've come up to my double pin so I know that I'm going to stop there for the other side of the opening. I'm going to backstitch well because this is going to have stress on it when I turn it right side out. Pull the fabric from the machine. Trim my threads. Now I'm going to trim the corners and turn it right side out.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It is very important to trim your corners because we want to eliminate the bulk. When you turn it right side out you don't want to have a big bulky corner. So I'm going to cut off a piece of fabric from each corner. You want to trim close, but of course not too close or you'll have a hole in your corner.
Now when I turn this right side out I'm going to want to iron this opening closed, and this is a little tip to make that go easier. I'm going to just iron it along the seam right by the opening and across the opening, flip it over, and do the same on this side. Iron the edges even along the opening. Now I will turn it right side out.
First I'm going to poke the corners out with my fingers. Next I'm going to use a mechanical pencil with the tip pushed in to get a sharper point. I'll poke out each corner. I'm being careful not to over poke, not to poke it so hard that it pushes the threads out. I want a nice sharp point, but I don't want to poke too hard or else I can pop through. And I do not recommend using scissors or else they will poke through. Now I'm going to press it.
Pressing this type of a project is very important. There's a tendency to just press it flat, but this now has a little bit of a curve. And if you pick it up you'll see that there's a tuck in here called a seam well. You do not want that. With my fingers I'm going to press the seam open to get the layers apart. And then roll it to the edge. You want your seam to be right on the edge and opened all the way up so that there's no tucks.
Pressing accurately is as important as sewing straight. Now this is the side with my opening in it. So I'm going to carefully press this seam and then line up those edges that I already pressed before I turned it right side out. Now I'm going to topstitch the whole thing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm going to start topstitching at the corner. Now since this is topstitching I want to be extra careful that it looks very nice. I'm going to start with a short stitch length. That will help secure the threads. I'm remembering to hold my threads. And do several very small stitches. And then lengthen my stitch. You always want to topstitch with a little bit longer stitch. It looks nicer, and more smooth that way.
Now, I'm using this little line on my presser foot as a guide for the edge of the fabric so that I'll have a straight stitching line. I'll slow down as I get to the corner, put my needle down to pivot, lift up the foot, and swing it around. It's helpful to firmly plant your finger down like I'm doing with my middle finger here. And I'm using that as a guide for my fabric to go along so that it's automatically feeding into the machine straight.
Now I'm going to end at this corner. And as I approach the corner, about a quarter inch away, I'm going to shorten my stitch to a very short stitch. And that will lock the stitches so that it will not come unsewn. And that's a neat way to finish off your stitches. Lift it up and pull it out. Trim it. And now my bread cloth is done.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now I want to show you some other projects that you can make using the same steps that I just showed you. They're just a different size or shape. You can use the bread cloth as a napkin. This is a little doll blanket. It's a 14 by 18 piece of fabric for a little girl to wrap up her baby doll in. This is a baby receiving blanket. One side is regular fabric and the other side is flannel. You can use flannel for both sides. And it's a 36 inch square.
Here's a fun project. It's a child's snuggly. And I added a few little ribbon loops. You can add as many as you want simply by taking a piece of ribbon-- this ribbon is five inches long-- folding it in half, and before you sew your pieces together simply pin it wherever you would like it to be. You can do as many or as few. You can put them all the way around the edge or just in the corner. And then lay this right sides together and continue sewing as I showed you with the bread cloth. And when you turn it out the ribbon will hang out.
Now the easiest snuggly to do if you're a beginner would be to just use two pieces of flannel. But there's lots of fun, feely fabrics, such as this minky fabric. But I will warn you that they're harder to work with. You need to be prepared to use all the pins in your pincushion to pin them together because it's going to want to stretch and slide.
The minky fabric also, I recommend using a ballpoint needle. Most of the time with sewing you're using a sharp needle. But a ballpoint needle-- it just looks like a regular needle, but the tip of it is slightly blunted and it will sew this minky fabric much better. You might have trouble with your thread breaking or balling up sewing with a minky fabric. And the ballpoint needle will solve that problem.
Here's another one with super soft fabrics. But again, the more plush it is, the stretchier it is, the harder it's going to be sew. So just be prepared for a challenge if you want to go with the plush fabrics.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can also make a table runner. This is out of just the regular cotton fabrics. It's very easy to work with. I just added that I cut off the corners to make it pointed. You can also make it square just like the bread cloth for a table topper. Here's a table runner made out of upholstery fabric. Again, the bulkier fabric is a little harder to sew with but it has a nice weight and a nice finish. Do watch for upholstery fabric that would melt. Make sure you don't get any with nylon in it because it will melt when you press it.
Here's another one that I have. And this one, I didn't have enough fabric for the back so I use my cut off edges and sewed it on each end. And then I ended up liking this side so much that I sewed a little piece of trim here, and so this is now my front. I'll show you how to cut these corners off to make it a nice point on the end.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can make your table runner any size that you would like. You can make it as long as you want. This here is two pieces of fabric. I'm going to make it be a double sided table runner. One side Christmas and one side fall. You do want to be careful that you don't get fabrics that are too different, because as you can see the edge does slightly show. So you don't want to have fabrics that would clash.
I'm going to smooth these out together. Fold it in half lengthwise, and then in half again. I have the edge of this ruler lined up with the fold here. I'm going to trim these edges even. And then to make the point all I do is line the 45 degree angle on my ruler along the fold. Make the cut. Now I have two pieces that are the identical shape. And it's ready to pin together and sew.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
OK, I showed you how to topstitch with just a regular topstitch, like these, these are just all topstitched right along the edge. Now, if your machine has some other decorative stitches this is a fun time to get to play around and use some. See, this one I used a wave stitch. I did the same one on here. This one is three rows of top stitching with a variegated thread, like this, that coordinates. That's if you want to have a lot of topstitching practice and you think that you can do it real straight. This is another edge finish. It's just hand stitches with embroidery floss. And that makes a very nice hand done finish.
So from this one simple method of putting your fabric right side together, sewing it, turning it, and top stitching it, you can make a bread cloth which can be a napkin. You can make a baby receiving blanket. You can make child snugglies, a little girl's doll blanket, or table runners. So have fun being creative and practicing sewing a lot of straight seams.
Basic Pillowcase
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Crissa Lancaster with The Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a basic pillowcase. It will be finished with a French seam on the side and a hem at the bottom. All you need is a yard of fabric with thread to match, your basic sewing supplies, cutting tools and a mat, sewing machine, iron and ironing board, and a marking utensil.
To get started, we're going to cut out. Now, a big mat is always nice for cutting out big pieces of fabric. But if you don't have one, all you have to do is fold your fabric. This is folded with the selvages together to fold it in half again. I need a 42 by 34 and 1/2 inch piece. I'm going to cut lengthwise, which is the 34 and 1/2 first. This is fold along the zero line.
And I'm going to cut this at 17 and 1/4. I'm using the mat as a guide. So there's the 34 and 1/2 inch length. So I'm going to make my second cut. I'm lining this double-folded edge along the 21 inch mark on the mat. And as is the case sometimes with flannel, this flannel is a little narrow.
I don't have enough to make it all the way 21 inches wide. But with a pillowcase, you have a little extra room. So I'm going to go ahead and just trim off the selvage. You don't ever want to have your selvage in the project. For one, they're dyed differently. And it can also shrink different than the rest of the fabric. So I'm just going to trim off the selvage.
The next step is to mark the hem. Mark it along the long side, the 42 inch side first with a 1 inch. And then 6 inches. First the 1 inch mark for the first turn, and then 6 inches from that first mark.
Now I'll take it to the ironing board. Now I'm going to iron this 1/2 inch up. The edge of the fabric is following my marking line. Now fold it again to the second line. Now back to pinning.
Since this is going to be a French seam, I'm going to put this wrong sides together, unfold what I just creased in, and line these two long edges together. And put in enough pins to sufficiently hold it.
Now I'll sew this edge with a 3/8 inch seam.
Now back to the ironing board. First, I'm going to press this seam open. Going to be careful not to increase my hem creases. This will just make it a lot easier for the second pressing which I'm doing now. That opens the seam up real nicely. Going to roll it right to the edge. And press again.
Again, when I press down here, I'm being careful to not press out my creases. Now I'm going to pin the end, and we'll sew the side seam in across the end. Now I'm going to pin the end closed. This is the end with the creases. The other end. You can align the edges even and pin.
Now I'm going to sew across this end and down the side. I'm starting at the hem edge, using a 5/8 inch seam allowance. This is the second stitching to make the French seam.
Now, for a beginner, I would pin this. But I'm just putting a little bit of tension with this hand as I'm sewing to keep the top fabric from shifting forward. I've reached the corner. I'm going to pivot and sew across the end of the pillowcase.
I've reached the end. Now this edge needs to be finished, so I'm going to zig zag it. Without taking this from the machine, I just flip it over and set the machine to a zig zag. And zig zag this edge, making sure the needle is on the fabric and then off, encasing the raw edge with the stitches. We'll zig zag to this corner.
Now it's time to iron the hem. Going to slide it on the ironing board. And you could iron the hem at this point, instead of doing it earlier, like I showed you. But it's a lot easier to iron it out flat than when it's in a circle. Now it's just naturally going to go right back to that previous crease. I'm going to press it again, always starting at the seam. I'll pin it, making sure the seam matches up. Slide it.
Just keep turning and pressing until it's been pressed and pinned all the way around. Make sure that there's no twist in your hem. And now it's time to sew the hem in place.
Now, starting at the seam, I'm going to sew ride along this folded edge. I started without back stitching, because I'm going to come around and overlap my stitches. As you sew this, make sure that you're careful not to let the hem slowly inch forward. I'll make a twist in your hem.
I'm pulling it just slightly, so that the top fabric of hem doesn't stretch slowly forward and make a twisted hem. I'm easing it in, taking out each pin as I come to them. Overlap the stitches about 1/2 an inch, and then make a very short stitch length to secure the ends. That makes a nice, tidy stopping and starting.
Carefully trim the threads. One more time to the ironing board.
I'm going to turn this right side out. Press the seam to the side. Poke out the corners. Starting with the seams, I'm going to give the whole thing a last finishing press.
And your pillowcase is completed.
This is for a standard or queen sized pillow. If you want to make it for a king-sized pillowcase, just add 6 inches to the length. Instead of cutting it 34 and 1/2, cut it 40 and 1/2. You can make this out of any kind of fabric-- satin, flannel makes a nice pillowcase, regular cotton. So keep on sewing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Lined Drawstring Bag
I'm Crissa Lancaster with the Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a lined drawstring bag. This bag is unique in that it has three different fabrics and a different kind of casing. And it's also lined, which it means that it's completely finished out on the inside as well as the outside.
I have three fabrics here-- my main bag fabric, the contrast band, and the lining. I have two pieces of 28-inch ribbon, and then you'll use just your basic sewing supplies-- the cutting mat, ruler, and cutter, sewing machine, thread to match, iron and ironing board.
I'm going to cut the lining first. I'm going to fold my piece of fabric in half with the selvages together-- well, with this one selvage together and a fold along the bottom edge. I'll line the fold up with my zero line and cut the 10-inch way first. Line the ruler up at 10 inches here and 10 inches here. Flip the mat around. Trim off at the zero line. Now, this needs to be 27 and 3/4, so divided in half will be 13 and 7/8. Since the fold is on the zero line, I'll line this up with 13 and 7/8. Cut it. And there's my lining piece.
Now I need two 3 by 9-inch pieces for the contrast casing. It's the same as the lining. Since this is such a small piece, I'm going to use just my ruler. I'll cut those two sides. Flip it around and line this up-- the 9 inches and the 3 inches. And since my fabric was doubled, I now have two 9 by 3-inch pieces.
This is the main bag fabric, and I needed 10 by 24-inch piece. So again, I unfold the fabric and fold it in half with these selvages even. I'll line the fold up with the zero line. I'm lining my ruler up with the 10-inch mark, and cut. Flip the mat around, along with everything else. I'm lining my ruler up at the zero line. Now I have my 10-inch width. Now I want this piece to be 24 inches long. I'll fold it in half. Half of 24 is 12. So with a fold along the zero line, I'll cut this off at the 12-inch line. And there's my 10 by 24-inch bag fabric.
Now this is the fabric that's going to be the top contrasting band edge-- the top part of the bag. And I need two 3 by 10-inch pieces. Since this piece is small and will fit on my board, I will only use my ruler to cut it out. I'm using the ruler three inches here. Cut up and across. And cut this 10 inches long.
Now I have my bag all cut out. Here are the two top band contrast pieces, also called Fabric A in the pattern. Here's the lining and the two casing contrast bands, called Fabric B in the pattern, and the main bag fabric, called the Fabric C.
I'm going to start at the ironing board. This edge is going to be ironed up 3/8ths of an inch. If you would like, you can mark it at 3/4 of an inch and fold that to your line. This is going to finish off the end of the casing on your bag.
Now I'm going to top stitch along this folded edge. This will just keep it in place. I'm going to just do these one right after the other. That's called chain sewing. It saves on thread and threads to trim. I'll just put them in one after the other until all four edges are top-stitched down. I'll take it from the machine and go back to the ironing board.
I'm going to iron it in half lengthwise with all edges even and then start pinning the bag together. Here's the main part of the bag, which is Fabric C. I'm going to lay it right side up and center each one of these pieces, the raw sides, all together. Center this on both ends and then lay Fabric A, the contrast band, on top. And pin all of these together.
OK. Now we're ready to sew. The main bag fabric is here, right side up. The fold is on this edge, and the raw edge is here, and the contrast lining is right side down. Now I'm ready to sew the seam along both ends. Now I'm sewing this with a 3/8-inch seam allowance.
Now I'm going to open this up. And see, here's the casing. Now I'm going to edge-stitch this casing down. And then do the same for the other side. And back to the ironing board. Now press this open with the seam going up. And back to pinning.
Now I'm going to fold this in half, right sides together. The first thing I want to do is check and make sure that my seams match, right here, and put a pin right there. Line up the edges and pin it with a few more pins. Flip it around to do this side the same. Now I'm going to go ahead and pin the lining, as well. Right sides together. Now I'm going to leave an opening in the lining so that I can turn the whole bag right side out when I'm done. For leaving an opening, you can pin two pins as a reminder not so sew it shut, or you can just grab your chalk and mark a line there as a reminder, as well. Taking an extra minute to mark that will save you time from having to use the seam ripper to rip it out if you forget to leave the opening.
Now I'm going to sew all four of the side seams on the bag, leaving an opening in one. I'm sewing this with a 3/8-inch seam allowance, being careful at these seams to not get them twisted or turned back, but to sew them just as they are pressed. Now the other side. Now the lining. I like to always start on this side that has the opening, so I can leave it before I forget about it. Always back-stitch well on either side of an opening. I'm just going to lift up and scoot forward to my other mark. Back-stitch I again, and keep sewing.
Now I'm going to go to the ironing board and press all of these seams that I just sewed open. I'm going to iron these seams open using a sleeve board. You don't have to use one, but it makes it a lot easier for pressing these seams open. If you don't have one, you can just do it like this. You'll end up with some wrinkles in your bag, which you can just go back and press them out, being careful not to press the seam that you just ironed open.
I'm just ironing these seams open now, because with a lined bag, it will be very hard to get them to press nicely when you're finished. Now I'm going to connect the bag with the lining. Turn the lining right side out and flip it into the bag, matching the seams. I will pin this together.
OK. So the lining is on the inside, right sides together with the bag. My seams are matching up at the sides. I'm pinning the top edges even. I'm going to sew with a 3/8-inch seam. I'm starting close to a side seam and being careful to keep those seams pressed open. Sew across and then around the top of the bag. Be careful as you sew this. You don't want to get any little tucks. Now, on this, instead of back-stitching, I'm just going to overlap my stitches for about an inch. Since it is in a lining, none of this is going to show, and that will secure it sufficiently.
Now I'm going to turn the bag out. Here's the lining. I need to find my opening. Here it is. Reach inside and grab the bag. Pull it out that hole in the lining. I'm going to use this little point turner to poke out the corners. Now I'm going to iron the bag-- just the outside part of the bag. It irons very easily, since I already pressed those seams open earlier. Here's the opening, and I'm going to sew it closed by machine. I'm just sticking close to the folded edges with both opening edges right on top of each other. I'm back-stitching at the beginning and the end, and that sews my opening closed.
Back to the ironing board. Now I'm going to tuck the lining into the bag and press this top seam. I want to roll this seam right to the edge, and I don't want any lining to show on the outside. I want the seam to be right on the edge. I always dampen my fingers and it helps it roll better. Now it's all pressed. I'm going to top-stitch along this edge and along that seam. Since I'm top stitching, I'm going to lengthen my stitch length and not back stitch. I'm just starting.
I'm using this little line on my presser foot as the guide for which the edge of the fabric is going by. OK. I'm going to overlap about half of an inch of stitches. Now I'm going to shorten my stitch to almost 0, and take just a few more stitches. This will neatly finish off your top stitching and lock your threads. Now I'm just going to lift up and scoot over to my other seam that I'm going to top stitch and I'm going to start sewing. When you're top stitching this, be careful that it doesn't start getting a twist in it. I'm holding this out to make sure that my fabric is staying flat in my distance between the edge of the bag and this row of top stitching.
Now I'm coming up on where I started. Since that is not back stitched, I'm going to overlap about half an inch. Then I'm going to turn my stitch length to almost zero, which is the shortest stitch. Now I will overlap the stitches about half an inch. This is a very neat and secure way to finish the top stitching.
Now I'm going to thread the ribbon through the casing. Here is a 28-inch piece of ribbon. I'm going to put it on the bodkin. Now I'm going to slip this through the casing and on around to the other side. And pull it through and tie these ends together. Trim at an angle so that they do not fray. Now I'm going to do the same thing with the other ribbon, starting on the other side. Tie these together and trim the ends. So now we're finished. And you learned about lining, where there's no raw edges, and you have a contract band with a new type of casing. So here's the finished bag.
Pillowcase with band
I'm Crissa Lancaster with the Ploughshare. In this video I'm going to show you how to make a pillowcase with a contrasting band and trim on it. There's a neat technique to do this, so that it all finishes out. You're going to do a French seam along the edge, so that the seam is all finished.
The materials required is 7/8 of a yard of your main fabric, a quarter yard of your band, and an eighth of a yard of your contrasting trim. Then of course you'll want a cutting mat, ruler, cutter, scissors, thread to match, sewing machine, iron and ironing board.
First, I'm going to cut out the main part of the pillowcase. This is going to be 27 by 42 inches. Here's my piece of fabric. The selvages are together.
I'm going to fold it in half again, so that it's folded into quarters. And cut it-- the 27 inch cut first. So this fold is along the zero line. My selvages are all together here.
Half of 27 is 13 and a half. So I'll line my ruler up on the mat, with the 13 and a half inch marks, and cut. Now I'm going to line this folded edge with the zero line, and cut it the 42 width-- which, half of 42 is 21. So I'll line my ruler up with the 21 inch mark on the mat and cut the selvages off. Now, that's the main part of my pillowcase.
Next I'm going to cut the band. This is going to be 8 and a half inches by 42. So first I'm going to line the fold up with the zero line, and cut at 21 again. That will give me my 42 inches. Now slide this down, making sure my fold is straight along that line. Now matching my ruler up to the 8 and a half mark, I'll cut the other side.
Now the trim-- I'm going to cut this an inch and 3/4 by 42. Since this is narrow, I'm just going to use my ruler. First of all, I'm going to straighten this edge. I have the fold along here, and I'm lining the fold up with lines on the ruler, so that I know my cut is going to be perpendicular to my fold. This cut just straightens these edges.
Now I'll flip the mat around, and with my ruler measure over an inch and 3/4. Now I'll cut it to the 42 length. I'm going by the 21 inch mark right there. And we're doing cutting up.
This is the contrasting trim. I'm going to iron this in half. When you're ironing, be careful to keep your strip straight. If you let it curve around like this as you're pressing, it'll make it harder for your trim to end up straight. So keep your piece of fabric straight on your ironing board as you press.
Now I'm going to mark my stitching line. Now, I'm going to mark this stitching line. This is a unique way to do this, but because this trim is very narrow, it's easy for it to-- if you don't sew exactly straight, your trim is going to end up being wobbly. So I'm going to mark this 3/8 of an inch from my folded edge. If you can sew perfectly straight, you don't have to do this. For this, I'm using a chaco liner to mark this.
Now, take the main pillowcase fabric. Open it up. Lay this down on the right side with the raw edges even, and pin it on. I recommend putting the pins every six to seven inches.
Now I'm going to sew on my marked line. That will just keep the trim-- baste it in place. After you've made several of them, and are comfortable, you can omit this step and sewing it in place. And go straight to putting this on. But for your first one, we'll do it this way.
Now I'm sewing right on that line that I marked. And this is just keeping the trim in place for me for when I sew the band on. Now I'm going to pin the band on-- right sides together, edges even, pins every six to eight inches. Now I'm going to sew this, but sew it from this side. Because I have that stitching line that I just sewed as my guide.
Now you can see I'm sewing right along that seam that I just sewed-- not on top of it, but just slightly to the left. That will ensure that those stitches do not show on the front. It's very important to sew this very straight or else that little trim will not end up being straight. And rather than watching the needle, it's easier to sew straight if you watch your presser foot and watch the fabric just as it goes under your presser foot. If it's going in straight there, it will still be straight when it goes under the needle.
Now I'll go to the ironing board. When you have a long seam, it's easy to get a bow in it as you press it. So this is called setting the seam, to lay it flat-- which is just ironing it flat like this. That sinks the stitches into the fabric, and for a long straight stretch like that, it helps in keeping it straight. Now I'll flip it open, and iron it this way.
I'm going to take this edge of the pillowcase, and loosely roll it up and then place it here down the middle of that-- down the middle of the band. Now I'm going to grab the seam, and fold it over to this edge. And I'm going to check and make sure that none of this extra fabric here that's folded up is going to be caught in this as I pin it.
I'll start putting in the middle and work my way across. Make sure that your band does not get twisted. You want the edges to stay even. I'll put a few more pins in to hold it together. Now I'm going to sew again on the same seam line as my guide.
Now I'm going to sew this seam, again using my stitches as a guide-- my previous stitching line. I'm sewing just to the left of my last stitching line. Sewing a long seam like this, sometimes your top fabric wants to slowly ooch forward. If you let it slowly come forward like that, you'll end up with a twist on your band.
So it's very important to not let it gather in front of your next pin. You can use-- like I'm using this hand behind, just pulling it very, very slightly to ease that extra fabric in between each pin. Backstitch at the end.
And now for the revealing. Now I'm going to pull all of this out. As I'm pulling this out, I'm also turning the inside out. So they both work together at the same time. Pull it all the way out, and roll that fabric that I rolled all up. And here is the band, finished on the front and finished on the back.
Now I'm going to just lightly press this seam open. It's falls open easily because I've already pressed it once. And then flip it over to the back, because this is a seam that I just sewed and it's not been pressed. I want to make sure that it gets pressed open very well. I'll go ahead and press it down, and set the crease along the edge.
Now I'm going to sew the pillowcase side seam together using a French seam. That will finish the seam out with a very clean, neat seam, and no raw edges down on the edge of our pillowcase. Line it up wrong sides together, for the first seam. Match this seam and the trim. It's very important that those line up. The folded edges, and then the rest of the side seam.
Now I'm going to sew this with a 3/8 inch seam. Starting on the finished edge, and backstitching, I'm going to sew up the side seam. When sewing a large piece of fabric, make sure you move all the fabric that's to the left of your sewing machine as you sew the seam so that the bulk of your project doesn't get twisted. That will help you sew a much straighter seam.
Now back to the ironing board. I'm going to slide this onto the ironing board and press this seam open. That will just make it much easier when I turn it wrong side out and the seam again, for that seam to already be pressed. So I'm going to pull it off the ironing board, turning it wrong side out as I go.
Now I'll press this seam with the seam right at the edge. And I'm going to sew this with a 5/8 inch seam allowance, and that will make my French seam.
I'm going to pin this with my pin going parallel with the seam. And then open it up to check and make sure that this is all lining up. You don't want to sew it like that, and your finished pillowcase ends up not lining up. So always pin it and check.
Starting at the finished edge, and being careful to-- neatly backstitch. I'm sewing this with a 5/8 inch seam allowance. There's a lot of thickness right here, with the trim, and that seam. So just take it easy, and go slow, and don't stitch on your pin.
Now when I get to the end, I'm just going to pivot and sew across the end of the pillowcase. Backstitch, flip it over, and set the machine on zigzag to finish this end. Now before I get to the corner, I'm going to trim this corner off a little bit to eliminate some of the bulk, so that my edge will turn out neatly when I turn the pillowcase right side out and poke that corner out. So I'll just turned zigzag across that, that I just cut.
Now the pillowcase is almost finished. I'm going to turn the right side out and press it, and add one other little finishing touch. Turn it right side out. Poke out the corners, and press the seams. Again, I'm making sure to roll the seam all the way to the edge, and the same across the end.
The end is on the width grain of the fabric, and so it's always a little harder to press. The grain doesn't want to fold as well as the length wise grain. So if you ever wonder why you have to work a little harder to get one side to press than the other, it most likely has to do with the grain of the fabric.
Now I'm going to show you how to handstitch this seam down. I'm going to fold this corner under, and then stitch this down just to keep that seam laying nice and flat and not showing at all from the front. Here's my needle-- it's threaded, and I'm going to make a quilters knot. You do that by making an x with your thread and your needle and wrapping the thread about five wraps around your needle. I pinch those wraps, and slide it down. And there's a perfect knot.
Now I'm going to come up on the backside, right in the middle of that little crease, and tuck that over, so my knot is hidden away in there. Just taking small stitches that do not go through on the front side, I'm going to stitch the seam.
I'm going to stop here, at the edge of band, take a little stitch and pull it until I have a loop, a small loop. I'm just going bring my needle through that loop three or four times, and pull it down. And that makes a secure knot at the end.
Now instead of just trimming my thread off right here, I can go through the layers and pull it and that knot will pop inside. And then I can trim it off right here, and I have no little loose ends. And that finishes it out.
Here's the finished pillowcase. This fits a regular or a queen sized pillow. I you would like to make it for a king sized pillow, you just add six inches to the length of the main piece of fabric, which would make it be 33 inches long instead of 27. So here's the finished pillowcase.
Flange Pillow
Hi. I'm Crissa Lancaster with The Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a simple flange pillow, which is the front and the back has an overlap opening. All you need is a half a yard of a medium weight fabric, a pillow form, and your basic sewing supplies, a cutting mat, ruler, rotary cutter, thread to match, sewing machine, of course, an iron and ironing board, and some type of marking utensils. I'll get started by cutting out.
First of all, I need an 18-inch square. I'm folding my fabric in half and lining it up with the lines on the mat. I'm going to cut 18-inch length first. This cut is on the 0 line and then on 18. I'll fold in half the other way.
Always make sure your fold is exactly on a line so that your finished square comes out square and not some other shape. There's the 18-inch square. Now, I need two pieces that are 12 and 1/2 by 18 inches for the back. Again, I'm using the mat as the marking guide. I'll cut at 12 and 1/2 and then 12 and 1/2 again.
Now I'm going to square these two pieces up together, lining my cut edges up straight with the 0 line. I'll trim this corner square. Upholstery fabric is a little thicker and sometimes it doesn't like to cut as easily as other fabrics. Now, I'm going to cut this at 18. And there's the two 12 and 1/2 by 18-inch pieces.
The next step is to turn each one of these 12 and 1/2-inch edges over an inch and then an inch again. I'll show you two different methods that you can do it. The first one is like we've done before. I'll mark a line at 2 inches, and that will give me the placement to turn the first inch. And then I'll mark an inch again from there. for the second line. Now, we'll go to the ironing board.
This piece I'm going to iron to that marking line and then fold it again to the second line. Some upholstery fabric is hard to mark on or if you would just prefer to use a seam gauge in the first place, you can use a seam gauge. I set the slider at 1 inch and using that as a guide. I fold the fabric. The end of it is engaged is down at the fold, and I'm just folding it right at this 1 inch.
So there's my first 1-inch turn. Now I'll fold a second time, again, to the 1 inch. Since you already have 1 inch of fabric folded, it naturally is going to want to fold along the edge of your fabric from the first fold.
Now, I'm going to stitch right along this folded edge. I'm going to stitch this down. Now, I'm going to chain stitch these, just put one in right after the other. I like to never miss an opportunity to do that.
Now, it's time to pin the pillow together. Now, I pin these right sides together. On a lot of upholstery fabrics, it's hard to tell which is the right side. As you can see with this fabric, they're pretty close to the same, so make sure it truly is right sides together. If when you're cutting out, you want to just put a pin in the back of each piece to mark the back. That's a good way to mark it, to remember if it's hard to tell them apart.
Now, when I iron this, it shrinks a little bit, so I'm just trimming up the edges to make them all even and square. Now, line up the unfinished edges. Make sure you get a pin on both edges of the overlap so that it's secured well and not in there crooked.
Now, I'm going to sew this with a 5/8-inch seam. If you would like to mark your pivots, you can do so now, 5/8-inch from the corner on both ways. I've made enough 5/8-inch pivots that I can do it without a marking. So I'll do the rest like that.
Now, I'm pivoting right here at my marking, sewing down the next side. I'm taking out each pin as I come to it. I start in the middle because you don't want to start at a corner. When you go back to trim your corner, that will trim your starting and ending stitches too close and your corner might bust through.
I'm going to show you a little tip for pivoting. On thick fabrics, the thicker your fabric is the harder it will be for you to have a nice, sharp corner when you poke it out. And if you take a corner-wise stitch, take one corner and then take one going across the corner, that will make your corner poke out in a nicer, sharper corner especially for thick fabrics. Now, I'm just going to overlap about an inch from my beginning sewing and take it from the machine.
Now, I'll trim the corners. It's very important to eliminate the bulk from the corners. Now, I'm going to turn it right side out. Poke out the corners. And the next step is to press this edge.
I'm going to go in with my fingers and press it, press the seam open just with my fingers. It will help it to roll the seam right to the edge a little easier. It's very important that the seam is open all the way to the edge. This is the edge of your pillow, and you want to be a nice, straight fold.
This edge is going to be a little more difficult because you have the overlap here. But with a little work, you can get it right. I'm given it an all-over final press. Make sure that all the fold is even on the edge all the way around. And the next step is to mark the stitching line for the flange.
The next step is to mark a 1 and 5/8-inch line here. That's going to be your stitching line. See it's right here, and that will create your flange. Depending on what kind of fabric you're using, there are several different ways to mark it, and I'll show you a few.
You can use a purple disappearing ink pen. Since this is a light fabric, I'm going to need to use something darker. And that just marks a fine line. It does disappear. You don't ever want to iron on a purple pen because it could set the mark, and depending on the fiber content of your fabric and the humidity of the air, it might last several hours or it may only last a few minutes,
I'm going to try the chalk wheel. I'm not sure how well it will show up on this light fabric, but it shows up pretty well. The chalk would always be my first choice. Another way if you can't find a marking utensil that will mark on your fabric, you can measure in 1 and 5/8 from your corner with a pen so that you know where to pivot. So if you don't want to mark on your fabric, you can mark your sewing machine.
I have this set where my needle will go down centered in the sewing machine at 1 and 5/8. And using just a piece of masking tape, I'm going to go put it right along the edge of the ruler, and that will give me a 1 and 5/8-inch mark on my sewing machine. Some sewing machines already have a measurement guide here, and then you wouldn't have to do that.
I'm going to start in the middle. I can feel the thickness of the overlap underneath, and I want to back-stitch here. That's going to receive a lot of tension on each edge of that overlap when you're pulling your pillow and out. So it's best to just go ahead and give it a little extra reinforcement.
Now, I have a pin here to mark where I pivot. This side does not have the seam line marked. I'm going to use the edge of my tape. Now, this side is marked with a purple pen, which is already disappearing. Again, I stop and reinforced on each side of the overlap. Pivot at the corner. Come back where I started, do a quick back-stitch, and trim the threads.
Now, insert the pillow through your opening in the back. And that is all there is to making a flange pillow.
You can make this so any size. I do recommend upholstery fabric or a thicker fabric such as the denim. It gives it a lot more body, and just makes a really nice-looking pillow. If your fabric doesn't like to press as with this fabric, I went and top-stitched again, edge-stitched along this edge, and that gave it a nice finish.
This one also has a design, so I cut it very carefully to make the design centered. And if you don't want to have a flange, you can just make your outside measurement to fit your pillow and skip that last step.
You can make this pillow any size that you would like. You just want to make the inside part of your pillow finish off 1 inch smaller than your pillow form. For instance, if you have a 16-inch pillow form, you want this part to finish off at 15 inches. Then you add for your flange and your seam allowance.
Tote Bag
I'm Crissa Lancaster with the Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a simple tote bag. It's just a bag like this. It has a pocket in the lining. The bottom is square.
All you need is a half of a yard of a sturdy-weight fabric. It's nice to have a little body to your tote bag. A lightweight upholstery fabric or a medium-weight denim is nice. A half a yard for lining-- it can be a lighter-weight material. Your other basic sewing supplies, a cutting mat, ruler, cutter, of course thread to match and your sewing machine and ironing board.
I'll get started by cutting out. First, I'm going to cut out the main part of the tote bag. I'll line the selvages up. I need two pieces, 15 by 14 inches. If you have a directional fabric, you'll want your direction going-- up and down will be going the 15-inch direction.
I'm making the first cut to square this edge and trim off the selvages. I measure 14 inches over. I make my second cut. And I'm going to go back and make it 15. Slide it down so my first cut will be on the 0 line, and the second at 15. The bag's outsides.
Now I'm going to cut the handles, which are 4" by 19". I'll cut them going the lengthwise direction. Using my ruler, I'm measuring 4 inches over. I'm cutting. I'll square this end. Then flip it around, measure 19 inches from here. Cut and square the other end. There are the handles.
Now for the lining. I need two pieces that are 13 and 3/4" by 15". First, I'll square this end and trim off the selvages. Move it over to 15 inches. Square this end. And then, line it up with the mat on 13 and 3/4".
Now, I'm going to cut two pockets out of the lining. It'll be 7 and 1/2 by 9 and 1/2 inches. Of course you could change this size to be whatever size you'd like your pocket to be. This is just a standard size.
I'll fold my fabric in half, and I'm using my cutting mat as a guide-- If you have a larger ruler, a large square, you can use that, then use your ruler as a guide. But with the 6" by 24", I'll still use the mat for this. 7 and 1/2 inches.
I'll go ahead and line up my two zero edges, cut this at 9 and 1/2", then 7 and 1/2". So this is the main outside of the bag with the handles, the lining and the pocket. The next step is to iron the handles.
Iron this in half lengthwise, wrong sides together. With upholstery fabric, I recommend taking a little scrap material and testing your iron to make sure the temperature is not too hot.
Now open it up and fold this edge just slightly shy of the crease and press in place. Do the same with the other side. You'll want to have just a small gap between the two edges. And fold it in half again. You'll want to do this with both handles.
Now, I'm going to pin these edges so that they'll stay together as I topstich them down. Now, I'll topstitch them down. I'm pulling slightly to give tension to keep the top fabric from slowly inching forward. I want to keep it even between each pin. I'm taking out each pin as I come to it.
There's one handle. Now, I'm going to show you how to use a topstitching foot on the second one. You can use a regular foot, but some people find it helpful to use a topstitching foot. It's also called a blind hem foot on some machines.
I moved my needle over to the left position. The guide on this foot will help you keep a straight stitching line even though you have a lot of thickness. Now, I'm going to topstitch down the other side of the other handle. And do the same again. Now, here are both handles topstitched on both sides.
Now, I'm going to sew the bottom of the bag together. Here are the main two pieces, right sides together. First, I'm going to cut a corner out of the bottom pieces of the fabric. Again, if your fabric is directional, you're going to want your direction going this way. This is 14 inches.
And of the two bottom corners, I'm lining up the ruler at the 1 and 5/8 inch mark. Careful not to over-cut into the fabric. Cut a corner there, then again out of this corner.
Now, I'm going to sew this bottom edge here. I'm going to sew this with a 5/8-inch seam allowance. Now, I'm going to repeat these same steps with the lining.
This is 15 inches. I'm going to cut a square out of each corner along the 15-inch side. OK, 1 and 5/8 inches this way, and 1 and 5/8 inches there. That's a 1 and 5/8-inch square. And then sew the lining together.
I'm sewing this right sides together with a 5/8-inch seam allowance. Now, I'm going to pin the pocket together.
I'm just going to use a few pins to keep it together while I sew it. Now, we're going to sew this right sides together and turn it out, so I want to leave an opening. I'm going to leave about a 3-inch opening on the side. I'm just going to use this to mark a line so I can remember not to sew there.
This I'm going to sew with a 3/8-inch seam allowance. Remember to always backstitch well with the edge of the opening. I'll sew to the corner and pivot. I'm sewing all the way around to the other side of the opening. Backstitch again well. Pull it out and trim the threads.
Now, I'll go to the ironing board. Before turning it right side out, I want to trim the corners. And turn. Poke the corners out. Of course, you want your corners to be turned out nice and neat, but remember not to over-poke.
Now roll the seam right to the edge and press. There are lots of different ways that you can make a pocket. You can just iron under the edges and hem the top edge. This way is just easy for beginning. It gives you nice, finished edges all the way around just to topstitch in place.
Now, I'll pin it to the lining. I'm going to topstitch along one of the long edges of the pocket. That will be the top of the pocket. If you like, you can use the topstitching foot to help you guide in your topstitching.
The next step is to pin the pocket in place. Now, you want to center your pocket onto the lining. A real easy way to find the center is to just press each piece in half. I'm just going to lightly press the lining in half and also the pocket in half. Now back to pinning it on.
Here's the lining right side up. I'm going to measure 3 inches down from the top edge with my ruler. That line is at the 3-inch mark. Here's the pocket, right side up with the topstitch edge up. I'll line it up right along the edge of the ruler. The fold is matching. Now, I'll pin the pocket in place.
Now, I'm going to topstitch the pocket down. On the top edge of the pocket, always make sure you backstitch very well. That edge gets a lot of stress. Now, as I'm sewing along here, I just sew the opening of the pocket closed. Pivot at the corner. Turn again. Now only sew around three sides. The top side is left open. And there's the pocket.
So here's the pocket. You can do a pocket on both sides if you like. I'm going to show you how to divide this pocket so that you have a cell phone pocket and a pen pocket within this pocket.
To make the cell phone pocket, I'm going to measure 3 and 1/2 inches over from the edge of the pocket and mark a line, and then 4 inches down. Of course, you could change this size to accommodate your phone if you have a different size.
Now for the pen pocket, I'm going to measure 1 inch over from this edge, and then 5 inches down. If you don't sew across the bottom, your pen could get lost all the way down in that pocket.
Now, I'm going to sew on these lines, and that will create these pockets. First, I'm sewing the pen pocket, backstitching well at the top. Sew all the way down. Now, I'm just going to lift up the foot and scoot over to this little line and sew it, backstitching at both ends. Trim all the threads.
I'll flip it around and start at the bottom for the cell phone pocket. Then slide across and stitch across the bottom. So there's the pocket with some more threads to trim.
Now, we're going to sew the sides of the tote bag together. Here it is, right sides together, edges even. I'll pin the two sides. There's one side, now the other. And do the same for the lining. Again, right sides together, edges even.
In one side of the lining, I'm going to want to leave an opening so that we can turn the bag right side out when we're done. You can either use double pins double pins so that you can remember not to sew the opening close, or just simply put a mark there.
Now, I'm going to sew all four of these seams with a 5/8-inch seam allowance. I'm going to sew these one right after the other. Now the other side. And the last side has the opening in it. So right to the edge of the opening. Backstitch well. Skip across to the other side and finish the seam.
Now press all the seams open. I'm going to press the seam open. This seam has the opening in it, and I'm going to go ahead and just press it as if it were sewn. Press it open. Then the other side.
And then back to the sewing machine to sew the corners in the bag. Now, I'm going to pin the corners of the bag, like this, the seams matching. Two corners on the outside, and then the two on the lining. Make sure the seams are matching. Now, I'll sew across all of these with a 5/8-inch seam allowance on each one of these.
I'll sew with a 5/8-inch seam allowance starting on the fold and going all the way across. Again, I'm going to do one right after the other. Make sure when you're sewing this that you keep your seams open. You don't want to sew it with a seam flipped back. Here's the last corner.
Next, I'll pin the bag together. I'll turn the bag right side out. And first, I need to pin the handles on. I'm going to place them 3 inches from the seam. So just measure 3 inches over and put a pin to mark it. I'll mark 3 inches from the seam on both sides.
Now, I'll pin the handle in place. It's very important that you don't get your handle twisted. It's easy to sew it in like that, but if you just take it out flat and then carefully bring the ends side by side, your handle will not be twisted. I'll line this up beside that pin and then pin it in place.
Line this one up beside the pin. Pin it on. Check to make sure the handle's not twisted and lies flat. I'm going to go ahead and sew across these handles to reinforce them, make it stronger and also to keep it in place for when I sew the lining to the bag.
I'm going to sew this down with a 1/2-inch seam allowance back and forth a couple times to make it good and strong. And then just slide to the next one. Now, I'll pin the lining to the bag.
OK, now I'll slide the bag into the lining, right sides together and matching the side seams. I'm going to pin it, starting at the side seam, and pin the seam with the seam allowances open. I'm making sure the edges are even and it's all flat. Pin all the way around the top edge.
Now, the lining and bag are all pinned together, and I'm going to sew all the way around this top edge. Starting at the side seam and using a 5/8-inch seam allowance, I'll sew around this top edge. Especially being that you have a thick outer fabric and a thinner lining, the lining might want to shift or stretch, so just take it slow and make sure you ease in any extra fullness between the pins.
Then I'm just overlap my stitches 1 inch or so and pull it off and go to the ironing board. Now, here's the opening in the lining. And pull the bag out through that. There it is.
Now, I'll tuck the lining inside and press this seam around the edge. Again, it's important to make sure this edge is opened up, and you want your lining to be rolled just slightly to the inside. You don't want it to show at all on the outside.
Now that it's pressed all the way around, I'm going to topstitch this edge. Again, I'm going to use the edgestitch foot. A lot of people find that it's really helpful for making a nice even topstitch when you have all these thick layers. Starting at the side seam, I'm just going to edgestitch all the way around.
Topstitching over the handles might be a little bit tricky. Sometimes you have to lift your foot up a little bit to help it climb up over the thickness of the handles. I'll overlap my stitches 1/2 inch or so, and then take a couple short stitches to secure the end.
Here's the opening in the lining. Now, I'm just going to topstitch it closed. Now, I'll tuck the lining into the bag. Smooth it down to the corners, and here's the finished bag.
Apron
I'm Crissa Lancaster with the Ploughshare. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make a lined butcher apron. You need two yards of one fabric or a yard of two. You can use the lining as also the contrast, a yard and a half of trim. You also need two D rings to make the adjustable neck strap. You're going to use your basic sewing supplies, scissors, pins, thread to match, sewing machine, iron, and ironing board.
I'll start with cutting out. Now in this project, you're going to use a pattern. Below this video, you can order the pattern or download a PDF and take it to your local blueprint. In our pattern and instructions, we have three different views. I'm going to use View B. It has a contrast along the top and the bottom.
Now my fabric is folded with the selvages even. I'll start with cutting out the front of the apron. This is my main fabric.
It says on the pattern piece center, place on fold. It's very important to make sure that the edge of your pattern piece is exactly on the fold of the fabric. If it's off just by 1/8 of an inch, those 1/8s of an inch can quickly add up and make your apron not fit together in the end.
You can just use as many pins as you feel like you need to be comfortable with the pattern laying down flat as you cut. Be careful to cut right along the pattern. You do not want to cut the paper with your fabric scissors because paper will dull fabric scissors.
Now I'm going to go ahead and take this pattern piece off. Now I'm going to set that fabric aside and cut out my other big piece. This is the lining. This is folded in half with the selvages even, smoothed out flat so there's not a twist in the fold.
This is the back piece for view B. Again, make sure that your pattern piece is perfectly even with the fold. So I'm pinning it on. You can use as many pins as you feel like you need to. Pin the pins perpendicular with the edge of your pattern. That will keep the pattern from slipping.
Now I'm ready to cut this piece out. If this is your first time to cut out using a pattern, you might find it more difficult than it looks. If you want some practice, you can just take some scraps and cut them until you can get a nice, even, smooth cut. And here's the back piece.
Now I'm going to cut the contrast for along the bottom band on the apron out of the same fabric. I can use this piece, but I would rather cut it with my Omnigrid and mat. This piece is 5 and 1/4 inches by 26. So I'm just going to use my rotary cutter to cut it.
This is on the fold half of 26, is 13. Now this I'm going to line up with a 5 and 1/4 inch mark and cut that. Now that's a real nice square piece. And to me, that's a lot easier than pinning this pattern piece on and cutting it out with a scissors.
The next thing I'm going to cut is the contrast for on the top of the apron. And it says cut one. So I'm going to take away one layer of fabric. Now make sure that the grain-- here is the marking for the grainline-- is going parallel with the grain of the fabric. You have your selvage for your lengthwise grain. And it's parallel with that arrow.
If you were going to cut it laying your piece this way, then your piece would be cut on the bias and it would be stretchy. And it would give you a lot of trouble when you go to try to sew your apron together. There's the contrast for the top.
Now all I have left to cut out is the ties. As you can see, it looks nice to have the neck tie matching the contrast here, and the side ties matching the main part of the apron. So I'm going to cut the side ties out of this. Again, I could use this pattern piece, but I'm going to use my Omnigrid instead.
It's a 3 and 1/4 by 26 inch piece. This is doubled here. I'm going to fold it in half. So I'll be cutting both ties at the same time. I'll line this up with the 13. Half of 26 is 13 and then go back and cut the selvage off. And here's two ties.
Now I'm going to cut out the neck band. Here's a scrap of fabric. It's going to be 3 and 1/4 by 28 inches. So I've folded it and line up with the 14, because 14 times 2 is 28. Flip it around and, using my ruler, lining it up at 3 and 1/4, make the last cut. And there's my neck band.
OK, I'm going to make this apron using D rings to make the neck strap adjustable. So now I need to cut out this little piece. And it's just a 3 and 1/4 inch square.
I'm using my ruler as a guide to cut 3 and 1/4 and 3 and 1/4. There's my little square.
Here's the apron back, the apron front, the top contrast piece, the bottom band contrast, two side ties, the neck tie, and a loop for the D rings. Now we're ready to start sewing.
Now the first step is to sew the ties. I'm going to fold them right sides together lengthwise, make the edges even, and put a few pins in to hold them place. There's the neck tie. Here are the two side ties. And the little loop for the D ring, fold it in half.
Now I'm going to sew all four of these across the end and down one side, leaving one end open. Now I'm going to the sewing machine. I'm using a 3/8 inch seam allowance. Pivot at the corner, and backstitch at the end.
I'll chain sew them one after the other. If you always sew across the short end first, then you'll never have to wonder when get down to the other end whether you sewed it or not. Across the short end, pivot at the corner.
Because when you're sewing, the feed dogs on the sewing machine are always taking the fabric from the bottom. It grabs it, the bottom fabric, faster. And it's very easy, especially the longer your seam is, for the top fabric to slowly inch forward so it's important to not ever let a tuck build up in front of your pin. Ease it in and take each pin out as you come to it, making sure it always stays flat.
Now I'm going to the ironing board. Now I'll trim these apart and trim each corner. It's always important to eliminate all the bulk in your seams, especially at the corner, so that it'll turn out nice and have a nice sharp corner when you're done.
Now I'm going to turn the ties right side out. You can use a crochet hook. A small dowel also works fine. While the crochet hook is there, I'm going to go ahead and poke the corners out as best that I can and pull it all the way out.
This is called a point turner. And it's a nifty little tool for turning ties right side out also. There's a blunt end and a sharp end. You slide the tie onto the blunt end. Pile it up on there. When you get to the corner, you clamp it together and then work the tie back onto this side. Now I'll use that pointed end to poke out both corners and pull it right side out.
Now they're all turned right side out. And I'm going to use a pin to carefully pull the corner completely out. It takes a little practice to be able to pull the fabric out and not pull any of the threads out. You just want to carefully grab the corner and pull it.
Now all the corners are nice. I'm going to press the ties. With my fingers, I like to press the seam to one side, press any crease out, then fold in half with that seam right on the edge and iron it. Again, make sure that there's not a little tuck in there. You want your seam opened up and right on the edge. You want to make sure that it looks the same on both sides, the seam is not showing on either side. And press the other ties the same.
Now I'm going to topstitch these ties. I'm going to use the topstitching foot. It makes it easier for sewing these long straight stretches, to keep your stitches straight. For the construction of the apron, it's not necessary to topstitch the ties, but it's a good time to practice some topstitching. And it does give a nice finish.
I'll pivot at the corner, stitch across the end, turn again. I'm topstitching the little loop piece. Since these guys are a different color, I'm going to change the thread on the sewing machine to match them. The guide on the foot is helping to guide the fabric, but I also have my fingers here. And I have them set as guides as well. Now I'm going to sew the apron front together.
First, I'm going to pin the contrast bands to the apron front, right sides together. I'll place the band on this bottom edge and pin it on. Now I'm going to pin the top contrast right sides together to the top edge.
Make sure that this contrast piece is centered. It looks like it doesn't line up, but that's because of the curve. When you come along and sew the same right here, it will make it match up perfectly. So now I'm going to sew this with a 3/8 inch seam allowance across the top and across the bottom. Now I'm sewing across the bottom.
Now I'm going to iron these seams. Now press this seam open. And press this seam open.
Now this next step is to sew the trim on. I'm going to use rickrack. And it's always good to just steam your trim real well before you sew it on in case it's going to shrink any. You can go ahead and let the iron and steam shrink it for you.
When you press it, do press it in a straight line rather than letting it curve around on your ironing board. If you press it like that, you're going to have a hard time making it be a straight line when you sew it on. So stretch it out straight and steam it good.
Now I'll pin the rick-rack on. The rickrack is optional. You can skip this step if you'd like. I just center the rickrack over the seam and put a few pins in to hold it in place. After you've sewn yards of rickrack on different projects, you might not have to pin it anymore.
Do notice the direction that I pin these pins. It's important for when I'm sewing it. The pins will easily slide out.
I'm going to change my thread to match the rickrack. Now I'll just sew right down the center of the rickrack. There it is across the top. Now I'll sew it across the bottom.
I'm sewing right down the center of the trim. When sewing rickrack on, it's easier to keep your eye on the little bumps that come out on either side of the presser foot rather than trying to see straight to go down the middle of this rickrack. Now it's time to assemble the apron.
Before pinning the apron together, I'm going to press the front and the back together, right sides together. It's very important that your front and your back lie perfectly flat together. And because fabric can shrink or stretch and there could be a slight bit of human error in cutting out, you want to make sure that they lay flat together. A lot of times there'll be a little extra fabric that needs to be trimmed off. So I'm going to press them very well together, and then take it and trim any discrepancies.
So here's the back and the front, right sides together. I'll smooth it all flat. And you can see that it doesn't line up perfectly. So I'll just trim that so that it does. If your front and your back are a little bit different, your finished apron won't lay flat.
OK, now that all the edges are even, I'm going to fold it back and pin the ties in. Once the ties are pinned in, you can't tell as well if it's all laying flat. The side ties are 3/8 of an inch down from this edge. So I'm measuring that 3/8 inch right there.
I'm going to pin it with double pins. It's very easy for your tie to slide sideways if you only pin it with one pin. So I always pin them with two.
Now the neck tie. If you're not using the loop for the adjustable strap, you would just take your neck tie and put it in like this. But since I'm using the D rings, first I'll slide the two D rings onto this little loop, fold it in half, and pin it in place. Again, it's 3/8 inch from that edge. And the long tie is 3/8 inch from this edge. Do make sure on all of your ties that it is the unfinished edge that you pin on, not you're finished edge.
Now neatly fold up all your ties so that they are as flat as they can be and bring this back up. And I'll pin it together all the way around. I'm going to sew this together all the way around, leaving an opening in the side to turn it right side out. So I'll go ahead and pin it and mark it so I remember not to sew that shut. I'm pinning every five to six inches. That's sufficient for keeping the edges together.
OK, now I'm going to sew it together all the way around, starting at the edge of the opening. The last thing I sewed was the black trim. Now I'm going to change back to a thread color that matches the fabric.
I'm using a 3/8 inch seam, backstitching well at the opening, pivot at the corner. Again, as you sew these long seems, don't let your top fabric slowly inch forward. Keep it even from pin to pin.
Now I'm coming up on a tie here. I'm going to carefully sew over it, making sure that it doesn't slip and get crooked on me. And pivot at the corner.
Now coming up on this corner where the D ring is, that extra thickness and bulk is going to make it a little bit hard. I'm just going to reach in and try to pull those D rings out of the way and keep on sewing. And pivot at the corner.
I'll straighten this out, make sure everything's lined up straight, and sew across the top. I'll pivot again.
Now the next strap is coming underneath. I can feel it with my finger. It's right under there. I'm being careful not to catch that with my stitches. Again, as you sew down here, make sure that you don't catch the side of the tie in your seam, but do sew across end securely.
Now on to the other side of my opening. I'm going to backstitch and go to the ironing board. Trim the bottom two corners. On these corners, do not trim your tie it all. Just trim a little off the top of this seam. If you trim the tie, it will pull out on that corner. So I'm just going to eliminate a little bit of bulk right above the side tie and right to the side of the neck ties. Do not cut across this way. Only cut some off the side.
Now I'm going to turn it right side out. I'll pull the ties. They nicely pull out all the corners that a tie is in. And then these bottom two corners will need a little help. I'm going to use the point turner to poke these corners out being careful not to poke too hard so it doesn't come through.
And now it's time to press again. I'll press these seams first. I'll finger press it open and roll the seam to the edge. You do not want your lining rolling around to the front.
Ironing is as important of a skill as sewing. If you can't iron your project nicely, you could sew it straight and it still would come out looking all a mess. So make sure you take the time to iron well. This is the opening here. I'm ironing it closed. Now the apron is all pressed and ready to topstitch.
I'm going to topstitch all the way around the edge of the apron. Now when you have contrasting fabrics like this, you have to decide whether you want your stitches to match the top or the bottom, or if you want to break in between and use one color for up here and a different color for the contrast.
See, if you were to use purple thread, you'd end up with purple stitches up here. If you were to use the cream thread, you'd end up with cream stitches down on your darker fabric. Or you could try to find a thread that's kind of a medium and looks all right on both.
I'm going to put a bobbin in the machine that matches the back. I'm going to put the edgestitch foot on since I'm going to be topstitching all the way around the apron. Do not start your topstitching somewhere up on the top where it will show. I always start it on the side in a less conspicuous place. Turn my needle to the left position and topstitch around the edge.
Now I just stitched up my opening on the side and I topstitched. The trim here wants to bunch up under my foot, so I'm just going to let it slide under. When I'm back around to the end, I'll backstitch neatly to finish it off. And the apron is done.
I need to thread the tie through the D rings. You come from the front and go through both of them, and then back around and just loop it through the top one. And that will secure it.
Here's your finished apron with view B. Here's view A in a child's size and view C. With these three styles and five sizes that come with our pattern, combined with your creativity and use of fabric and trim, you make an endless variety of aprons.