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Transcript:

This transcript is based on the Love to Sew Favourite version of this episode, released January 11, 2022. You can listen to this version of the episode via the player below:

Caroline: Hello, Love to Sew listener. We’re currently in our podcast off-season, so we’re taking a little break from recording right now.

Helen: This winter we’re so excited to revisit some of our favourite episodes from years past. We hope you will love these reruns as much as we do. Remember, you can still access the show notes by going to LoveToSewPodcast.com and searching for the episode.

If you want more Love to Sew, head over to our Patreon. We have a lot of fun over there, and we appreciate our Patreon fam so, so much.

Caroline: Yes, we do. For $5 USD per month, you’ll get access to our monthly bonus episode. Our Patreon episodes really feel like a catch up with friends. This is where we share what we’ve been up to in our personal lives, our businesses, what we’re sewing, and things we’re loving like recipes, podcasts, TV shows, board games, and more. Throughout the month, we also share behind the scenes photos, including sneaky peeks of some upcoming releases from our businesses.

Helen: Yes, it is top secret stuff just for our Patreon supporters. And if you join at the $10 USD per month, you get a 15% discount code for both Blackbird Fabrics and Helen’s Closet. The code can be reused again and again, so it’s a great deal, especially if you shop with us frequently. Plus, you’ll get a bonus mini-sode where we answer a patron question or cover a specific sewing topic. You can learn more about all the things we have to offer and sign up to support us at patreon.com/LoveToSew.

Caroline: And don’t worry folks, we’ll be back in March 2022 with a fabulous new season of Love to Sew. Now let’s get to this Love to Sew favourite.

Helen: Hello, and welcome. I’m Helen.

Caroline: And I’m Caroline.

Helen: And we love to sew. This is a podcast for makers where we talk about sewing a handmade wardrobe and bring you interviews with inspiring creatives and small business owners in our community.

Caroline: Today we are upping our sewing game. We have loads of helpful info from couture techniques to tricks you didn’t know you needed. We’re going to help you learn new skills, improve the quality of your work, and do things you didn’t think possible. Are you ready to level up?

Helen: I was born ready.

Caroline: Hi, Helen.

Helen: Hi, Caroline. So we have a big episode today.

Caroline: We do. We have a lot to talk about. We’re upping our sewing game.

Helen: Yeah. This is a bit of a follow-up to our beginner sewing episode. We wanted to do an episode for people who are just getting started with sewing, and then we also wanted to do an episode for people who are wanting to level up a bit. You’ve got the basics down. You want to learn some skills to take it to the next level, improve the quality of your work. Um, we have lots of great information for you today, so we’re excited about that.

But, first a big, huge, thank you and a little podcast hug to everyone who supported us on Patreon.

Caroline: Yes, it was so wonderful to launch the Patreon campaign and get amazing support from everyone. It was so much fun to see those dollars roll in because that means that we can keep making this podcast and keep, you know, bringing good content to you guys and working hard, and we’re just really, really happy with how all of that went. So thank you guys so much.

Helen: Yeah. It was really heartwarming to know that people wanted to support us in that way. And, uh, if you’re interested in this Patreon support, or maybe you didn’t hear the episode where we introduced it, basically, you can go to patreon.com/LoveToSew, and you can pledge a monthly donation to us to help support us in making the show.

And if you pledge at the $5 or more a month mark, you get access to a bonus episode every month. So on the first Friday of every month, there’s a bonus episode that goes out just to Patreon subscribers. Um, the first one went out already, and if you sign up to support us, you will get access to all the previous episodes as well, so…

Caroline: So you won’t miss out on any of the episodes.

Helen: No. It’s pretty exciting.

Caroline: Yeah, it really is, and we really loved recording that first bonus episode because it was a little bit more personal. It’s, kind of, a behind the scenes look at our businesses and the podcast and all that planning process and a little bit more of our personal lives as well. So I think, um, people have been enjoying that episode, and we’re excited to keep doing that every month.

Helen: Yeah, definitely.

Caroline: Yeah.

Helen: We get to hang out more so that’s good. Okay. We have some listener feedback, a couple of voicemails for you.

Unnamed Caller: Hi, Helen. Hi, Caroline. Thank you so much for your podcast. Love, love, love it. My question is, oh and by the way, I’m from Simi Valley, California. My question is what is so special about cone denim? You guys talk about it all the time, and I’m not a denim aficionado. So what I want to know is: what’s so special about it, and what’s it like? What’s it feel like? What’s its weight? Is it stretchy? Is it not stretchy? All the good details and why is it so great for jeans. That’s it. Thanks again, ladies. You’re wonderful. Bye.

Caroline: Thank you so much. We didn’t get your name, but Simi Valley Sewist, we appreciate your voicemail, and you are so right. We haven’t really talked about why cone denim is so amazing. So I want to give you guys a little bit of a background of cone denim and Cone Mills.

Cone Mills is really well known for its high quality made in the USA denim. They were founded in 1891, so this company has been around for a really long time. Their White Oak Plant was in North Carolina, and it operated for over 110 years. They were the last selvedge denim mill in North America, and sadly they closed on December 31st of 2017, so at the end of last year.

Selvedge denim is woven, sort of, in an old style shuttle loom. It has a continuous weft. The width is narrower. It’s usually about 30 inches wide. And today, selvedge denim is known for its character, and it’s typically more expensive. It’s known for being really high quality. And it’s really hard to find. So Cone Denim was the last place in the U.S. that was making this selvedge denim.

Now I will say, I think, in the sewing community, Cone Mills isn’t really known for their selvedge denim, it’s known for their S jean denim which is another type of denim that they make. S jean denim is really high quality denim. It’s a patented technology. They blend cotton with a little bit of polyester and spandex which creates a really long lasting denim that holds its shape without stretching or bagging out.

They also make really great non-stretch denims, not selvedge denims, but just, like, a classic non-stretch cotton or cotton blend denim. So Cone Mills is, like I said, really well known for their high quality denim. They did close their U.S. mill which was really sad, but they still have mills in Mexico and China that are still making the same goods.

It’s just really sad that this amazing denim mill that was based in the U.S. had to close cause there really are not that many mills, fabric mills in the U.S. anymore and very, very few that are still making denim at all.

Helen: Yeah. It was a sad day. I’m glad to hear that they’re still available from other places, but it’s definitely eye-opening to think about a company that was successful and that operated for so long having to close its doors. And we’ve been talking about sustainability and I think that definitely relates.

Caroline: Yeah. So to answer the question about how it feels, does it stretch? Why is it so great? I mean, it’s so great because it’s a really nice quality. It feels really soft and nice against the skin, and it ages really beautifully. Denim is really fun to sew. It’s nice to know that you’re working with denim that was made in the U.S., so I think that’s why it gained so much popularity in the sewing community.

It’s also a kind of denim that’s really difficult to find. Cone Mills isn’t really available in your big box store, so some indie fabric shops started carrying it. And I think it just, kind of, became a hard to find thing.

Helen: Yeah, sought after in the community.

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, totally. So I will say that there is still some made in the USA cone denim out there. I have a couple of sources that I’m working with to try to get some of those goods, um, at Blackbird. I know that there are some companies that bought a whole bunch of stock from cone denim when they closed, so I’m putting some feelers out. I’m trying to get more of their denim before it’s, you know, completely obsolete and impossible to find. But yeah, it’s definitely, there’s limited amounts available, and after that, we’re just going to have to look for goods elsewhere.

Helen: The nice thing with getting a really high quality denim, like a Cone Mills denim, is that these jeans could last you, you know, five to 10 years, if you take care of them well. And I remember when you were initially looking at the samples and deciding on what colours you wanted to get, they showed you how they would wear over time and after washing x amount of times, or, you know, wearing with whatever they do, like sandpaper and stuff like that. And just how they look after that, and they still look really great. They have that beautiful worn in denim look to them.

Caroline: Yeah, you can wear this kind of denim for almost a lifetime and just mend the areas that sort of get threadbare, and that’s another great thing that you can do as a sewist, is mend your clothes. So, really, these denims are meant to last a really long time which I think is really great, and they’re worth this, sort of, higher price point. So that’s cone denim.

Helen: Next, we have a voicemail from a lovely sewist from Belgium.

Belgian Sewist: Hi, Caroline and Helen. I’m [NAME]. I’m calling from cold but sunny Belgium. I’m in the middle of cutting my Sasha Pants, so shout out to Heather Lou. And I was thinking of my sewing evolvement. I just had to leave you guys a voicemail for all beginner sewists out there. I’m definitely a perfectionist, and I have been since I started sewing. I’m a perfectionist in all I do. I’m also a realist.

A little over 10 years ago, I remembered sewing a pillowcase seam and redoing the seam over and over again because it was not good enough, and I had a feeling I could do better than that, and it would make me happier with the result and happier with myself.

Today, I saw my youngest daughter in a skirt I made two years ago for my oldest. And I remember being really proud of my nice wool skirt, but today I saw so many mistakes in that same skirt.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s such a thing as perfect to your capabilities. It’s ok to want to make it better and even make it three times if, you know, that will make you happy. I think you will learn from that experience. Be proud of what you make with the skills that you have.

Okay. I’m going back to my cutting table since, in two hours, it will be our dining room table. Bye.

Helen: Oh, I love that voicemail so much.

Caroline: Me, too.

Helen: Thank you for calling in. And I really like your message of perfection to your capabilities. I think it’s applicable today, in particular, because we’re talking about levelling up your sewing game and taking the opportunity to, maybe, look at some things you’ve made in the past, try to evaluate where you’re at and where you could improve, and take steps to improve. And just accepting that there is room to grow and that there’s always, uh, ways that you can improve in your sewing.

Caroline: It’s not so much about comparing yourself to others but really looking within yourself and deciding what is perfectionism to you.

Alright, we also got some feedback about left-handed sewing. A few episodes ago, we were asking, do left-handed sewing machines exist? And we got some answers.

So, Tanita wrote in and said, “After your question about left-handed sewing machines, I thought I would answer that and give some hints for those left-handed people learning to sew.

Firstly, no, there aren’t left-handed sewing machines. However, I don’t think that using a normal sewing machine has impacted me too much. However, it really is important, as a left-handed person, to invest in a pair of left-handed dressmaker scissors and normal paper scissors. They make the world of difference as the blades are switched around, and this means you can actually see the line you are trying to cut and makes it much easier to cut things.”

Helen: Great advice. Uh, we also got another tip about left-handed sewing machines from Amanda.

“In relation to the left-handed sewing machines, these are not available. But it is believed that sewing machines favour left-handed sewers anyway, as the original inventors of the modern sewing machine were both left handed.”

Caroline: This is fascinating.

Helen: Yeah, we read a few articles after this, and it does seem that there is a little contention around this, but in general, the people who did invent the sewing machine were left-handed. Industrial sewing machines definitely do favour left-handed sewers. Everything, you know, the bobbin loads from the left, everything is done with the left hand.

Whereas, modern sewing machines, I think while the foot and everything is on the left side, they are designed more often now to favour right-handed sewers because the bobbin loads from the front, and often, even the presser foot lever is on the right hand instead of the left.

So things are, kind of, moving, but in general, you would think that when they were designing it, they would have put the foot on the right hand side. And I never thought about that before.

We also got a tip about pinning. We were talking about whether we pin parallel or perpendicular and yes, I can say that sentence now. We got a tip from Robin about pinning.

“I have sewn for 40 years or so and have pinned perpendicular and parallel. Honestly, it just depends on my mood. However, there is the instance that I will always pin parallel. This is when you are putting two pieces of fabric together that have opposite curves, convex to concave. It occurs on princess seams a lot and, to a similar degree, on the armscye when putting the sleeve and body together.

The issue is that the edge of the two pieces of fabric that are to join are not the same length, but if the pattern is designed well, then the seam line lengths will be the same. If you pin parallel right along the seam line, taking only a small bite out of the fabric at each pin, you can, potentially, have more success lining up the pieces.

Maybe this is more advanced than beginner tips, but it’s one of those reasons I would pin parallel over perpendicular.”

Caroline: Thank you, Robin. And that’s perfect because we’re talking about levelling up and upping your sewing game. So I don’t think this is too advanced. I think this is a great tip, and I love the way that you explain it. It’s very clear. So thank you.

Helen: Yes, I’m going to implement this next time I put two opposite curves together, for sure.

Caroline: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, right? Okay. We’re ready to jump in. Helen, you did such a great job with these notes. You went into so much detail, and I’m so excited to share some of these awesome tips with our listeners.

Helen: I am, too!

Caroline: So let’s get into it.

Helen: I did some research in preparation for this episode, and it was really fun. I learned some things along the way. Um, so I also got to level up my sewing game, so that was great.

Caroline: Alright, so let’s talk about new skills.

Helen: New skills. So great ways to learn new skills is to read a sewing book or to take a class either online or in-person. We have mentioned a few books on the podcast in the past. Um, so to reiterate some of our favourites. The Claire Shaeffer Couture Sewing Techniques book is a really great one. I went through this book in preparation for this episode and picked out some things to share with you guys, but there’s loads more information in there. It’s an excellent resource.

Caroline: There’s also Shirt Making by David Page Coffin. So if you are interested in getting into making your own button down shirts, there are so many amazing tips in this book. So definitely check it out, if you are into that.

Helen: Technically, they’re button up shirts.

Caroline: Why?

Helen: The difference is that button down shirts have those little buttons on the collars that actually button the collar down.

Caroline: Oh!

Helen: And then anything that doesn’t have that is a button up shirt.

Caroline: Did not know that.

Helen: Up your sewing game.

Caroline: Learn something new every day.

There’s also the book Fit for Real People. Last week, we interviewed Melissa Watson, who is the daughter of Patty Palmer, one of the authors of Fit for Real People. This is a encyclopedia of knowledge for sewists. I think every sewist should have this book. I know that’s a bold claim, but I see it on your shelf. I have it on my shelf. I think there’s so much invaluable information in there. So that is a book that I think is definitely worth the investment.

Helen: Mhm, and the new version of that book is available now for pre-order. It’s called The Palmer Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting.

Caroline: Taking a class is another way that you can up your sewing game level up because teachers have so much knowledge that they share during classes. You can pick up these little tidbits from your teacher when you’re sitting in a class, uh, or when you’re taking a class online that you wouldn’t find in a book or in a blog tutorial. Yeah. So that’s a really great way to learn new things that, maybe, you didn’t even know existed.

Helen: Yeah, and we’ve talked in the past about knowing yourself and what kind of learning style really works for you. So if you are the type of person who learns by doing, then taking a class is an excellent way for you to learn new skills. If you prefer to do a tonne of research, then, you know, taking an online class or reading a bunch of tutorials is the right way for you.
So just explore your options, and I’m sure you’ll pick up loads of information along the way.

Okay, so the first thing that I thought would be fun to talk about is a little detail in sewing that maybe you’ve overlooked, and that is the humble sewing machine needle.

Caroline: Yes, machine needles are more complex than you might think. They actually have 10 different parts to them. What are the parts?

Helen: There’s the tip, the point, the eye, the groove, the scarf, didn’t see that one coming, the blade, the shoulder, the shank, the size, and the, butt.

Caroline: Definitely didn’t see that one coming. The butt.

Helen: Yes, they have a butt.

Caroline: That is hilarious.

Helen: So, if you think about your sewing machine needle, or maybe you can get one out if you’re at home and just look at it while we’re talking about this. So the blade of the needle is what determines the needle size. So, for example, a 75 size needle has a blade that is 0.75 millimetres in diameter.

Caroline: Okay, so we’re talking the part that sticks out from your machine. So there’s the top part that you’re sticking up into your machine and screwing in, and the bottom section that sticks out, that is the blade.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: So the main part. Okay. And the width of it is the blade size.

Helen: Is the blade size. Exactly.

Caroline: The point and tip of the needle refer to the size, shape, and length, all of which vary based on the type of needle.

Helen: Yes. There are different needles for different applications. You’ve probably seen, you know, jersey needles, denim needles, leather needles, universal needles. They all have different tapering on the points or different, uh, point sizes so that they can adapt to the different fabrics that you’re going to be using them for. So the points vary as well as the blades.

The groove is what runs the length of the shaft and holds the needle thread, and you might not know that the diameter of the thread you’re using should take up no more than 40% of the groove in the needle. So if you’re using a thicker thread, like a top stitching thread, you probably want to use a wider needle so that it can accommodate that thread in the groove.

The next one is my favourite: the scarf. The scarf of the needle is the little indentation on the backside, and that allows the bobbin hook to grab the thread under the sewing machine throat plate and create a proper stitch. So, again, if you have an opportunity to look at a needle now or later, you’ll notice there’s, like, a little indentation on the back and that’s how the bobbin is able to grab the thread.

Caroline: This is fascinating. Okay. I love this part. There are two needle sizing systems. This was mind blowing for me. American and European. So American needle sizes range from eight to 19, and European sizes range from 60 to 120. So the larger the number, the larger the blade of the needle. And often, you’ll see both sizing numbers on the needle package, such as 60/8 and 70/10.

I’ve looked at these numbers before, and I know you have, too, and been like, yeah, I mean the higher the number, the larger the needle. The thicker the needle, it’s better for, you know, heavier weight fabrics, but I’ve never really thought about what those numbers mean and what that slash means.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: So this makes a lot of sense.

Helen: Me neither. I always thought that maybe one of them was, like, the blade size and one of them was the point size, but they’re just the same information in two different sizing systems.

Caroline: Lower numbers are for more delicate fabrics, and higher numbers are for heavier fabrics. Um, and you definitely want to get specialty needles for leather, denim, sewing with knits, that kind of thing.

Helen: Yeah, exactly. And lastly, we want to remind you that you want to be changing your needle with every project. It might seem a little bit excessive, but sewing machine needles only have a lifespan of about six to eight hours of sewing time and that can be even less if the fabric is particularly thick or hard to sew.

Generally, when you think it’s a good time to switch out your needle, it is.

Caroline: That’s a good rule of thumb.

Helen: So I pulled all of this information from an article I found on craftsy.com. So we’ll link that in the show notes if you want to review this information. There’s a little diagram of the needle showing you all the different, even the butt, so check it out.

Caroline: Another way that you can improve your skills is working with tricky fabrics, things like chiffon, organza, lightweight silk cotton voile, or, you know, those sheer fabrics that seem really delicate and difficult to work with and slippery and scary. You can tackle them.

Helen: You can do it. I have to admit, I don’t have a tonne of experience in this arena myself. It’s an area that I have avoided for all of the reasons that we’re going to talk about today, and there are lots of different things you can do to help handle these more delicate fabrics.

Caroline: So we grabbed some top tips from a Seamwork article called “A Delicate Matter” which we will link in the show notes.

Helen: Yeah, and Seamwork is a really great resource for sewing information. They put out a monthly magazine. It’s free to read. If you subscribe, you get the patterns. But to read the articles is completely free. They get people from all over the sewing community to write articles for their magazine, and there’s some really great stuff in there.

So often, when I want to know information about a topic, I’ll Google the thing that I want to know, and then, I’ll just put Seamwork and see if there’s someone has written a Seamwork article about it.

Caroline: Okay. So our first tip is get ultra fine pins. Similarly to sewing machine needles, you want to get a pin that’s going to match your fabric. So finer fabrics, finer pin. I sell ultra-fine pins in my shop. They are, kind of, funny because you can almost bend them with your fingers. They’re very light. They’re very, very skinny, very fine, very sharp at the end. You don’t want to use them for denim or even medium weight fabrics. You want to put them aside and save them for your beautiful, light, delicate fabrics.

Helen: Yes, and as you can imagine, if you’re cutting out a really fine fabric, like a chiffon, it’s going to shift around a lot. So one thing that you can do before you cut it out is to use a spray starch. And that is something that you just spray on the fabric, and it stiffens it up. It adds some starch to the fabric, so that it’s a little bit easier to handle. It’s not something you have to do, but it is something you can experiment with. And you definitely want to do a test on a little scrap of fabric before you spray your whole fabric, just in case it doesn’t react well to the spray starch.

Caroline: And you can get spray starch in those aerosol containers. There’s also Best Press which comes in just a little spray bottle or you can make it yourself at home.

Helen: Yeah, I saw some information online about making it yourself. I have a sewing friend who has made it herself and said that it worked wonders. And I think it’s just a combination of water and cornstarch, so, uh, we’ll put a little link to a recipe online in the show notes if you want to check out making spray starch yourself.

And as you’re cutting out your fabric, it’s helpful with the shifty, lightweight fabrics to cut on a more grippy surface. If you have a really slippy table, you can lay down a large piece of paper, put down your cutting mat, anything to help grab the fabric so that once you finally got it on grain and all laid out and everything, it’s not all of a sudden just going to shift with, you know, one little brush of your hand.

Also, cutting with a rotary cutter is going to save you with these fabrics because with scissors, you do have to lift them up a little bit. Things start to move around. A sharp rotary cutter, there’s a lot less risk of movement, and you’re already going to be cutting on a grippy cutting mat.

Caroline: Yeah, sharp is key here because if your rotary cutter blade is dull, then you’re going to end up getting little skipped threads, and then when you go to pull your piece away, there will be threads that, kind of, stick down. So make sure that your blade, you change your blade before you work with these delicate fabrics. Another thing is cutting on a single layer.

Helen: Yes.

Caroline: So that’s a really good way to have more control over the grain of your pieces to make sure that they’re not askew. The cutting process is so important when you’re working with these tricky fabrics. If you spend more time laying things out properly and taking your time with cutting, you will thank yourself later.

Helen: Yeah, and to cut flat all you need to do is just lay the pattern piece, if it’s a cut on fold pattern piece, lay it down, trace around it, and then flip it over to trace the other side. Or if you want to, you know, live on the edge a little bit, you can cut half of it, and then flip it over and cut the other side. But since we’re working with tricky fabrics, I would recommend tracing first.

Caroline: Yeah, and if you want to spend a lot of time on this, then you can also just trace a new pattern piece that is not on fold, so it’s the full piece.

Helen: Next, once you’ve cut out all of your shifty little pieces, you’re going to want to prevent them from fraying. Oftentimes, these really delicate, lightweight fabrics will fray like crazy. And you’re going to be pulling your hair out, just watching them fray without even touching them.

Caroline: Pull your hair out. Pulling the threads out.

Helen: So what you can do is quickly cut the edges using pinking shears, that will help with the fraying, or staystitching. Staystitching is, uh, sewing a line of stitches just inside the seam allowance to help stabilise the edge of the fabric, um, stop it from warping as you’re handling it. I would recommend staystitching by hand, in this case, because running it through a machine is going to cause it to fray faster and cause it to warp even faster. More handling happening, so sewing it by hand, just delicately, inside the seam allowance to staystitch it is a good plan.

Caroline: Alright, so we talked about machine needles, earlier, for delicate fabrics. You want to get an ultra sharp machine needle. Those are also known as microtex needles.

Helen: Yeah, so we talked about all the different parts. Basically, the point of these needles is so small, and it’s going to be able to cut through your fabric and not leave giant gaping holes.

Caroline: Yeah, you also might want to try a different foot, so see what your options are for your machine. Teflon foots work really well for easy sliding. Um, also, a walking foot, that’s a little bit more of an investment, but if you’re sewing a lot with knits, it’s also really helpful for that. So, if, depending on the types of fabric that you work with, it might be a good investment for you.

Helen: Yes, and as you are putting your fabric through your machine under your foot, you want to consider shortening your stitch length because the more the feed dogs have to grab that fabric and pull it through. The further they have to pull it with every stitch, the more out of shape your fabric is going to get, the more issues you’re going to have, so shorten your stitch length for finer fabrics. This also helps with the fact that they do tend to fray a lot.

You also might want to consider getting a straight stitch needle plate. I have, kind of, a funny story about this. I have a friend who was telling me that she got a straight stitch needle plate and that had made a big difference. And I was like, I should get one of those. I wonder where I get one, and I was looking it up and everything, and then I realised that the plate on my machine just turns around and becomes a straight stitch needle plate, and I didn’t realise that. And when I did, it was, like, revolutionary cause now I can just switch back and forth.

A straight stitch needle plate is a plate that just has a round hole in it, just big enough for a needle to go through. If you look at your plate, it likely has a wider hole so that you can do things like a zigzag stitch or other kinds of stitches where the needle’s moving around. A straight stitch plate, you can’t do any of that stuff. You can only sew straight, and so there’s more surface area of metal where the fabric is going through, and that helps to stabilise it as it goes through.

Caroline: And there’s less chance of your fabric, sort of, getting sucked in and eaten up, right?

Helen: Exactly. Yes, it really does make a difference.

Caroline: And if you don’t have access to a straight stitch needle plate or your machine doesn’t have this fancy turnaround plate that, you know, does double duty, um, there are some tricks that you can use so that your fabric slides through a little bit easier in those tricky moments, like when you’re starting or ending a seam, um, and that is: paper. You can use a little scrap of paper when you’re just starting to sew a seam so that that fabric doesn’t get eaten up and, sort of, sucked into your machine.

Helen: Yeah, and you can use tissue paper for an entire line of stitching if you want, and then delicately rip the tissue paper out after you’re finished.

Caroline: Yes. Now, one thing to keep in mind when you’re using paper in your machine is it is going to dull your needle quicker, so if you’re working with an ultra fine needle, like a microtex needle, and you’re sewing a lot of seams with tissue paper to help stabilise the fabric, then you might want to change your needle more often.

Helen: Yeah, that’s a good tip. Along with the straight stitch needle plate, you can get a straight stitch sewing machine foot, and it’s a similar thing where it just has a round hole for the needle to go through, so those two things go well together.

And a little bit of a warning about both of these tools, because now I have them and I have done this many times, not switching them back before you turn it to zigzag and breaking your needle immediately, and your machine makes that horrible, horrible sound, and you feel terrible, and you pet it and you say, you’re sorry, but you know that it’s irreversible. Oh, you guys…

Caroline: Take a deep breath.

Helen: I’m, like, tearing up.

Caroline: Okay, moving on.

Helen: Okay, moving on. To finish your beautifully, delicately sewn garment, you may want to consider doing a tiny rolled hem by hand.

Caroline: I love these hems.

Helen: They’re so cute, and it’s actually really fun to do. Uh, I did this with Brooks Ann at Camp last year, we did tiny rolled hems, and you do a series of blind catch stitches, and then you pull them and the hem just rolls in on itself, and it’s like magic.

Caroline: Sewing magic.

Helen: Sewing magic. Lastly, you want to invest in specialty interfacing and notions if you can find them, things like delicate zippers, lightweight buttons. Don’t put a big, heavy glass button on a really lightweight top. It’s just not going to hang very well. If you can find these nice notions for delicate fabrics, it’s worth the investment.

Caroline: Nice, lightweight interfacing makes a really big difference.

Helen: Mhm.

Caroline: So, the next thing we have on our list is tackle a difficult fitting issue. So if you listened to last week’s episode, we talked about fitting with Melissa Watson. That was a really great foundation to understand a little bit more about fitting, but there is so much knowledge out there.

Helen: Yeah, so what are some of the fitting adjustments that you’ve made?

Caroline: Full bust adjustment is probably the biggest one. With jeans, I’ve been making a lot of pants and jeans lately, so I have done a full tummy adjustment. I’ve also done a full calf adjustment. I’m just very full.

Helen: You’re full. You’re full of life and full of love. The full calf adjustment is cool because you might not know you need it, but once you’ve done it, it makes a big difference in the fit of your pants because you’re not getting those bunching lines right above your calf in the back of your knee, right?

Caroline: Yeah, and with ready to wear jeans, I always have the issue of the calves being really tight, and it’s so uncomfortable. So I love with sewing that I have control over that, and I can make the calves fit me.

Helen: Yeah, I’m with you. I have big calves, too. Like, I can’t find a pair of high boots to save my life.

Caroline: Oh, me neither.

Helen: Just don’t zip up. Even the ones that have the little extensions on them.

Caroline: I feel ya.

Helen: Okay. I have also done full bust adjustments, and my other favourite one is the broad back adjustment. We talked about this with Melissa. She recommended starting your fitting journey on your back. I mean, not on your back, but from the back.

Caroline: With your back.

Helen: Back first.

Caroline: Back first.

Helen: Back first. And the broad back adjustment has made a big difference to all of my tops, especially the ones with sleeves because now I can put my arms forward. I can put them up. I mean, it’s revolutionary being able to move your arms.

Caroline: Melissa also mentioned some common adjustments, for example, a forward shoulder, square shoulder, or narrow shoulder adjustment and also, a sway back adjustment. Those are also some common, um, adjustments that you might make.

Helen: Yeah, so all you need to do to learn how to do these adjustments is to Google them. Um, cross-reference a few different articles. People have different methods. You’re probably not going to find necessarily a definitive way to do them. Um, everyone has a little bit of a different take on it, although there are very similar processes involved. So I think once you read a few articles, you’ll get a sense for how it’s done.

Caroline: Yeah, one of the great things about the Fit for Real People book is that it’s got a lot of diagrams. So let’s say you’re looking at yourself in the mirror in a muslin or a garment that you made and you’re noticing some lines or pulling or something, and you’re like, I don’t even know what to call this adjustment. Like, how do I Google it if I don’t know what it’s called?

In that book, you can go and see these different diagrams, and they focus on different areas of the body, and you’ll figure out the name of the adjustment that you want to make, and they have, uh, information about how to adjust your pattern, or you can do some further Googling from there. So I don’t know of that many resources online that have that, sort of, all encompassing diagram of what are the different fitting adjustments.

Helen: Yeah, no, it’s true. I’ve used that book so much in my pattern testing processes. When my testers come back to me with their muslin and be like, I don’t know what’s happening here. And then I look at my book and try to find the wrinkles that match their wrinkles so that I could advise them better, especially since we’re doing it through the internet. So it’s hard when you can’t see things in person, but I have used that book a lot.

Caroline: Yeah, Heather Lou from Closet Case Patterns has a great pants fitting guide on her website as well. So if you’re specifically doing pants, she has some diagrams on there, so you can sort of pinpoint what the issue is. And I have used those diagrams to make adjustments on my pants and jeans, and my experience has been really great with them. So, highly recommend.

Helen: Yes, and the next thing that you want to do is to make a copy of your pattern, to trace a new version. Don’t worry. Don’t stress about ruining your tissue pattern or your indie pattern. You don’t have to cut it up. You can make a copy, and then, very low stakes are involved in your fitting process.

Caroline: And it will make a big difference if you have all the supplies that you need on hand. So, just gather your scissors, your tape, pencil, some nice large pieces of paper or a nice roll of paper that you can use for tracing. Having all of that stuff on hand in your sewing space makes the idea of tracing and fitting a pattern a little bit less intimidating.

Helen: Yeah, I mean, it’s not going to be a 20 minute process. I think in levelling up your sewing game and attempting some new things, it is going to take time. And so the best way that you can mentally prepare yourself for that is just to know that it’s going to take a few hours to do it and accept that that’s what you’re doing this evening or that’s what you’re doing over the next week in little 20 minute increments is that you’re going to be working on this thing, and, and that that is the goal. The goal is not necessarily the final garment at this point.

Caroline: One thing I wanted to mention about tools. I think it’s really important to have a great clear ruler with a grid on it when you’re making pattern adjustments because it makes it really easy to add the seam allowance back in if you need to. You know, you’re doing some measurements there, so it’s good to have that ruler on hand, and something clear that you can see through helps a lot so you can see the lines of your pattern.

And if you want to invest in an extra ruler, a curved ruler is also really helpful. That’s something that I have had in my stash since my fashion school days, it’s, sort of, got a long curve, and the curve changes, so you can use different parts of the ruler for different parts of your garment. And it’s really hard to freehand draw a curve sometimes. Having that ruler to, sort of, help you along makes a big difference when you’re making pattern adjustments.

Helen: Yeah, I love my French curve. And once you’ve got all your supplies and you know what adjustment you’re doing, just go for it. Making adjustments is actually more fun than you think. It’s pretty thrilling when you try on your first muslin and it fits way better than the first time that you made the garment. I think once you get that little high, the fitting high, um, you’re probably going to get pretty into it. So don’t be intimidated by the process.

Caroline: So if you’re a beginner, you might not have a serger or an overlock machine. So you’re going to be doing a lot of zigzag finishing or leaving your edges raw, and that is totally fine. I don’t think you need to buy all the tools and all the machines and all the things at the beginning when you’re learning to sew. But if you are wanting to up your sewing game, there are other seam finishes that you can try and experiment with that will help you have a better quality garment in the end.

Helen: So the first one that we want to talk about is the French seam. You’ve probably seen reference to this in sew alongs or online, um, on blogs and things like that. A French seam is very similar to a regular seam, except that you are sewing the seam twice. The first time that you sew it, you’re going to sew it with the wrong sides together which is going to feel a little funny at first, so that your raw edges are gonna appear to be on the outside of the garment. After you sew the seam with wrong sides together, you’re going to trim the seam down and then fold it the other way and then sew it with right sides together. So you’re ending up with your seam on the inside of the garment, but it’s nicely tucked away and enclosed.

Caroline: Yes, and you want to keep in mind that if you’re sewing a French seam, you want to take into account your seam allowance. You’re not going to sew your first pass with a five-eighths of an inch seam allowance, and then, you know, turn it around and sew again. You want to calculate, um, how much seam allowance to take on the first pass and the second pass, and there are tutorials online for how to do that.

I love a French seam for those delicate, lighterweight, sheer fabrics because it’s a really nice, almost tone-on-tone finish. You’re not getting distracted by overlock threads that you can see through the garment. It just looks like a nice little line, and it’s secure because you’re sewing twice or you’re enclosing that raw edge which makes it harder for the fabric to fray and to, kind of, like, you know, fall apart as you wash it and wear it and that kind of thing. So it’s a really nice, secure, delicate finish.

Helen: Yeah, before I got my serger, I did French seams on everything, and I got quite used to it. And it actually adds a little bit of time to your sewing, but once you get accustomed to doing it, it doesn’t take that much extra time. And you can use French seams on areas that you might not expect, like you can use them to add a sleeve. That’s a little bit trickier, but you can do it. You can use them when you’re doing an in seam pocket. Again, it might seem impossible, but you can do it. There are tutorials online. So if you’re looking for a different finish from just your standard zig zag to stop the edges from fraying, a French seam is your next step.

Caroline: Bias bound seams are another finish that is really beautiful. Works really well, nice and secure if you don’t have a serger. You can do it with the seam allowance together or pressed open. Um, but you’re basically enclosing the raw edge of your fabric with a bias binding.

Helen: Yeah, this is such a beautiful finish. I love it for those medium to heavy weight fabrics. An A-Line skirt with the seams pressed open and a nice bias binding down every seam when you lift up the hem of your skirt, it just looks so beautiful.

Caroline: I love a bias bound seam in, like, a unlined jacket. I made a Robson Trench Coat a few years back, and I had, uh, it was a dark brown jacket, and the seams are finished with, uh, animal print binding, and I just love it. Every time I open up my coat, it makes me really happy.

Helen: Oh, I love it, too. It’s a really fun way to mix prints and mix colors and have a lot of fun with your sewing and use those fabric scraps. Lastly, we want to talk about the flat felled seam which you will likely encounter if you want to make a button up shirt or a button down shirt, and with this seam, you sew your seam regularly. You trim one side of the seam allowance down to half the size or less, and then you fold the larger seam allowance over the other seam allowance and sew it down.

Caroline: Yep. You’re folding it over and, sort of, tucking it around. So you’re enclosing the raw edge again, and then you’re getting a really nice flat finish seam. So you are going to have some visible top stitching on the outside. It’s a really nice finish for jeans, as well, pants, those, sort of, harder wearing garments because it is really nice and secure. Yeah, I love flat felling seams. It’s really satisfying.

Helen: It is super satisfying, and you’re right; it’s very secure because when you pull those two pieces of fabric now, there’s two different points of stitching that is going to hold them together, and there’s no chance of your seam fraying with a flat felled seam.

Caroline: Oh, yeah, and, of course, if you want to invest in a serger, that is a really fun machine to have in your sewing room. What is the serger that you use, Helen? Because I love your serger.

Helen: I love my serger, too. I bought it on a recommendation from Heather Lou. Who else? She has a whole article about this. We’ll link it in the show notes. It’s the Juki MO-654DE serger. Uh, Juki makes excellent machines and sergers, and it serges like a dream.

Next up, we want to talk about buttonholes. Buttonholes are involved in a lot of intermediate to advanced projects, and if you’ve ever tried to make one on your machine and had it look terrible and do not at all what you wanted it to do and not have the answers to why your machine is not cooperating, you are not alone. Buttonholes are frustrating sometimes.

Caroline: They are definitely challenging. They can create a lot of headaches. Even when you think you have it down and you’ve done a lot of tests, sometimes your buttonhole does not work, so you can definitely explore some other options or try some different ways of getting your buttonholes to look good if you’re, you know, machine settings don’t make beautiful buttonholes.

Helen: The pressure is so high because often you’re doing it on a finished garment, so I understand the stress here. I have a few tips for buttonholes. One thing that will help you to get a beautiful buttonhole is to use a satin stitch. Modern sewing machines, or many modern sewing machines, will have a stitch for the satin stitch, so you can just set your machine to this setting and then do a satin stitch.

And essentially what it is is the bobbin tension increases, and it pulls the top thread down a little bit, so there’s a little bit of the top thread showing on the underside. So if you’re sewing your buttonhole right side up, the top side of the garment’s going to have beautiful stitches. You’re not going to see any of the bobbin thread poking up along the edges. And then on the backside, it’s going to be like pulling it a little bit tight, and it just makes a beautiful finish for a buttonhole.

Caroline: Yeah, and if you’re using a satin stitch, then you’re going to be making your buttonholes manually, right? You can’t use that setting on your machine.

Helen: Yeah, if you’re using the buttonhole setting on your machine, depending on your machine, it might automatically set it to do some kind of satin stitch, but you can also make your buttonholes manually. You don’t have to use the setting on the machine that goes forward and back. You can just set it to satin stitch and do a zigzag and then a bar tack and then a zigzag and then a bar tack.

Caroline: And if you’re doing that, do some tests on scrap fabric before you go in on your final garment. Take your time and use a lot of marking with, you know, your chalk pencil or whatever you’re using for marking so that you have a good guideline for yourself.

Helen: Absolutely. In older machines, what you can do to get a satin stitch is to manually adjust your bobbin tension. Now, I was talking with you about this yesterday, and you said that this is a little bit of a controversial tip in the community, but I’m going to stand by it because this has totally changed my life with my sewing machine. I sew on a sixties Sears Kenmore sewing machine, so it’s definitely an older machine.

And what I do is I just take out my bobbin. On the bobbin casing you’ll find that there’s a tiny screw, and that little tiny screw holds down the bobbin and spring and that bobbin and spring holds down your thread and actually applies the tension to the bobbin thread. By adjusting this little screw, you can adjust your bobbin tension.

So if I want to do a satin stitch, I just tighten the screw. You don’t want to screw it too much. You can just turn it a quarter turn at a time and see what kind of difference it makes. It will make a big difference right off the bat, and that will help you to pull the bottom threads back, and then you can just adjust it back when you want your tension.

And whenever I have tension issues with my machine, I play with the top tension first, and I play a little bit with the bobbin tension as well, just to get the perfect amount of tension, and I’ve always found that it works perfectly.

Caroline: I do think this is a controversial topic. I want to go on record because I, I hesitate to recommend playing around with bobbin tension just because, in my experience, I’ve had, like, the sewing machine dealers that I’ve dealt with, tell me, like, never touch the bobbin. And, you know, I’ve heard it from people before. So I would love the community feedback on this.

Helen: Me, too.

Caroline: I think we could, you know, have a little bit of a discussion about this. Personally, I mean, I also touch my bobbin tension, and I adjust the screw, and I always feel a little bit bad when I’m doing it, but it works. So I want to know from you guys, do you touch your bobbin tension? Is it a big no-no for you? What is your experience been like? Let us know. We’ll have a little bit of a discussion. Maybe we’ll update you guys on a future episode.

Helen: Yeah, and we also have an article from Threads magazine, uh, talking a bit about this tension and with diagrams of the bobbin, so if you want a little bit more information or if my convoluted explanation, wasn’t clear, you can go and check out the article in the show notes to learn a bit more.

Caroline: Some bobbin cases have a little piece sticking out with a hole in it that you can actually thread your thread through, and that helps with the tension as well.

Helen: Oh.

Caroline: Yeah, so that’s one of the things that you can experiment with if you’re too afraid to touch the screw.

Helen: Every machine is different, so it’s true that we don’t want to be encouraging people to do things that might damage their machines. But I like to live on the edge.

Caroline: There we go.

Helen: Lastly, I have one final recommendation because my machine doesn’t have a buttonhole feature. Um, a lot of modern machines now will make buttonholes for you, but my machine doesn’t have that. So rather than doing it manually, I have a vintage button holer, and I’ve shared a bit about this on my Instagram before. It attaches to low shank sewing machines. Mine is a singer brand vintage button holer.

Attaches to a low shank sewing machine which means that the, uh, foot of your sewing machine, instead of being long is short. It attaches there, and then disengage your feed dogs, and the button holer does all the work. It makes flawless buttonholes every time. So if you do have a low shank sewing machine, and you think that this button holer might actually work for your machine, I would recommend investing in one. They’re not that expensive. You can buy them on eBay.

Caroline: Okay. Pressing.

Helen: We can’t press enough. Oh, sorry. We can’t stress enough the importance of good pressing.

Caroline: Good one. Uh, but it’s true. We can’t stress the importance of pressing enough. You have already got the basics if you’re sewing right now. So you want to press up and down and not dragging the iron side to side. You want to use the right heat for your fabric, but what else can you do in terms of pressing to up your sewing game?

Helen: So there are three elements involved with pressing there’s heat and moisture and pressure. So when you’re working with your iron, you always want to be aware, like you said, that the heat is at the right temperature for your fabric. And if you’re going to use moisture, you want to make sure that the fabric you’re using is not going to stain with that moisture. So it’s good to always do a test before you start pressing your projects. And another thing you can do is to use a press cloth.

Caroline: So a press cloth is a piece of fabric that you’re using to protect your project. So you can get press cloths at your local sewing shop, or you can get them online. A lot of the time they’re made out of silk organza because silk can take very, very high heat and organza is sheer, so you can have this press cloth that you use for any project and you can see through it so you can see what you’re working with.

You can also just use a scrap of muslin fabric or a cotton fabric that you have in your stash as a press cloth, and just use pinking shears or a serger to finish the edge so that it doesn’t fray. This is a really great protective layer between your hot iron and your fabric in your finished garment.

Some fabrics, they won’t necessarily stand from water or from steam, but they’ll just stain from heat or they’ll discolour or the finishing on the fabric will change. Maybe they’ll get a little bit shiny or a little bit matte or suede-y. I’ve seen everything, you know, it’s amazing what heat will do to fabric.

So you always want to do tests on scraps of fabric, like we said, it’s so, so important to do some tests, especially if you’re using a new kind of fabric that you’ve never worked with before and learn what settings you want to use on your iron for that particular fabric. And the safest thing to do is just use a press cloth so that you’re sure that you are protecting your garment.

Helen: Yeah, I love a sheer press cloth because you can see through it so you can still see what you’re doing, but the benefit of a cotton press cloth is that if you want to use more moisture in your pressing, you can actually dampen that cloth and then press on that cloth.

Caroline: And you also want to press on the wrong side of your garment. Again, it just, kind of, protects the right side of your fabric so that if you do have a little oops moment and use too much heat, or, you know, the fabric discolours a little bit or changes a little bit with the heat, you know that you’re not doing it on the right side.

Helen: Yes, and after you finish pressing seams, it’s a really good idea to apply some more pressure. So take your iron off and then apply pressure to that seam using your fingers or a tool like a tailors clapper. This is going to help to set the seam and get a really clean press.

Caroline: Yeah. That makes a big difference.

Helen: It does. Okay. There’s also a few ironing tools. You might already have something like a tailor’s ham or a sleeve roll, um, or even a sleeve board. These are all pretty common, uh, home sewist tools to have, but I found a couple more that I had never heard of. So a needle board is a tool that you can use to help protect fabrics, like velvet, or to protect appliqués that you’ve made or even for pressing your hems and pressing your darts because you don’t want the seams to show after you’ve pressed it.

So a needle board is basically like a miniature bed of nails. So if you can imagine you have this small board that you put on top of your ironing board, and then it has all of these little needles pointing up, and then you put your velvet or your appliqué down on top with, you know, the nap of the velvet facing down, and then you press on the wrong side of your project, and that just helps to not flatten whatever it is that you’re trying to protect.

Caroline: Yeah, because if you’re with velvet or if you’re ironing something that has a beautiful appliquét on it, you don’t want to crush it cause that is really going to affect the look of the garment from the right side. So this needle board is giving those, um, fabrics or appliqué’s room to, kind of, breathe underneath, and you’re ironing from the wrong side, so you’re safer that way.

Helen: Yeah, it’s a cool tool. I wanna get one.

Caroline: Sounds a little dangerous to me, but…

Helen: Tiny bed of nails.

Caroline: …I’ll trust you on that.

Helen: Okay. The next tool that I discovered is called a seam stick. Have you ever pressed a seam open or to the side and then turn your garment right side out and saw that there was, like, a line from where you pressed it?

Caroline: Yes, I have.

Helen: It’s annoying, right?

Caroline: It is.

Helen: So a seam stick is a little piece of wood that tapers up to a point on the top, and you lay your seam along the point, and then you press. So you’re just pressing that, that part where the seam just opens, and you’re not actually pressing the edges, the seam allowance of the seam onto your fabric, which is what creates those lines on the right side.

Caroline: That makes a lot of sense. We’ll see if we can get some links and pictures, maybe, to put it in the show notes, so you can visualise what we’re talking about.

Helen: Absolutely.

Caroline: And you can also use your iron to shrink fabric. If you’re working with an area that you need to fit into a slightly smaller space in your garment, then using steam or heat is going to help to shrink that up. For example, a sleeve cap. You apply dampness using a sponge, or maybe a wet press cloth, steam, and press with the iron, and it’s magic.

Helen: Yeah, fabric can really change with heat and moisture. You can even, in some cases, in Claire Schaefer’s book, she was talking about working with wools and wools are particularly susceptible to these kinds of techniques. So you can even go to the point where you’re eliminating a dart by shrinking the fabric in a certain area, and professional tailors do use these techniques.

Caroline: That is really cool. Now I will say shrinking a fabric with steam is not going to work with synthetic fibres. You’re going to want to look at this for natural fibres.

Helen: Great point.

Caroline: Alright, hand sewing. Helen, you are, like, a hand sewing spokesperson.

Helen: Spreading the word and getting faxed wrong all the time. No, I did have so much fun at camp learning hand sewing, and I just feel like it made a big difference in my sewing practice. I took that course because I didn’t know much about hand sewing because I was always putting it off or not bothering and just doing the machine finish instead of the hand sewing finish cause it’s so much faster, but I’ve learned that hand sewing is really fun, and it makes such a beautiful effect on your garments. It really does take them to the next level.

So I want to talk about some applications for hand sewing and some types of stitches that you guys can look into if you’re interested in applying some hand sewing. So the first one is a hand sewn hem. You can use a blind slip stitch or a catch stitch to sew a hand sewn hem.

Caroline: So when I’m sewing, for example, a skirt, like, an a line skirt and I want to press up the hem, sometimes you have that extra bunching of fabric that’s really hard to deal with. And if I’m a beginner or if I’m just, you know, trying to up my sewing game, there’s definitely ways to improve on that and make it a little bit easier to hem those a line skirts or tops.

Helen: Yeah, I have experienced this. If you put that through a machine, even after pressing it, and you think you’ve, kind of, got that extra bit of fabric distributed well. If you run it through a machine, you might notice that afterwards you have these diagonal lines that go along, and it doesn’t look very good. It’s, kind of, wrinkly on the inside. And even the outside gets a little sh-, shifted out of place, and it’s not the best, right?

But we’re working with more fabric when we turn something curved to the inside. We have more fabric on the inside, so we need to distribute that fabric, and hand sewing allows you to have so much more control with these things. So you can press up your hem and then pin it, distributing all of that excess evenly as you go. So you’re gonna have little wrinkles between each of your pins. Then, you’re going to base stitch your hem on. I know there’s a lot of steps. It will be worth it. And then once you’ve baste stitched it in place, you can do a blind slip stitch or a catch ditch to help hold it in place.

And your wrinkles will be evenly distributed, and that’s okay. You are going to have excess fabric, or you can try to ease it in with steam. We talked about steam shrinking. You want to make sure that you’re evenly distributing things so that you get that nice, beautiful finish.

Caroline: Yeah, that control is key because, like you said, even if you have put lots of pins or even basted it, sometimes when you put that hem through the machine, the machine has a mind of its own, and things just move, and you can’t control it, and it can be really overwhelming, and in the end, you’re going to end up unpicking that seam. So if you do it the hand sewing route from the beginning, then you’re, maybe, even saving a little bit of time cause you’re avoiding that unpicking.

Another thing that you can do with hems is hand sew a basting stitch along the edge and then gather it a little bit to help yourself, um, kind of, distribute that excess fabric. And then you can put it through a machine or hand sew with a catch ditch or a blind stitch, like you mentioned. So those different hand sewing techniques really help with hems.

Helen: The other place that I’ve been using hand sewing is to do my cuffs and collars on my button up shirts, on my Roscoe Dress, my True Bias Roscoe Dress, I did the bias finish on the cuff and on the collar by hand, and it made a huge difference. You’ve probably encountered the term stitch in the ditch in patterns before, and that is trying to stitch in the ditch on the outside, the ditch of the seam, and then catch some fabric on the inside at the same time. It’s nearly impossible to do this and get it perfect. I’ve never done it and gotten it perfect. There’s always some wobbliness on the inside, and sure, people don’t really see that, but if you do it by hand, it’s a lot less stressful. It takes just slightly longer, and it looks so much better. So I think next time you see a stitch in the ditch, consider hand sewing.

Caroline: With stitch in the ditch, what works for me is a hand basting it in place before I actually put it through the machine.

Helen: Yeah, this comes back to that control factor, right? Hand basting is such a great tool to have in your arsenal when you’re doing things like stitch in the ditch, when you’re doing things like zippers, even putting in sleeves, actually, is a great place to do hand basting. You get it in there, and then you sew the final line of stitching.

And with zippers, not only can you hand baste them initially, you can sew the entire thing in by hand. You can hand pick your zipper. So if you look up handpicking zippers, you can get some more information about how to do this. It’s a beautiful finish. You just have a little bit of picking which is tiny little points, uh, where you can see the thread, and you can get decorative with that if you want. It’s just a nice extra detail.

Caroline: It’s a beautiful finish. One of my favourite dresses, it’s a dress that I made for my sister’s wedding. I can put a picture of it in the show notes. I handpicked the zipper on that dress, and I also put a waist stay in, and those two details made the fit so much better. And it was just a really nice way to work with the delicate fabric that I was using. So those little details can really take things to another level, and you won’t really understand what that means until you try it, but we really encourage you to try some of these new techniques out.

Helen: The next thing you can do with hand sewing is underlining. I have an article that I’m going to link in the show notes that is by the lovely Brooks Ann Camper. It’s about underlining garments. So underlining is different from lining. Lining is a separate piece of, or a separate garment on the inside of your garment. Underlining is where you reinforce the fabric that you’re using by attaching another piece of fabric to it.

And a really great way to attach two pieces of fabric together is by hand using a running stitch. It doesn’t take that long. It gives you a lot more accuracy. If you try and sew two pieces of fabric together on your machine, you’re going to get a little bit of shifting, maybe a little bit of bubbling after your finish. Hand sewing, again, just offers you that extra level of control.

Caroline: Yeah. and if you’re having trouble visualising the difference between underlining and lining, I like to think of it as lining, you’re working with a shell and a lining. They’re two separate pieces, like you said, almost, like, two separate garments. When you’re underlining, you’re attaching each individual pattern piece to a lining, and you’re treating it as one piece. So when you attach them together, you’re just pretending that that’s one piece.

Helen: Yeah, and it’s really helpful if you want to work with a fabric that’s more sheer, you can underline. If you want to give a fabric some more structure, if it’s, like, very, very lightweight, but you want to make a more structured dress out of it, underlining is a great way to do that.

The next place where you can practice hand sewing is understitching. You’ve probably done some understitching before, whether it’s doing a bias binding or understitching on a facing, and you can use a pick stitch to understitch instead of your machine. And again, more control, more accuracy, and a more beautiful finish.

Caroline: Another thing you can do is a rolled hem, so we talked about that a little bit earlier, for the more delicate fabrics doing a nice little rolled hem is really fun. It’s a really beautiful finish.

Helen: And lastly, decorative top stitching. Of course, once you get into hand sewing, or maybe you’re into embroidery, you can use those skills to apply your own designs to the outside of your fabric using thread or using embroidery floss and make it your own.

Caroline: One thing I love about this whole hand sewing thing is that you can do it when you’re hanging out with your family, sitting in front of the TV. I think sewing can be a little bit isolating in the sense that we have to be sitting at our sewing machines and, you know, kind of, puttering along. And it’s not as much of a interactive thing where you can hang out with other people while you’re doing it. Um, but hand sewing is, kind of, giving you the opportunity to be in a more social setting while you’re sewing.

Helen: Yeah, and the opportunity to slow down. If you’re looking to slow down a bit with your sewing, then hand sewing a garment, a whole garment is not that out of reach. You just use a back stitch instead of a machine stitch, and then you’re good to go.

Along the hand sewing vein, we have some couture sewing techniques. These were again pulled from the book by Claire Shaeffer, Couture Sewing Techniques. Um, it’s a great book. It has lots of great information in it. One thing you can do is adding a horsehair braid or a Petersham ribbon to your hems.

So both horse hair and Petersham, uh, give more structure to hems. So after you’ve sewn them in, they have this beautiful movement to them. They, kind of, stick out a bit. You can get more shape out of your hems. They’re used a lot in dressmaking, and they’re really fun to put in.

Caroline: Yeah, the horsehair braid is going to give you more structure if you’re looking at those two options, and a Petersham ribbon is going to be a little bit more of a soft stiffness, if that makes sense.

Helen: Yeah, absolutely.

Caroline: You can also use grosgrain ribbon to make a waist stay in your garment. So a waist stay is basically a ribbon that’s going to go around your waist. If you’ve ever had a zipper closure on a dress or a top, where around the waist, where there’s that tension, it, sort of, opens up a little bit, and it doesn’t lay nice and flat. So a waist stay is going to be a little bit smaller than your actual waist measurement in the dress. So it’s pulling that dress in, and you can hand sew that into the waistline. and it’s just going to make it so that the zipper doesn’t gape or look weird at the back.

Helen: Yeah or potentially break even. If you have a really fitted dress, that’s a lot of pressure, especially if you’re sitting down then standing up or bending over. You’re applying a lot of pressure to that one point in the back, so a waist stay can really save you here.

Caroline: And then another couture sewing technique would be sewing with lace.

Helen: Yeah, try making a more formal gown, perhaps, maybe you have visions of making a wedding dress. You can experiment working with lace. Lace is something that you are going to want to probably apply some hand sewing techniques to to join two pieces of lace together seamlessly. Um, that can be a fun little puzzle or adding boning to a project. This is a really fun way to really level up your sewing.

Caroline: Yeah, and add structure, right? Boning is going to give, let’s say you bone a bodice, it’s going to give a lot of structure to the garment, so it can almost stand up on its own. So if you’re a little bit bustier, that can be a really nice way to give the top of your garment some more, um, heft so that you feel more supported. Alright, so another skill that you can practice is altering your patterns.

Helen: Yeah, this is not as hard as it might sound. If you don’t like the sleeve of the dress pattern or shirt pattern, you can just change it. Try modifying pattern pieces, using basic pattern alterations. One book that I’ve used for this is the Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear book. This is the book that’s recommended with the Pattern Workshop Course by Lauren Dahl.

And the book goes through how to draft patterns, and then it also has lots of diagrams for how to take those blocks that you draft and make basic alterations to make different shapes. So turning a regular sleeve into, like, a flutter sleeve or a butterfly sleeve, or, you know, turning a shift dress into an a line dress. These alterations are not that difficult. So if you have, you know, a set of patterns from a designer that you really like, you can probably take all of those patterns and make hundreds of more options for yourself.

Caroline: And you can also add your own details, right? You can add pockets. You can, you know, add a zipper guard or really anything that you can imagine, you can add it to your garment. This is a good time to maybe look at some ready to wear garments that you really love, and maybe copy some details from there to get your ideas flowing.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: The possibilities are endless.

Helen: Mash two patterns together. I’ve done this a few times. It’s really fun. You can take the top half of one dress with the skirt of another. That’s an easy one. Uh, you can take sleeves. It’s a little tricky around the armscye. You might want to take the top half of a sleeve and add maybe a cuff that you really like from a different pattern. You can switch out collars. You know, do a hidden placket instead of an open placket. There’s lots of different ways that you can mash up patterns. You probably have more options than you think in your collection that you already own, and you can take elements and mix them together.

Caroline: The last skill that we wanted to touch on is pattern drafting. So if you have maybe dipped your toes into pattern alteration and you’re ready to try actually drafting a pattern, there are some classes out there. There’s a Craftsy class with Suzy Furrer that we’ve heard some great things about, so that might be a good place to start.

Helen: Yeah, I’ve actually taken that class, and it’s really fun. She walks you through taking all of your body measurements, figuring out how to draft your block for your body, and then she has a series of classes after that that will help you to make your own pants, your own skirts, your own tops, different necklines, different sleeves. She has a whole series on it, so if you’re interested in making something that’s perfectly fitted to you, then I would recommend that series.

Caroline: So we mentioned this a little bit at the top of the show, but one way that you can up your sewing game is to try to improve the quality of your work. Slow down. Maybe look at some of the past mistakes that you’ve made or things in your handmade garments that have bothered you. Make mental notes of where you can improve next time and really try to apply those notes to your future projects.

Helen: Yeah. Maybe you have a notebook dedicated to sewing notes about projects where you can write down immediately after you finish a project what you did right, what you did wrong, some notes for next time, and then before you sit down for your next project, you can just review.

Caroline: And just slow down and enjoy the process. I know as sewists, it can feel, like, so overwhelming. You just want to make all the things. We’ve talked about this so much on the show, but slowing down is so valuable. Enjoying the process; it’s really worth it to just, kind of, take your time with things. And finally, we wrote down: invest in higher quality materials. So if you want to improve the quality of your work, starting from picking out quality materials is a really good way to go.

Helen: So we have some ideas for challenging projects in case you’re wondering, what can I do for my next project if I want to challenge myself?

Caroline: Yes, so tailoring is a great way to challenge yourself. Make a coat. Make a blazer. So some tailoring techniques that you might want to explore are pad stitching, adding horse hair canvas to your garment to give it a little bit more stability and structure, bound buttonholes. We didn’t talk about this earlier when we were talking about buttonholes, but this is a great technique to try out with a coat or a blazer. A backstay is another technique that you can use in tailoring, and tailoring is also an opportunity for you to practice lining a garment and get a little bit better at that technique.

Helen: Next, you might want to make your first button up shirt. I know there’s a lot of sewists out there that want to make a button up shirt, but they’re a little bit scared. It’s really not that hard. The hardest part is the collar, and you will get through it. You can always do a test, and this skill is really going to be something that’s going to take you places because it’s really going to inspire you as to what’s possible in your dressmaking. I can remember when I finished my first button up shirt, and I was like, wow. I made a button up shirt.

Caroline: Yeah, it’s really satisfying. Also, a lot of the time button ups are with cotton, so cotton is really fun to work with. It really cooperates. So working with a nice stable fabric and, you know, focusing on those techniques and those details in shirt making is really satisfying.

Helen: Yeah, and I want to remind you again that you don’t have to wrangle these delicate, intricate pieces through your sewing machine. Try hand sewing, even as a beginner. It will help you to have more control over these areas.

Caroline: Mhm. The next idea we have is jeans making.

Helen: Of course.

Caroline: I love making jeans. Again, it’s so satisfying. You’re working with these fabrics that have a nice structure. They sew really beautifully. Don’t be intimidated by jeans making. You can do it. Listen to our episode with Heather Lou, if you’re feeling intimidated, if you want a little pep talk, but that’s a great way to, kind of, dip your toes into some more, more advanced techniques.

Helen: Yes, for sure. And another one is swimsuit making. We’ve both made a couple of swimsuits, and I wear my handmade swimsuit every time I go swimming. And it’s my favourite thing, it fits so much better than any ready to wear swim suit I’ve ever tried on because they’re terrible because they just do not accommodate my shape. And, I like, you know, a bit more butt coverage than is popular in swimsuits right now. So it’s nice to be able to have control over these things. And sewing swimwear is not that hard either.

Caroline: Yeah, and in a similar vein, bra making, underwear making, lingerie making, those are all really fun garments to make. And you can use scraps of fabric; they don’t take up a lot of fabric. So it’s really great to challenge yourself with bra making if you are interested in making your own undergarments.

Helen: Another thing you can try is a special occasion dress. Again, this is an opportunity for you to try lining a dress. It’s an opportunity for you to try working with a beautiful fabric, maybe a bit more delicate fabric, and an opportunity to slow down a bit with your sewing and really make something that you will cherish.

Caroline: Knits are another great way to challenge yourself with a new project. Sewists begin, often, with working with quilting cotton or easier to work with fabrics. Knits can be intimidating, but they are really fun to sew. I’m going to plug Helen’s Blackwood Cardigan here cause it’s a really popular pattern, and it’s a really fun to sew, and it’s a great intro to knits. So, um, definitely try sewing with knits.

The nice thing about knits, too, is that we wear knits a lot. I personally love wearing knits more than anything. So when you dip your toes into sewing knits, it can be, kind of, addictive because you realise like, oh, I can make my own comfy t-shirts and leggings. And then that’s all you want to make, like me.

Helen: Yeah. I have a lot of comfy t-shirts. Um, next step, a couple of specific skills you can try is maybe applying some detail, like piping. The Carolyn Pajamas for Closet Case Patterns, they have a piping detail to them, and I think that’s really fun. And welt pockets. If you want to try a more complicated pocket, you can do a welt single or a double welt pocket.

Caroline: Ooh, I love welt pockets.

Helen: Me, too. They’re so pretty.

Caroline: They’re scary cause you have to slice into your fabric to make them, but they’re very satisfying.

Helen: It’s an adrenaline rush though.

Caroline: Until it doesn’t work. But you can do it.

Helen: You can do it.

Caroline: So, one of the questions we got a lot, uh, in our survey was how do I gear up for an intimidating project? And we thought this would be a great way to wrap up the show today. Let’s give our listeners some tips for how to get themselves ready and motivated to tackle something that feels unsurmountable.

Helen: The first thing I think people should do is to gather resources. So once you have the pattern, you’ve looked at the instructions, you know, the techniques involved, go and research those techniques, the ones that really scare you. For a button up shirt, for example, if you’re afraid of that little collar section, that looks, kind of, intimidating. Just research different ways to apply collars. There’s different methods. You’re going to see lots of different people doing it. It’s going to make it seem less scary once you see a whole bunch of people doing it.

Caroline: If you’re working with indie patterns, a lot of pattern designers have sew alongs, so they might not advertise that in the actual pattern booklet, but if you go on their blog or if you do some Googling, you might find a sew along for the specific pattern that you’re making, or you might find a sew along for a similar pattern, and that’ll help you have that visual guide through those more difficult steps.

Helen: And study the instructions. I take my pattern instructions to bed with me, and I like to read them as little bedtime reading. I’m a sewing dork, you guys.

Caroline: It’s adorable.

Helen: But I like to study the instructions before I make the pattern, so I’m well aware of all the steps involved, and also, it’s just fun because when you can’t actually be sewing, you can at least be reading about sewing.

Caroline: Nice.

Helen: I feel like you’re laughing at me.

Caroline: So the next step that we have is practice. You want to practice if you’re feeling afraid or intimidated by a certain step or a technique, practice, practice practice. When I was in college studying fashion design, before we would make a garment, we would always practice with muslin or scrap fabric many, many times before we actually executed the final garment. So don’t be afraid to grab some scrap fabric. We always have those scraps after we cut out a project, you know, those little squares. You can work with those extra scraps to do some tests so that you feel more ready and prepared to tackle the big thing that you’re worried about.

Helen: Yeah, lower the stakes, right? It doesn’t all have to be such high pressure. If you’re doing a test on some scrap fabric, there’s no pressure. And you can be all willy nilly with it.

Caroline: Trying out a technique gives you that muscle memory. It makes it feel a little bit easier when you’re going to do the real thing because you’ve done it already and it’s not so bad, you know?

Helen: Along the same vein, if you’re worried about fit or if you just want to try out all the techniques involved in the pattern, making a test version is an excellent way to, again, lower the stakes involved, right? You have your beautiful fabric. Set that aside. Grab some not so beautiful fabric, an old sheet or something if you have it, and use that to make a test version of your garment.

Caroline: Yeah, I love that you wrote this down.

Helen: The last thing.

Caroline: Ignore the warnings.

Helen: Ignorance is bliss. I mean, Aiden Owen was talking about this. You know, he was tackling things that perhaps would have been considered intimidating or considered advanced because he didn’t know that they were intimidating or that they were advanced. And sometimes ignorance is bliss in this situation. You don’t need to listen to every person that says sewing with knits is hard. Sewing with knits is not hard. It’s actually pretty easy.

Caroline: At the end of the day, sewing in general is pretty low stakes, I think. You know, we’re doing this as a hobby. We’re doing it for fun. It’s not life or death. It’s sewing, it’s our hobby, and we love it. So just approach it with a little bit of playfulness, and don’t be afraid to fail. That is how you learn. And we are here for you. You can do it.

Helen: You can do it.
Caroline: That’s it for this Love to Sew Favourite. We’ll be back in March with our new season. You can find me Caroline at BlackbirdFabrics.com and Helen at HelensClosetPatterns.com.

Helen: We’re recording in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, and you can get in touch with us and get links for everything we talked about in this episode at LoveToSewPodcast.com. Just search for the episode title.

Caroline: And, of course, if you want to join our Patreon fam, now is a great time to start. For just $5 USD per month, you’ll get access to our monthly bonus episode. For $10 USD per month, you’ll get a 15% discount code for Blackbird Fabrics and Helen’s Closet plus a bonus mini-sode. Go to patreon.com/LoveToSew, for more info.

Helen: Thanks to our amazing podcast team, and thank you all so much for listening. We will talk to you soon.

Caroline: Bye.

Helen: Buh-bye.

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