Sewing Tips Megathread

By **JVCA**. 29/11/09, 06:39 pm

Clean up before you go to sleep! It's great to have a fresh start in the morning, and it helps to stop mess piling up when you've got a deadline. I'm not saying pack everything away so you have to get it all out in the morning - just throw out scraps of thread and fabric, put away off-cuts that you're finished with, get everything off the floor, and clear space on the table.

If you make a mistake in a small bit of a line of stitching (you 'miss', or your bobbin runs out), you don't have to unpick the whole thing - just unpick the accident, then backstitch over the stitching, 'bridge the gap' and keep going.

Get proper fabric scissors - paper scissors are designed for paper, and it is SO much easier to cut fabric with fabric scissors than it is with paper scissors that it's not funny! They're not expensive either - my titanium coated ones were about $15 from spotlight and are fantastic.

If you take your sewing with you to someone else's house, make sure you come home with everything you took with you - finding out you left your quick unpick at someone else's house REALLY SUCKS when you've just sewn a seam the wrong way out. I have a box I transport all my fabric in - it makes life much easier.

When you have a deadline, you need a carrot. We use chocolate Primo to motivate us into getting stuff done - simply put, when you finish something, you get a glass of Primo (and a half hour break, usually). 8D

...so half of these aren't really sewing tips, but uh. I guess they're helpful anyway? sweatdrop

_________________

The Biscuit Brigade
http://kevan.org/johari?name=jvca
♥ Midsummer-Snow - Nana to my Hachi ♥

By 悪魔. 06/01/12, 03:38 pm

...a thing I just learnt the hard way, when cutting an arm sleeve that's meant to be tight fitting do Not leave one side straight and curve the other. It doesn't turn out right at all :/

By Mischa. 07/01/12, 09:11 pm

I got sick of my chalk markings rubbing off, so I started using crayola washable markers/crayons and they work like a charm.

(NOTE: do not use these on any expensive or/and dry clean only fabrics. If in doubt try a small patch first to make sure no colour is left behind after washing )

By 80486. 08/01/12, 07:34 pm

This may be a little technical:

Ever drafted/altered a sleeve, only to find you can't raise your arm? Perhaps you got a crappy pattern somewhere that has this problem. There are two reasons it happens:

1) The armhole may be too deep. One might expect that a larger armhole would give you more freedom of movement (I did). In fact the opposite is true for sleeved garments. The armhole can be no lower than about 3, maybe 4 centimetres below the armpit. The depth of the armhole determines the angle of the sleeve. A deep armhole, as in a shirt, causes the sleeve to point out horizontally. A small armhole results in a sleeve that hangs vertically, as in a jacket.

2) The ease in the sleeve cap may be wrong. I'm not talking about the ease in the top of the sleeve cap, between the notches. That's a red herring: its only purpose is to give the sleeve cap the desired shape.

See the diagram of a sleeve cap below. I have labelled the ease with green lines. [1] is design ease for shaping as discussed. The blue line is of course the circumference of the armhole plus [1]. [3] is so you can get your arm into the sleeve. [2] is the extra fabric that allows you to raise your arm. Here's the trick: [2] is derived mathematically from [3] and the length of the blue line.

Notice that if you hold the blue line constant (which corresponds to not changing the armhole), and increase [3], you will decrease [2]. Congratulations, you can no longer raise your arm. [2] and [3] need to be carefully balanced. If [3] is too little, it will be hard to get your arm through the sleeve; if [3] is too much, [2] will be too little and you won't be able to raise your arm.

When you deepen the armhole, the blue line gets longer so you have to increase [2] and [3] (or you'll end up with way too much ease at [1]). You'll discover that most of the increase has to happen at [3], and this is what changes the angle of the sleeve.

Finally, you can increase or decrease [1] as much as you like without affecting the functioning of the sleeve.

I learned all this the hard way.

By neimhaille. 08/01/12, 10:38 pm

In regards to the sleeve ease issue, historical garments have it all wrapped up ;) Using the above diagram the vertical line is shortened and 2 and three widened (but also usually are cut with a seam going up the back of the arm not directly underneath).

The flat armscye approach worked brilliantly until patterns started being developed on the stand- ie a static form- and the underarm creases that are a natural product of this method were deemed unslightly. Also when the front of sleeves stopped being cut as a pronounced curve (which affects stretch of the fabric and so allows for a closer fit).

I wouldn't use this approach for modern garments, but for historical garments and for bodysuits most definitely.

By the way I could hang from monkey bars in all my historical costumes except my Mina (though I can still reach higher than you'd expect).