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SEWING

What are the Basic Hand Sewing Stitches and Techniques?

Sewing may seem one of the most old-fashioned household tasks. Nowadays, people used to outsource this task to well-trained people. Let’s say you have damaged your shirt button or notice a hem on your dress, in this manner you have to fix it by your own. You have to know about basic hand-sewing stitches and techniques. These techniques will help you with your small sewing task at home quickly.   

Get to know about four basic hand-sewing stitches techniques: 

Even if you have the latest sewing machine at your home, at some point, you may need hand sewing. It gives you a better and quick result at the time of repair. Further, we will look after hand-sewing stitches techniques. These techniques work brilliantly for different purposes. 

Running stitch: 

Running stitch is the basic hand-sewing stitches technique. All kinds of sewing based on this technique. It is a useful stitching type which is used to:  

  • Repair hems of jackets or pants 
  • Sew on patches
  • Re-attach straps of fabric

All you need is a thread and a needle. You tie a knot and start at the back of the fabric.  At the end of the sewing, the running stitch will appear on both sides of the fabric. You finish with a knot at the back of the fabric.

The running stich is often used for basting : this is called the running basting stick. This stitch is meant to hold pieces of fabric together before the final stitching is done with the sewing machine. They don’t have to be sewn nicely because they will be removed after the final stitching is done. 

You can also use the running stitch to gather fabric. When you make two rows of base stitches, then pull the threads and you have raffles. 

A litte hack:

If you want straight stitches you can draw a dotted line on your fabric with a textile marker (so that the drawings you made will disappear when washing) or if you don’t want any.

Back stitch: 

The back stitch is an advanced variation on the running stitch. There are 2 ways of making this stitch. 

The idea is to continually make one step back and two stages forward along your stitching line. 

The back-stitching is exceptionally solid, durable and flexible for fixing damaged areas of cloths. A back stitch is perfect for:  

  • Re-attaching zippers where the crease has come unraveled 
  • Repairing those places where the fabric seam is undone  
  • Serving as a strong seam similar to the straight stitch of a sewing machine
  • Serving as a decorative top stitch

Slip stitch: 

The slip-stick technique looks similar to holes and seams. However, this type of hand sewing stitches technique won’t be visible. This type of stitches technique is beneficial for fixing holes in visible areas of your clothes. So it could be utilized to fix little holes and tears. Additionally, it’s ideal for you if you use a strong thread matched with your fabric. You can resolve your clothing issues by using this skill. A slip stitch can also be used to close up lining.

Sip Stitch

Come from under the fabric, take a small piece of fabric on you needle and pull it through.Go into the fold and come out of it a bit further. Than take again a bit of the fabric and so on …

Best is to take matching thread so the stitch is practically invisible.

Blind Hem Stitch

Blind hem stitch: 

It is the most popular hand sewing technique. Even you can do blind hem with the machine, but the excellent and fastest way to do blind hemming is by hand.  This stitch is used for sewing two pieces of fabric together whilst making sure that the thread is nearly invisible. These “blind” stitches hide under folded edges

 

  • First, you need to slip the threaded needle inside its folded cloth
  • Now bring out the needle through the folded hem
  • By using the needlepoint, you only need to pick a few threads from flat fabric. You have to do it against the lower hem.
  • Now put it back into each folded edge.
  • You can repeat this process for the required length of the hem. 

These all are similar and easy hand-sewing stitches techniques used for distinct sewing purposes. These techniques are helpful for you to accomplish sewing task without using a sewing machine! 

 

SEWING

How to make a face mask easy?

Corona times… unseen and unreal what is happening.

In this blog post, I am going to show you how I make a face mask easy and that is also light to wear at the same time. Especially now that warmer days are coming, I prefer something lighter to put on. In some countries they hand out those paper masks to be admitted to public transport. I think this homemade mouth mask scores better after all.

How do you make a mouth mask to protect yourself and loved ones and to help others who need them badly? Well we can cut and stitch it out of cotton fabric. Of course these masks are not medical masks because those masks are only good for 1 to 2 hours and then they have to be thrown away. But if we make them in cotton, as in our case, they can possibly be washed at high temperatures and you don’t have to throw them away. These mouth masks are simple and can easily be made by beginners. Are you a beginner and would you like to know what you need to start sewing projects, I have made a blog post about making your own clothes: how do you start? What do you need?:

METHOD 1 : EASY (FOR BEGINNERS)

face mask with one single layer fabric and elastic bands

Necessities:
Cotton fabric, woven or tricot. that does not matter, as long as the fabrics can be used in the cooking wax
Elastic that can be used in the cooking wax or cotton ribbons. You can make cotton bias that we fold and stitch together
patterned paper or other thin paper
paper scissors and fabric scissors
pins
possibly chalk or something to mark your seam value
a tape measure or bar
yarn
a sewing machine
an iron

HOW TO START MAKING A FACE MASK
make a pattern out of paper with the following dimensions: 20 – 17 cm
place the pattern on the fabric and cut out with 1 cm seam allowance
cut 2 more pieces of fabric of 10 * 3 cm with 1 cm seam allowance
cut out elastic bands (max. 1 cm wide) with a length of 15 cm

Mondmasker knippen

fold the 2 longest ends of your piece of fabric in 1 cm and fold in again
pin in place
iron these folds flat
make pleats in the middle of the fabric: first pleat at 5 cm
2nd and 3rd pleat at 3cm
iron these folds flat

stitch the pleated ends with a straight stitch
place the pieces of fabric wrong side up on the nice side of the piece of fabric
stitch it with a straight stitch
double fold and sew

 

Mondmasker stikken
Mondmasker met elastiek maken

take 2 elastic bands of 15 cm
place it on both sides on the wrong side of the mask
stitch by stitching over and over the elastic a few times (stitch on the same stitching of your seam)

 

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METHOD 2

FACE MASK WITH DOUBLE LAYER FOR USE OF FILTER AND RIBBON TIES

Biaisband strijken

For this mouth mask you need 2 pieces of fabric. One of 21.5 by 20 cm and one of 19 by 20 cm and matching yarn. Also need 4 strips of fabric 5cm wide and about 40cm long to make the ribbons.

We start with measuring and cutting the ribbons. I am going to make ribbons from these pieces of fabric using a 2.5cm bias tape maker. This is a handy tool to make your bias binding yourself. Fold a corner and put it in the bias tape maker at the back. You can push the bias all the way with a sharp object and then only iron it. Fold the made band in half and press.

Afterwards we stitch the ribbon with a straight stitch. Place the needle of your stitching machine as far to the right as possible so that you can stitch close to the seam. At the beginning and end you fix the stitching by stitching back and forward again. When you use yarn of the same or matching color of your fabric, the stitching is hardly visible.

Then we put the pattern on the fabric and pin it. For the pattern (which has been proposed by the FPS Health) I refer to the blog of Bernina, where you can download this.

Provide small cuts (half way up the seam) or markings where the pleats should go. Indicate where bottom and top are.

Plooitjes instikken

Afterwards I press the folds in both parts of the fabric. Take 2 cm and slide down. Ensuring that the markings overlap. This way you create pleats of 1 cm.

Also iron the bottom edges 1 cm and also iron in a 2 cm wrap on the bottom of the outside of the mask towards the wrong side of the fabric.

Afterwards I pin the pleats and leave enough space so more than 1.5 cm from the side so that I can leave them when the 2 parts are stitched together. .

Sew the bottom seams with a straight stitch.

Pin the ribbons and keep a little away from the lace. Make sure that the ribbons are centered in such a way that we will not stitch them later.

Front and back are pinned together. The bottom of the mask remains open. Because we have already stitched the seams of those pieces and they are therefore finished.

Afterwards I stitch the parts together with a 1 cm seam allowance and fasten at the beginning and the end. For example, the folds are stitched in and I can remove the pins afterwards.

For the finishing of the inside I took out my overlock machine and finished the edges. If you do not have an overlock, you can finish with a zigzag stitch from your sewing machine.

We turn the work around, push the corners in, cut some wires and have a mouth mask with ribbons where you can insert a filter.

methode 3 : TIGHT-FITTING

FACE MASK WITH FILTER PATTERN AND ELASTIC HAIR BANDS

Patroon mondmakser uitknippen

The pattern I use here can be downloaded from the link below.

This pattern is a medium and it has 1 cm seam allowance. If you want a smaller mask, you can make the pattern smaller by cutting 1 cm and if you want a size bigger, you can cut all around with an extra 1/2 inch of fabric.

For the back of the fabric I cut interfacing (H180, H200 or H250 is suitable) that will be ironed on later. Vlieseline gives the fabric a bit more firmness.

What you can also do if you have plain white or black cotton fabric is to print it with a nice text or image.

For the filter bag on the inside I use black cotton fabric. We can use the same pattern for this and fold it 2.5 cm. Then we also put it 2.5 cm from the side. We pin and fold the end of the fabric under the pattern. Then we cut out the fabric for the inside of the mask.

When everything is cut; we pick up our iron and fold and iron the cover inwards. Also iron in the seam allowance.

When we’re done with this, we can pin the right sides together. Both from the bottom and the top of the mask. We will stitch these halves together in a moment.

So we stitch together both halfs of the top of the face mask and part  s of the black filter bag.  Don’t forget to secure the stiches by stitching back and front with your machine.

We give a nice stitching on the folded seam. This way, the inside is beautifully finished.

Then we flatten the seams so that we can pin the beautiful sides together of the top and bottom of our mask.

Make sure your both sides are well pinned together in the middle. For the rest, I like to use these special clips. That is a nice and fast way to pin and does not make any holes in your fabric.

You stitch the 2 parts together and make a number of cuts in the curve, so that when we turn our work inside out, everything is nice and crisp.

For the reinforcement on the nose I use a paper clip that I bent at both sides with pliers. To stitch this into the face mask, I use a zigzag stitch. Of course, proceeding with caution.

Then we iron the seam values and fold and iron both ends of the face mask 2.5 cm inwards and also a seam allowance of 1 cm.

Would you like to get started right away? Download the pattern.

Since there was no more elastic available in the store, I came up with the idea of using elastic hair bands for the face mask. You can use it as a temporary solution or if you like it, you can of course leave it in and wear it. If you do not find them so comfortable, you can still loosen and stitch them back later if elastic is available in the store.

I used my special cord foot for stitching the hair bands. If you do not have this, then try to get your needle as close as possible to the elastic bands.

Now I give a second stitch a 2 cm from the side and our mask is ready.

This way you can easily use a mouth mask that can help protect yourself and others. I wish everyone a lot of strength in these difficult times and I also thank all people in the healthcare sector for their incredible commitment and persistence.

Would you like to sit at home in this time, to know more about how to make the best choices for your first sewing project, I wrote this blog post especially for you “Which sewing machine, pattern and fabric should I choose for my first sewing project? “

Definitely check it out!

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SEWING

How do I start sewing for beginners?

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In my previous blog post I indicated what the basic necessities are that you will need to start with your first sewing project. But of course there are a number of things that we have to consider, if we want to start with a first sewing project.

Today I will elaborate on the following topics:

  • buying a sewing machine
  • self-made fashion magazines with patterns
  • fabric and sewing supplies

WHICH SEWING MACHINE DO I CHOOSE AS A BEGINNER?

That is of course an important choice that you have to make yourself. At the time I was advised to start with a decent machine that had a number of basic functions, but also some extra functions. And I’m actually very happy about that. In this way it doesn’t scare you too much at the beginning. And after a while, people still have the opportunity to experiment with those nice extras.
Zigzag stitch sewing machine If you choose a solid brand and you want a more modern sewing machine with more options, you don’t have to buy all the accessories again. Today there are machines on the market with many computer-controlled functions. But the basis is and remains that a machine must be able to make a straight stitch as well as a zigzag.
Of course you should not spend too much on a first machine, if you do not know whether you will really like to make clothes yourself. But on the other hand, a cheap sewing machine doesn’t always suffocate. Be sure to keep this in mind when purchasing.
Choose a decent machine with basic functions and a few extras for not too much money

What is recommended is that the machine can make an automatic buttonhole. The thread threader is also handy (easy to get your thread through the needle) if the eyes no longer want to work well.
It is best to go to a local store and ask if you can try out some models or try to compare as many reviews on the internet as possible before making a purchase. Some well-known brands are: Bernina, Brother, Janome, Juke, Pfaff and Singer.

start to sew

SEWING MAGAZINES AND CHOSING A PATTERN

There are many nice magazines for sale that contain patterns that you can easily draw or cut out, with an explanation of how you work when making the garment. Later you can possibly draw your own patterns. But to start with, I find the magazines the most useful. Burda, Burda Style and Burda Easy are well known, but you also have Knip, Diana, Simplicity and La Maison Victor and many others.
It is best to first determine your dimensions yourself. Because the sizes mentioned in the magazines are not always the normal clothing sizes.
In every magazine you will find a kind of workbook with information about the worksheets (patterns) and how you take your size, explanation about the drawings and the symbols used.

CHOOSE FABRIC AND SEWING SUPPLIES

After you have decided what you want to make, you should first check the explanation in your home-made fashion magazine to see what kind of fabric is recommended to make that particular item of clothing. If you do not choose the right type of fabric, you can sometimes be faced with unpleasant surprises. If you are going to use a pattern suitable for a jersey fabric with silk, this will not give the desired result!

Good tip : Always check which fabric is suitable for which pattern!

rollen stof

As a beginner it is best to buy something plain or a fabric with motifs that will not stand out quickly if you were to go awry. Also check which sewing supplies (thread, zipper, buttons, etc.) you will need. If you buy fabric and sewing supplies together, you can immediately see if it fits well together. There are lots of stores where you can go for fabrics as well as haberdashery.

SEWING

How to start making your own clothes?

Everyone can start making their own clothes!

If you have never held a needle and thread yourself, it indeed seems like a “mission impossible”. But believe me; I speak from experience, making clothes yourself is certainly not impossible. Before my mother died of cancer a while ago I never once sewed anything. My mother was a seamstress and made clothes for other people. It was easy for her to put in a hem, to make a dress or replace a zipper. And then suddenly I was no longer there and  I knew nothing about sewing. But with a little help and the right tools, I have made good progress. In this and following blog posts I want to share my experiences with you. What I think is important is that you have the right sewing supplies to start with.

 

What do I need to start sewing my own clothes?
Ingrid
Glitterdesign
  • Good scissors:
    • A good pair of fabric scissors: you should choose one with long “blades” so that you can cut through the fabric with long, smooth movements. The length of the leaf can vary between 20 and 30 cm. The scissors must lie well in your hand. So it’s best to ask the store to be able to test them. There are also scissors with curved blades that are great for cutting textiles because the fabric can then stay flat. It is best to choose a scissor of very good quality that can also be sharpened later. And that way can last a lifetime. These scissors may only be used to cut fabric. If you use them for paper, they will become blunt!
  • Paper scissors: use these scissors to cut pattern pieces
  • Small sewing scissors: is useful for cutting threads or giving small cuts to your sewing
  • Knurled scissors (optional): these scissors are just as large as a dust scissors but with a blade that has a zigzag pattern. It is used to finish seams of certain fabrics so that they do not fray and to make a decorative border. You can also cut textile that unravels quickly
  • Pins: come in different sizes. Preferably use stainless steel pins of at least 3 cm long. The best pins are long, thin, sharp and of good quality so as not to damage the fabrics
  • Needles: are available in various lengths and thicknesses. The higher the number, the finer the needle. It is best to buy a standard assortment box to get started. Also don’t forget to purchase a basting needle. This one has a large eye and a blunt tip and is used to baste 2 pieces of clothing together (or three as I heard my mother and grandmother say)
Tornmesje
  • Seam ripper: is indispensable for loosening stitching. It has a forked end. There is a sharp edge between the teeth of the fork that acts as a knife. The seam ripper is also used to cut open buttonholes without damaging the fabric. Cam knives come in varying degrees, suitable for seams in light and heavier fabrics
  • Thimble: to protect the finger when sewing (optional)
  • Thread: to be used with the thread

 

  • Yarn: cannot of course be missing as one of the necessary sewing accessories. Use the same color as the fabric to the extent possible. If this is not available, it is best to use a shade that is darker. For fabrics with a motif, rhombus or stripe, choose a thread color that matches the most striking color of the fabric. The type of yarn that we choose depends on the fabric to be stitched. In a specialist store they usually give you very good advice here.

For all types of yarn (cotton, silk, polyester, synthetic) the number determines the thickness of the thread. The higher the number, the finer the yarn. Be careful with 100% cotton yarns because there is a risk that they will shrink while washing. Synthetic sewing thread (100% polyester) is suitable for almost all types of fabric, even for elastic fabrics because it is lightly stretchable. It is best to go for branded yarn from eg Gütermann, because my experience is that cheaper yarns can break and fluff easier and that is not so good for the sewing machine.

  • Measuring material:
    • Tape measure : a tape measure is useful for measuring curved lines. This ruler is usually just as wide as the standard seam allowance (1.5 cm).
    • A sewing seam ruler: a 15 cm long seam ruler has a caliper that you can set at different distances. This is very useful for marking seams and hems and for measuring small dimensions precisely. There are also seam gauges without sliders. These are also useful for finishing seams and hems. Each side has a different seam value.
      The type of yarn that we choose depends on the fabric to be stitched!
  • Fabric marking tools:
    • ceramic lead pens (gives more precise lines) 
    • tailor’s chalk (you can wipe it off in no time). There is also a chalk pencil. I personally find this very useful. You can fill this with chalks in different colors so that you can apply the appropriate chalk color to any fabric color.
    • water soluble or disappearing ink pens: to apply markings to textiles, which gradually disappear afterwards. This pen looks like a felt-tip pen. With some markers they can be dusted off with a spray or water, or they disappear by allowing them to air dry. Be careful because if you iron over it, they may not go out. Test first for a piece of fabric.
    • Tracing wheel and carbon paper: to transfer markings from a paper pattern to your fabric. Note: they are not suitable for all types of fabric, because the markings do not always come out easily. So here too: best to test.
  • Material to draw or improve patterns:
    • Pattern paper: there is pattern paper with pre-printed squares of 4 by 4 cm, patterned paper per roll or in packets of a few sheets
    • Pencil and eraser
      A transparent ruler of 30 cm: to draw straight lines of patterns on paper and textile and to check dimensions. Ideal is the square, which has a right angle and a curve along which you can draw curved lines in your pattern.
      Indispensable: a pencil and an eraser to (re) draw patterns
  • Ironing equipment:
    • Iron: A steam iron is a fantastic help
    • Ironing board: you definitely need to iron
      sleeve board: for easy ironing of sleeves
    • Pressing cloth: take a cloth made of silk organza or nettle cloth so that you can see through it. It prevents the iron from scortching, melting or burning fine fabrics
    • Press pad: used to press the seams of collars and shoulders

 

  • Machines

A good sewing machine is of course indispensable for making your own clothing. And although in principle a machine that can make a straight and zigzag stitch is sufficient, modern machines offer countless possibilities. I personally have a very good experience with Janome. With regard to sewing machines, I will go into more detail in a subsequent blog post.
A lock machine is easy but not a must.
In my next post I will give you tips for the purchase of a first sewing machine, patterns and fabric.

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