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Today's quick tip is about how to deal with slippery threads that wrap around the spool pin while you're sewing!
These snags can cause your machine to seize up and stop sewing. It can also cause poor tension, thread and needle breakage, and most importantly a ruined sewing/embroidery project. To stop this from happening, simply pick up a couple thread nets online or in craft stores and slip them over your spool of thread.
For better marker making, lay your largest pattern pieces first! If you have pattern pieces that need to be placed in a specific place for a print, lay those pieces first as well! Then, you can lay your smaller pieces in the leftover gaps.
Being the lingerie lover that I am, most of my sewing projects include the use of one slippery fabric or the other. Cutting has always been my most hated task when it comes to sewing. When dealing with slippery fabrics, it's so easy for a piece to get off grain and skew your entire project. And cutting bias strips? Forget about it. Wobbly and crooked edges aren't what I'm going for.
Recently, I learned from a fabric cutter that if you put paper underneath your fabric and patterns it's much easier to cut. All you do is pin your pattern to your fabric and paper, and cutting is a breeze. Don't worry about dulling your scissors with the paper either. Somehow, my scissors are as sharp as ever. It doesn't necessarily matter what kind of paper, but I've seen people use tissue paper, shipping/craft paper, and alphanumeric paper. Above I'm using craft paper under my fabric, but I suggest using something that is no heavier than regular printing paper as pinning will be a bit easier.
Do you have any tips for cutting slippery fabrics?
Don't forget to change your needle every 6-8 hours of active sewing!
Signs you need to change your needle:
Your fabric has runs or snags
Your needle thread keeps breaking or shredding
Your machine won't make a stitch
YOU CAN'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME YOU CHANGED YOUR NEEDLE!!!
Hey everyone! How many of you guys have heard about this nifty invention? When I saw this attachment in action, I knew it was going to save me some serious time!
Here's the ruffler foot in it's full glory. It may look a little intimidating at first, but I promise it's very easy to use! To start off, you'll want to thread your needle before putting the foot on your machine as it is a bit difficult to do after the fact.
When attaching this foot to your machine, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
This particular foot required me to remove not only my regular foot but also the shank or "ankle" and replace my shank screw with a special screw that came with the foot.
On the other side of the ruffler foot, is a little fork that will go around your needle screw. The fork allows the foot to count the number of stitches which is important because we will be telling the foot how many stitches are between each pleat.
On the top of this ruffler foot are options for how often you want your fabric pleated. For this post, I chose to do 1 pleat every 6 stitches.
If you're working with only 1 layer of fabric, simply place your fabric under the foot and in the guide to the right of the foot. Be sure your fabric is past the needle a bit.
Set your machine to a straight stitch with a width of 0. I set my stitch length to 2.5, but you can play this number to change the distance between pleats.
Now you can start stitching!
To ruffle a piece of fabric to another, place the fabric not being ruffled under the foot.
The fabric you want to be ruffled will go in the same place as before. Be sure to line up the edges of the 2 fabrics. Go slowly at first as controlling both fabrics at the same time can be tricky.
And voila! Perfectly pleated fabric!
How great would this be for a skirt or pillow!? I love that this foot completely eliminates the need to press and pin all of your pleats in place.
Today's quick tip is about buttonholes! If you've ever made and buttonhole and it didn't turn out quite as nice as you would like, there's an easy fix! Use a scrap of stabilizer behind your fabric while sewing your buttonholes. I think tear away stabilizer works just fine for this. If working with a knit fabric, experiment with using tear away as well as cut away stabilizer.
Believe it or not these 2 buttonhole were created with the sewing machine set to the same size. You can see on the left buttonhole, there is quite a bit of puckering happening all around the buttonhole. You can also tell that the stitches are pulling so much that they are appearing more narrow and creating a channeling effect under the stitches. The right buttonhole is laying perfectly flat, has nice wide stitches, and an opening in the center large enough to cut.
Here is the back side of the buttonholes. Now I did use a contrasting bobbin thread, but you can see it's the same story on the underside. If you compare the above picture with this one, you'll notice that the right side (the one using stabilizer) has balanced stitches between top and bottom. What I mean by this is the density of stitches is about the same on both sides, whereas the left buttonhole is dense on top and sparse on the underside.
Today, we're going to learn how to use the stitch-in-ditch foot. This foot has saved me time but it has saved me even more frustration. This foot is used for stitching directly on a seam. When done properly, the stitching won't even be visible.
Here you can see that this foot has a metal guide in the center. Something to note about this foot is the shape of the needle opening. There is no room side to side so be sure you are only using a straight stitch; otherwise, you will break your needle and possibly even crack the foot.
To start, you will need to have already stitched your seam and pressed the seam allowance. Place your fabric under the foot so that the metal guide is right in the seam.
If you notice your stitching moving off the seam, you can gently pull the fabric on either side of the seam to help the foot remain in the valley of the seam.
Here 's what the seam looks like after! You can barely see any of the black thread that I used, and if I had matched it to the fabric it would be invisible.
As you guys know, I've been doing quite a bit of taste testing when it comes to all these free books I've been reading since signing up with Bookbub. Don't worry guys, I've found some great series through this site that I'm going to share with you guys in next month's book post! I'll still be writing reviews for some of the random books I read throughout the month, but there are some great stories that I want to finish to the end!
15 minutes is a great story following a young girl as she tries to correct the past. As the story progresses, the plot becomes more and more interesting. By the end of the book, I was ready to read the next in the series as the story and ideas the author built became more interesting than I anticipated. This book is 100% about the main protagonist, and while that's okay, I hope the author works to round out the other characters in future books.
As you no doubt know by now, I love a good dystopian plot. The author made the main character of the story an unlikely young overweight guy who loves video games. I really appreciated the different angle for this type of story...until I realized it was a typical nerdy guy gets the hot girl story. A ridiculous amount of the book was spent with the main character ogling his female companions. While this isn't a usual turnoff for me in a book, the serious lack of personality of the female characters was. If the relationships were meant to be casual, a lack of interest in personality on the main characters part isn't a problem. That being said, the main character was portrayed as being practically in love with this girl, but I don't think there was ever any mention of what he actually liked about her other than her boobs. It's really a shame because the story itself wasn't half bad.
So, my question to you is, What's your biggest turnoffs in a book?
Want to know if your machine is in tension? Today, I have 2 ways you can check! When you're machine is not in tension, you may get thread bunching under your fabric or your machine may not even make a stitch. Read below to learn how to check your needle thread tension and bobbin thread tension.
Once your machine has been completely threaded, lower your presser foot, and give your needle thread a light tug. If your needle thread is in tension, your thread shouldn't have much give at all.
Once you pull your bobbin thread through the stitch plate, you can see if your bobbin thread is in tension. If you have a top loading bobbin, you should be able to look through the plastic window. You'll know your bobbin is in tension if your thread cuts right through the middle.
Above is a picture of a bobbin that is NOT in tension. If you don't see your bobbin thread cutting across the top, check your manual to be sure you are inserting the bobbin correctly.
For this week's Technique Tuesday, I wanted to talk to you guys about another sewing machine foot that is going to save you tons of time!
This weird looking foot is called a roll hem foot. I love using this foot when hemming lightweight fabrics. Slippery fabrics like chiffon, organza, lining material, and silks are always giving me problems. Before I discovered this nifty foot, I would have to do quite a bit of ironing, pinning, and ripping out seams before getting a nice hem. Alot of the time, it still wouldn't come out very nice looking, and I would usually burn myself from the steam of the iron!
Now the foot I'm using makes hems that are 5 mm in width (a bit less than 1/4") which I think is a great size for most projects. This size is also much easier to use than some of the smaller hemmers (some are as small as 2 mm!).
While this foot is easy to use, there are a couple of things I like to do to ensure that I get the best results! The first trick I learned to help the roll hem foot get started is to double fold your hem the width it should finish. I usually give it a little press, but this time I just finger pressed my fold into place.
Once my fabric is folded, I set my machine to a regular straight stitch. Then, I line up the fabric under my presser foot and lower my presser foot to hold the fabric in place. I then turn the hand wheel until my needle goes through the fabric and raise the presser foot back up.
If you look closely at your roll hem foot, you will notice it is shaped like a spiral and there is actually a small metal piece in the center that helps to roll the fabric on top of itself.
Now with the needle still down, we can unfold the remaining part of our fabric and lift it up and over the metal piece in the center.
Lower your presser foot and we can start sewing!
While sewing this hem, try not to tug too much on the fabric so the foot can do it job! If your hem needs a little help in rolling over, you can rotate the fabric a bit while it is feeding into the foot. I like to keep the raw edge of the fabric resting against the center metal piece of the foot.
Here's what my finished hem looks like!
Let me know, what are some of your favorite sewing machine feet?
Universal Needles: The first and most well known type of needle is the universal needle. Universal needles will work for many different types of fabric. The tip of the needle is sharp enough for woven fabrics and rounded enough for some knit fabrics. When in doubt, a universal needle will usually get the job done, but sometimes there are better options for tricky fabrics.
Embroidery needles: Embroidery needles aren't just for embroidery! The eye of the needle is wider than a universal needle which allows decorative or embroidery thread to pass through without the thread snapping or shredding. If you notice that you're using a decorative thread that keeps shredding, try switching to an embroidery needle.
Microtex Needles: Microtex needles are very sharp and are most useful when sewing with a fabric that pulls or gets runs easily. This needle is more precise than most and is great for topstitching as your stitches will be straighter.
Ballpoint Needles: Ballpoint needles are the ideal needle when sewing with knits. This type of needle has a rounded point which pushes the fibers aside. This is important because any hole in a knit fabric will grow until you can know longer use it.
Stretch Needles: Stretch needles are very similar to ballpoint needles, but for very stretchy fabrics, lightweight knits, and swimsuit knits the stretch needle is ideal if you notice skipped stitches using a ballpoint needle.
Titanium Needles: Embroidery needles and universal needles both come with a titanium option. These needles are made out of titanium because they don't heat up the same way a traditional needle does. This is great for those times you are sewing something with adhesive. After sewing for a long period of time a regular needle will heat up and the adhesive will eventually gum up your needle, cause runs in the fabric, and break your thread.
Topstitch Needles: Topstitch needles have a longer eye which allows you to use heavy threads as well as more than one thread.
Quilting Needles: Quilting needles are specifically made for quilting. This needle helps reduce skipped stitches by having better fabric penetration.
Leather Needles: Leather needles have a tip that cuts the leather to allow the needle to penetrate fabric as it sews.
Denim Needles: Denim needles are thicker and stronger than most needles which allows you to sew through multiple layers of heavyweight fabric.
Needles come in sizes from 60 to 120. Size 60 needles are for the lightest weight fabrics. I use this size needles for chiffon, organza, etc. Size 120 is the exact opposite. So, heavyweight fabrics like home decor fabrics, heavy denim, etc. For most medium weight fabrics, you'll need to use around a size 80 or 90 needle, and this is what will come with your machine.
Have one of these guys on your sewing machine? This little guy has a tiny hook that passes through our needle eye and pulls our thread through for us!
Here's a closeup of that threading hook going through the eye of the needle.
To start off we're going to thread the top of the machine and make sure to thread the hook above the needle as well.
Turn the handwheel until the needle is the highest position possible. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER! If you skip this step, you could accidentally bend the needle threader and make it unusable.
Next, push the needle threader down until it is butted against your needle. If it's in the correct position, the hook will have passed through the eye of the needle.
The key to using a needle threader is to create a figure 8 with your thread. To do this, loop your thread under and over the left hook.
Bring your thread to the front of your needle and into the mouth to the right of the needle. Scoop your thread from the bottom of the mouth upward. If you are having trouble with your thread slipping, lower your presser foot to keep your thread taut. To check if your thread has been hooked, pull the thread towards you. It should stay caught on the needle.
Now, slowly release your hold on the needle threader while simultaneously giving your thread enough slack so you don't accidentally unthread the needle.
If done correctly, you'll have a small loop in the back of your needle which you can finish pulling through the eye.
