There is nothing more enjoyable than sitting at your sewing machine dreamily creating your next project and watching it slowly come together before your remove the final piece form underneath the needle and inspect your work. It is a home craft that seems to be b increasing, once again, in popularity. Pupils all across the country are taught textiles in secondary school and then popularity of the Great British Sewing Bee and the American series Project Runway have seen more and more young people reaching for their fabric shears and sewing machine to create some beautiful pieces of their own.
Once you have selected your Dressmaking Fabrics from somewhere like https://www.quality-fabrics.co.uk/dressmaking-fabrics-14-c.asp and prepared the fabric according to the manufacturer’s instructions you can begin the creative process of pinning, cutting and preparing your pieces for sewing.
If your sewing machine is anything like mine it probably used as much as my washing machine and so making sure that I keep up regular maintenance including checking the needle and oiling the working parts is essential. I have built up almost rituals of things that I do each time that I sit down to create a new garment or at this time of year create some Christmas decorations. Here are a few from the list:
Matching and checking threads
I like to keep myself well stocked with a variety of different coloured threads and will create spools for both the bottom and top stitching ready for when I may need to use them. This means that regardless of whether I am creating an item like a skirt where I want to match the top and bottom stitch colours or a more decorative pieces where mixing up the top and bottom stitches may be more preferable, they are always on hand. Once I have chosen the most suitable thread checking that it works well with the tension of the chosen stitch is the next thing to do and the best way to ensure that you don’t have any breakage issues is to use a similar type of thread for both the top and bottom stitch – regardless of the colour.
Fabric check
After preparing the fabric taking a small piece of the excess that is left after pattern cutting allows you to check both the thread type, colour and tension of the stitch type you have chosen works for the fabric type. This is important as different threads and materials will need to have different tensions of stiches to be used. If you find that the stitches end up with the top or bottom stitches being too loose or tight you will need to be tighten or release the tension on your sewing machine.
