The first thing to remember about sewing well is that it takes time – time to learn how to do it and time to learn to do it well. Pushing out a perfect advanced vintage Vogue pattern your first time (maybe even your 20th time) ain't going to happen, at least for most of us. Starting slow is sometimes frustrating – most of us want to sew because we want to make beautiful clothing, rather than a simple tunic, bag or pajama pants. But putting your hours in is necessary if you want to get to a place where you actually wear what you make.
Recently I read Malcom Gladwell's book, Outliers, – an interesting and surprisingly easy read, by the way – and in it, he suggests that greatness requires enormous amounts of time – 10,000 hours, to be exact. Bill Gates, The Beatles, and others all had huge amounts of time invested in their work before they became the very best in their professions. “What!” you say, “Do I need 10,000 hours in before I can sew well?!” Of course not, dear friends, the point is simply this:
The MORE you sew, the BETTER you will sew.
It’s that easy. You want clothes that are wearable (not just around the house, but out in public) - learn patience. Don’t knock yourself out over mistakes, but do learn from them. That being said, its always nice to get a little advice before you put the needle to the fabric – so here are my top ten things I learned:
1. Pick the type of fabric by your skill level – chiffon and “slinky” type fabrics are lovely, but can be tricky to sew, especially for beginners. I usually recommend cotton fabrics, the kind you find in the quilting sections of fabric stores, for beginners to advanced beginners – cotton is sturdy, it stays where you want it too, and the variety of design is staggering. It’s good for making almost all types of garments, dresses, shirts, skirts, etc. and is often one of the least expensive fabrics to purchase.
2. Buy good fabric and thread – When you first start, you are not going to want to go out and but fabric at $20.00 a yard, or maybe not even $5.00 a yard, but be careful about what you buy. Cheap tacky fabric will ruin even the best patterns. When in doubt, go with natural fabrics or blends. Avoid buying fabric because “it’s a deal” or “it’s all they had”, don’t compromise. If it’s not a fabric you would wear normally, you probably won’t wear it no matter what the garment looks like – that is not to say that you shouldn’t push your comfort zones, but once again, cheap fabric just looks cheap. As for thread… PLEASE PLEASE don’t skimp and buy cheap thread – it breaks and screws up your sewing machine. After a few washes it weakens and your seams come undone at stress points. Gutterman is my first thread of choice; Coats & Clarks is a good choice too.
3. Buy good scissors and notions – Do not go to Joann's Crafts and buy a sewing starter kit – buy your notions separately. Buy the best scissors you can afford - Gingher is the scissor of choice for many seamstresses – I have thread scissors, a seam ripper and two pairs of shears from them. Guard them religiously, threaten your roommates, partners or children with their lives if you ever catch them using them. DO not use them to cut anything but fabric and thread. Quality is important for your other notions too – http://www.nancysnotions.com/home.do is a good place to buy your stuff – good quality, fair prices, and lots of sales.
4. Invest in a decent sewing machine - Most people buy an inexpensive machine first, I know I did. However, the problem is that you really do get what you pay for. Instead of buying a fancy cheap machine with a zillion stitch options, go for the cheapest of the higher end lines with only a few stitch settings, or with one of the old school 1960's, 1970's sewing machines on Craigslist – all you need is straight, zigzag and button hole stitches. Higher ned machines and old machines have an added bonus - you can get them repaired - not so much with the new machines.
My first machine was a Brother – it was self threading and had 150 different fancy stitches – you know how many times I used all those stitches ? TWICE - the first to try them out, the second to show someone else. The whole time I had that machine, the threads popped as I sewed over thick fabric, it would “stick” and sew in the same spot over and over and it finally exploded, literally - I shoved in the self threading cartridge and about 6 pieces popped out. I took it to the sewing machine repair shop, and the nice repair guys said it would cost more to fix it than it would be to buy a new one - so I invested in a new machine.
Until I got my A-Line Series Grace Babylock, I thought that my sewing was the problem, but even though it’s the cheapest one (still spendy at $299), I sew better. Best of all, higher end sewing machines are like higher end cars, they hold their value. Not that you are going to stop sewing, of course, but you can justify your purchase by telling yourself its an investment!
My first machine was a Brother – it was self threading and had 150 different fancy stitches – you know how many times I used all those stitches ? TWICE - the first to try them out, the second to show someone else. The whole time I had that machine, the threads popped as I sewed over thick fabric, it would “stick” and sew in the same spot over and over and it finally exploded, literally - I shoved in the self threading cartridge and about 6 pieces popped out. I took it to the sewing machine repair shop, and the nice repair guys said it would cost more to fix it than it would be to buy a new one - so I invested in a new machine.
Until I got my A-Line Series Grace Babylock, I thought that my sewing was the problem, but even though it’s the cheapest one (still spendy at $299), I sew better. Best of all, higher end sewing machines are like higher end cars, they hold their value. Not that you are going to stop sewing, of course, but you can justify your purchase by telling yourself its an investment!
5. Wash all your fabric before you sew - If you can’t wash it by hand or in the machine, dry clean your fabric . Really. Fabric shrinks, changes, and does stuff when you clean it. If you sew and then wash, you run the very real risk of not just shrinkage, but ugly puckering and twisting.
6. Learn how to read, cut and mark a pattern properly – There are plenty of tutorials about this online and in books, and I may do one later, but this is a step that can’t be missed. A poorly cut pattern may contribute to poor fit, mismatched or awkward seams, or a variety of other unwanted problems. Forgetting to include pattern marks, such as darts, can lead to extra time and frustration as you try to recreate on cut pieces. Not knowing how to read the instructions - well, you can just imagine how hard it would be to put something together.
7. If you’re unsure of the pattern, make a muslin – A muslin refers to sewing your pattern first in muslin (or another cheap fabric) before sewing it in your chosen fabric. Yes, it takes time, however, it also gives you an opportunity to alter your pattern if necessary, and maybe more importantly for the learning curve, figuring out all the tricky bits in the sewing instructions.
8. Finish your edges before you sew – I’ll talk about this more later on, but I started doing this a year or so ago, and I will never go back. It is so much easier to sew stuff when the edges aren’t fraying off. Your completed product looks more finished, and you get more of the “Wow! You made that?!? I couldn’t tell! - comments you will learn to secretly covet when you show people your work. This is of course, not true always, but is a good general rule.
9. Make a habit of checking your work as you go --- Look at everything before you go on the next step - I put together a pair of pants, and didn’t realize until it was time to put in the waistband facing that I had mixed up my front and back pieces. The front of the pants had a back piece on the right, and a front piece on the left, visa versa for the back – I ripped the seams and had to put the whole thing back together again.
10. Have patience (and a sense of humor) – I have been sewing for about 5 years, and consider myself an mostly intermediate sewer, and I still make mistakes – those damn pants were just a few weeks ago. Buy a good seam ripper, I can guarantee you it will be worth it in the long run. Sometimes, however, it’s not your mistake. I loved the “Built by Wendy” pattern series from Simplicity, but when I made one of the dresses it just looked bad on me – it was well sewed in a pretty fabric, but the cut and style – the damn thing gave me linebacker shoulders and no boobs. I ended up cutting off the top and making it into a skirt.
Does this help, my friends? I hope so, if not, that is ok to, because it always good to remember your own advice – or is that to take your own advice? Because I don’t always do that either!
