Sewing Quick Tips

Before preshrinking your next length of fabric, try laundering just a swatch of it first. Some fabrics can change color and texture after being laundered and you may not like how your particular fabric is affected. By washing just a swatch, you get to see how your fabric changes without risking your whole yardage. If it turns out you don’t like the new look and feel, you can skip preshrinking your fabric and have your finished item dry-cleaned.

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It’s best to press napped fabrics on a needle or velvet board to keep from crushing the pile. But if you don’t have a needle board and the pile of your napped fabric is relatively short, try using a thick terrycloth towel under the fabric. Just place the fabric napped side down onto the towel and lightly press.

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Add a pair of tweezers to your collection of sewing tools. They’re handy for pulling out basting stitches and for picking the little thread ends out of fabric that are left after ripping out stitches.

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Purchasing those five-for-a-dollar spools of cheap thread from your local sewing store can be tempting. But you’ll likely end up with more problems in the long run. Here’s why:

Cheap thread tends to be fuzzy, which means it’ll leave a trail of lint all through your sewing machine – in your bobbin area, between your tension disks, and along your upper thread path, causing wear and tear to your machine.

Plus, cheap thread tends to be weaker and full of nubs, which means it’s more likely to break in your machine – which is annoying to deal with – and won’t make as strong of a seam.

If you own any cheap thread you don’t have the heart to throw out, use it for temporary hand-basting.

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When choosing a pattern, always read the description on the back of the envelope and examine the illustrations closely to make sure the item has the design details you want. What’s seen on a model can look very different from the actual item.

It can be disappointing to choose, say, a skirt pattern you thought had a waistband and it turns out it doesn’t. Or a pants pattern you thought had the zipper in the back and it turns out it’s on the side.

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