Thread Den

Learn to Sew Melbourne

Sewing Tips

Why pre-wash your fabric?

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For best results, wash and press your fabric before class. You should launder your fabric exactly how you plan to wash and care for your finished garment.

Fabric should be pre-washed to pre-shrink, to remove the chemicals from the manufacturing process and wash out any dirt. Have you noticed how much softer your fabrics can feel after washing? That is due to sizing. Applying a sizing agent (a bit like starch) improves the strength and helps the fabric resist the mechanical stress applied through the manufacturing process.

Most fabrics from natural fibres shrink when you wash them. Cotton fabrics often shrink around 5%, however, shrinkage up to 10% is not uncommon.

Bobbin Tips

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Super quick and in some pics, here are our top bobbin threading tips:

bobbin tip 1

Avoid layering up threads on your bobbins. When you get to the end of the outer thread (white in our picture), a knot can easily be created as the needle thread tries to pick up the end of the white thread and the beginning of the yellow thread all at once.

Bobbin tip 2

Don’t leave a long thread tail after loading up your bobbin. Each time the machine rotates the needle thread around the bobbin, it will try to pick up both the working end and the tail end of the thread. Instead, snip off the tail thread close to the bobbin.

Bobbin tip 3

The thread in our picture isn’t neat, the threads crisis cross each other which will encourage skipped stitches. Double-check your manual to ensure you are threading up correctly to perfectly fill a bobbin with thread.

bobbin tip 4

If your thread feels squishy on the bobbin or you can easily separate threads like in our picture, you will likely be missing a tension guide when threading your bobbin.

bobbin tip 5

If you are following all the guides on your machine and pulling the thread into the bobbin thread tension guide you should have a good-looking bobbin, ready for a great session of sewing!

Tips for cutting out fabric when sewing

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These are the top tips for cutting out your fabric that we share when you join a sewing workshop at Thread Den. Doing a great job of cutting out all your pattern pieces before you even start sewing will help the rest of your project go smoothly.

  • Keep the shears and fabric as close to the tabletop as possible. Keep your fabric flat, do not lift it up or off the table to access it. You can scootch your shears along the tabletop (keeping the lower blade touching the tabletop).
  • Keep your shears straight.
  • Take long cuts.
  • Peel the fabric of the cutout pattern pieces out of your way as you cut.
  • Keep the pattern pieces on the left of your shears (if right-handed).
  • Use lovely sharp fabric shears.
  • When snipping in your notches, never cut them deeper than the seam allowance. 5mm or less is about right.

Sew a simple face mask

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YouTube Watch it on YouTube – click here.

We’ve put together a video to help with making face masks. We’ve kept it simple so you can make these for yourself and your family.

We used this pattern from Birch Creative – click here.

The face mask made in the video is from a pillow case. The high thread count makes for a good tight weave fabric and this was a cotton poly-blend. Also we opted for three layers of fabric. For extra options on the ties, we popped two ties on each side. We couldn’t decide if ties around the back of the head or behind the ears was most comfortable, so we’ve allowed for both options.

Victoria State Government advice on supplies and instructions to make a rectangular cloth mask – click here.

Simple Face Mask Banner

Threading your needle

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Quick tip:

Make it easier to thread your machine needle; snip your thread on an angle to give it a point and always ensure your needle is in its highest position as you thread it. Before you know it, your fingers will remember exactly where to go. 

Old fashioned or necessary: Hang the garment?

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Have you ever come across the instruction “hang the garment for 24 hours”. It may seem unnecessary or even a bit of an old fashioned wive’s tale. But this instruction is necessary and has a purpose. 

 

A circle skirt covers all the angles of the fabric, think of the skirt hanging on your body – at the front the grain line hangs vertically, on your hips the cross grain hangs vertically, in between the bias is hanging vertically.

 

If you pull on the angles of your fabric you would find there is very little give along the grain line, there is some give along the cross grain, and there is loads of give or stretch along the bias. Once hanging the bias will stretch and this makes the hem drop more at the bias angles. By hanging your garment, you allow the dropping to occur before hemming.

 

Make a circle skirt in our class and learn all about the bias and handling the fabric, inserting an invisible zip, attaching a waistband and how to narrow hem all that fabric! Make a Circle Skirt at Thread Den.

 

Image from Melly Sews