Hello fashion sewers, and welcome to another FREE online fashion sewing tutorial.
Today at Fashion Sewing Blog, I’d like to look at a subject that causes EVERY fashion sewer the odd headache from time to time.
No matter your sewing expertise!
Be you complete beginner or professional fashion designer, we have all faced the frustrating challenge of working (and trying to control) those delicate and slippery fabrics that seem to have a mind of there own.
So today, I’d like to share with you some little fashion sewing tricks of the trade, and help resolve one or two common mistakes we sometimes make when -
1 – We cut out sewing pattern pieces on slippery and delicate fabric.
2 – We machine sew onto slippery or delicate fabrics.
Cutting Slippery Fabrics
sewing
Have you ever placed your chiffon, voiles, silks or other lightweight fabrics on a table, and found that no matter how hard you try, it always finds a way to move about, completely rubbishing your lay planning?
If the answer is YES – then this little trick may help!
So to clarify, when cutting out these delicate fabrics, minminize movement and use tissue paper to firstly lay the fashion fabric onto. This acts as a natural magnet to help hold your fabric in one place.
To achieve accurate placement of your sewing pattern pieces, pin them through all of the thicknesses, i.e – tissue paper, fashion fabric and sewing pattern piece.
Use long cutting strokes with sharp fabric scissors for smooth lines.
Sewing Slippery Fabrics
sewing
When sewing delicate and slippery fabric, before one stitch is ever contemplated, you need the right tools and to ensure that your sewing machine has the right tension setting.
When you machine sew slippery and delicate fashion fabrics, try to follow these steps -
Place a small amount of sticky tape over the hole in your sewing machines ‘throat plate‘. This will help prevent jamming.
Start your sewing around 0.5cm’s from the seam edge. This prevents your fabric from jamming in the throat plate. Remember to back stitch and hold onto your threads.
Use a short stitch length and loosen the thread tension. Do practise on samples first to make sure you’ve got the settings just right.
I do hope you found both of these fashion sewing tutorials of some use.
Do let me know.
Don’t forget to subscribe to FashionSewingBlogTV and never miss another fashion sewing demonstration again.
If you have any questions regarding this, or any other fashion sewing technique, then please do get in touch.
I look forward to hearing from you all.
Happy fashion sewing
About the Author: Colleen G Lea is the founder of Fashion Sewing Blog and co-owner of DC Media Productions. Get more from Colleen at YouTube and Google+.
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Hello Colleen,
I love to listen to you! This is a very good tip and I will buy tissue paper today! I have a question about raglan sleeves. What is the best way to change a set in sleeve pattern into a raglan style?
Hi Christine,
Thanks for the question.
Its a case of removing some of the bodice (front and back) from the neck to underarm seam, and then attaching the cut off sections onto the sleeve itself. The underpart of the sleeve will then have to be slashed to spread and form the shaping of the raglan sleeve. It’s quite complicated to explain in words.
lovely tips. definitely helpful. i got a whole lot of slippery fabrics recently. thanks
Thanks for letting me know. It’s always a great pleasure to hear my fashion sewing tutorials are of use.
Do you find that using serrated blades (scissors) makes cutting slippery fabrics easier? I have heard that the serrated blades “grab” the fabric and make the process of cutting the slippery fabrics much easier.
Thank you for any advice – I’ve been wondering if I should get a pair or not….
To be honest Angela, I’ve never actually used serrated blades whilst fashion sewing. It may be worth getting a cheap pair to give it a try. Let me know how it goes.