Mini Sewing Tips by Sew4Home
Join us each month for a useful tip from Sew4Home to help you take your sewing skills to the next level. From stitching techniques, to finishing secrets, to design practices, the S4H team will bring you mini methods to improve and explore.
How to Make an Adjustable Strap with Sew4Home
Making an adjustable strap can seem like a magic rope trick with all the weaving and threading this way and that. But, it’s really quite easy, and it makes the strap so much more useful: lengthen to wear cross body, shorten for a shoulder strap or to hand carry.
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Magnetic Snaps with Sew4Home
The magnetic snap is indispensable to the construction of purses, totes, and bags. As with many notions and tools that add a unique professional finish, the steps for their use are not necessarily difficult. The secrets are taking the time and patience to go through the instructions in the correct order, and using extra precision in your marking and measuring.
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Creating Sharp Corners with Sew4Home
By definition, the term topstitching has traditionally defined the line of stitching that attaches one element to another, such as a pocket to a shirt. However, most sewing enthusiasts more often default to width rather than construction when describing their right-side–of-the-project stitching, using topstitching when describing a stitch distance of more than ⅛” from the edge and edgestitching for ⅛” or closer. The image above shows stitching close-ups of both types from the Multi Pocket Canvas Tote, a free project available now at S4H.
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Creating Sharp Corners with Sew4Home
A common area of sewing frustration, especially if you’re new, is the corner. Those pesky four corners create any square or rectangular item, like the home décor standard: the pillow! The number one goal when sewing a corner is to be precise. You must stop and pivot at the exact point where the seam allowances on the two sides intersect. This precision stitching, when combined with proper trimming of the excess fabric from the seam allowance, will create a beautiful sharp point and smooth edge every time.
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Sewing with Faux Fur with Sew4Home
Today’s faux fur gives you the luxurious look and feel of real fur at a fraction of the price and without harming any animals. Plus, because of recent improvements in fabric manufacturing, it comes in an amazing array of rich colors and lush textures. It truly starts out beautiful on the bolt. But… if you treat faux fur like regular fabric, your project can end up looking like a bad haircut. Not to worry. Once you learn a few tips, you’ll enjoy a whole new world of sumptuous sewing.
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How to Make Gathers with Sew4Home
The primary reason to gather is to add fullness and shape in fabric that is otherwise flat. Your gathers can be tight and frilly or loose and billowy. Along the raw edge of fabric, you might be creating a ruffle that will eventually be inserted into or attached onto a project. No matter how you use them, gathers are a lovely embellishment – a favorite for centuries…
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How to Measure for Curtains with Sew4Home
We’re covering the basics here of outside, inside, and trim mounts. As with all projects, you can dive deeper into various details and alternatives, but this information will do the trick in the vast majority of situations. What function will the window coverings need to have? Is it to block out daylight? Let in light but give privacy or will they help cover…
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How to Sew Smooth Curves with Sew4Home
In home décor sewing, there are lots of squares and rectangles. Pillows, place mats, curtain panels… nice flat shapes with plenty of good ol’ right angles. Learning to bend those right angles is a necessary part of sewing, and opens up new, fun possibilities. Using sharp fabric scissors is important in all fabric cutting, but it’s especially critical on curves. Sometimes curves can be difficult to keep even because of your position as you cut and/or the size of the curve…
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How to Make a French Seam with Sew4Home
In general, the purpose of any seam finish is to prevent fray-prone fabrics from raveling beyond the sewn seam and leaving a hole in your sewn project. However, regardless of fabric type, finishing a project’s inside raw edges will not only elevate the final appearance, it will also elevate your sewing skills to a professional level. If a fabric is sheer and/or delicate, it’s an ideal candidate for a French seam. Heavyweight fabrics can be used but are a challenge…
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Make Perfect Buttonholes with Sew4Home
Most of us understand how to sew on a button. Pretty easy and not scary at all. But buttonholes are a whole different matter. At the end of your project, after you’ve put in so much work, it’s time to for the buttonholes. You should be happy you’re almost done. But for many of us, beads of sweat start to form across our brows and we wonder, “Am I about to ruin everything by botching the buttonholes?” Well, you can stop sweating, because our friends at S4H have broken it down into individual steps.
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Make a Narrow Hem with a Neat Corner with Sew4Home
Finishing the corners when you’re making a narrow hem can be a challenge. Making a perfect 90˚ fold at each corner is one option, and often will work just fine. However, it can be tough to keep your raw edges tucked in, and bulky or slippery fabrics can cause you fits. Instead, our friends at S4H are sharing their go-to finish option: a narrow hem with a folded diagonal point corner: easy, tidy, and pretty from both sides.
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Measurement Know How with Sew4Home
They always say, “it’s the little things.” And in sewing, that is very often the case. Our friends at Sew4Home have shared some of their most popular basic sewing printable charts, including how to decipher the marks on a measuring tape as well as how to convert from one fabric width to another. Read the full article to download and print these handy quick reference tools.
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How to make a Blind Hem with Sew4Home.
A blind hem is exactly what it sounds like: a hem with stitches you can barely see. It’s perfect for window coverings, the hem at the bottom of a garment, or anywhere you want a clean finished edge. For many people, especially those just starting their sewing journey, attaining a perfect blind hem can seem like finding the Holy Grail. Here’s the secret…
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How to Use a Twin Needle with Sew4Home
The way to get perfectly even, super close, double rows of stitching is to use a twin needle. If you’re someone who thinks twin needles are way too complicated, you’re in for a very pleasant surprise: twice the stitching is half as hard as you might imagine.
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How to Check the Grain with Sew4Home
Fabric grain… sounds like a breakfast cereal just for sewists. In reality, it’s a technical term that describes the direction your fabric has been woven. It’s important to know which way the grain is running, because fabric that is off-grain when you are cutting pattern pieces can cause your completed project to stretch out of shape.
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Square Up Fabric with Sew4Home
Puckered seams. Misaligned panels. If you’ve ever tried to work with fabric cuts are that are not straight and true, you know why it’s so important to square-up your fabric. This is a technique that belongs in everyone’s sewing toolbox. Read on for Sew4Home’s easy folding, aligning, and cutting tips.
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How to Rip Out a Seam with Sew4Home
Mistakes happen to the best of us. Anyone who sews, understands that some seams, just weren’t meant to be. The good news; with a little care and patience it’s an easy fix and no one will know. The majority of woven fabrics such as quilting cottons are very forgiving and can be re-done, seamlessly.
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Create an Inset or Recessed Zipper with Sew4Home
You’ve likely seen this type of zipper on loads of handbags and totes. It sits below the top of the bag, featuring tabs at either end to hold on to, making it easy to zip open and shut. When you want a professional look plus the security of a full closure, you can’t go wrong with this type of closure.
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Continuous Bias Made Easy with Sew4Home.
Cutting and seaming together bias strips is the standard technique for custom bias binding. And, it works great. Continuous bias binding is one of those “two birds with one stone” techniques. Simply stated, it’s a technique for pre-sewing bias binding strips before you actually cut them.
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How to Make an Adjustable Strap with Sew4Home
Making an adjustable strap can seem like a magic rope trick with all the weaving and threading this way and that. But, it’s really quite easy, and it makes the strap so much more useful: lengthen to wear cross body, shorten for a shoulder strap or to hand carry.
> Read the full article on Janome Life or La vie chez Janome
How to Narrow Wide Webbing Straps to fit Narrow Hardware with Sew4Home
The stars do not always align. Sometimes the perfect webbing or strapping you’ve selected for a shoulder bag or similar project is simply too darn wide for the D-ring or Swivel Hook you really want/need to use. Try this quick Sew4Home trick to bring your wide webbing down to size.
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How to turn and press skinny ties and straps with Sew4Home
Skinny little straps, tiny little ties… they can twist, turn, and generally misbehave. And turning them right side out – yikes! Follow our quick and easy steps to both turn a tube and press it flat using a standard pair of hemostats and a strip of cardboard.
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Mix & Match Colors and Prints with Sew4Home
Mastering the proper mixology of color and motif is something designers spend years perfecting. But there are basics everyone can use to create a fabulous look. Color and pattern blending is art and science and just plain fun! Check these Top 10 Secrets that covers everything from choosing a style to creating colour balance!
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Fussy Cutting with Sew4Home
When you spot something within a fabric’s motif and decide to cut it in a way that will precisely capture a specific section for a specific purpose, that’s called fussy cutting. This includes when you meticulously line up a fabric’s pattern so you don’t see a seam…
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