5 Surprisingly Useful Sewing Tricks

Water! One of the most useful of sewing tools. Also, zooming out will really take away the magic of how certain shots are done. And what I really mean by water is water in a spray and mist form. My name is Cornelius Quiring. That's my logo. That's my wordmark. And thank you Skillshare for sponsoring this video. I've got this piece of fabric here and I've gone ahead and pressed two creases into it. I'm going to give this one here just a little bit of a spritz. I'm now going to go ahead and just open that up a little bit. And look at how much this crease has disappeared compared to this one with just a light little spritz. I'm telling you water. It's a miracle. Now I should point out that this is a 100% cotton fabric. This is going to work best with natural fibers. But essentially what's happening is the water soaks into the fibers of the yarn of the fabric and that's what's causing it to soften and relax and make it more pliable and workable. Like a putty almost, if you will. The reason I actually have a spray bottle though with water is I find it's so much more effective doing a little pre-spray giving it even just 15 to 30 seconds to soak in really helps it work into the fibers. Whereas using the features on the iron are in the moment and it doesn't give the water the full potential to do the work that it can. I'm telling you it's all it's all about the pre-spray. But let's take it one step further. I want to sew a hem at the bottom here and I've gone ahead and pre-marked my two fold lines. And then I'm going to go ahead and just give it a light little spritz on each side. Now that it's nice and damp I can go ahead and fold over on my marks here. And as you see because the fibers have softened up from the water it just lays really nice and flat and makes that process much easier. Fold that over. All righty a little press. I mean look at that and that's the second fold over done. Give that a pressing so it lays nice and extra flat. But also I don't want wet fabric going through my machine that's a bit of a no-no. Stitch that on and I've got myself a beautiful hem. And yes it definitely does add extra steps doing the spray and takes more time. But I think it's worth it just for a cleaner more refined precise finish. You know well we're trying to improve our skills here. The key to a nice crispy corner or edge of some sort is an angled stitch. Which seems counterintuitive so let me let me demonstrate that. And then once I get to the corner I make sure that my needle is down. Lift up my presser foot and then I angle my fabric at a 45 degree. Put the presser foot down and I like to do this just by hand. I go one stitch on that 45 degree angle all the way down. Lift up the presser foot again. Turn and then I can make my way down the other direction. I trim off the corner. A little spritz of water on the corner here never harms these tips. They can be intertwined. They're useful I'm telling you. Anyways let's go ahead and turn this puppy inside out. I don't know if it makes a difference or not but I like to fold over the two sides of seam allowance. Pinch them in my fingers and then flip around. Give it a little wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle. Give that just a little bit of a pressing and I mean look at that crispy square corner you got. In fact let's put it on top of the right angle ruler. Not bad if I do say so myself. So I'm doing a second sample here where I stitch perfectly square into the corner and there's one right on the edge. That's the angled stitch and that's the one with the stitch right into the corner. In fact if you look really close you can see those two black dots there and those are the stitches from the angled stitch and essentially what that does is just allow the room for the yarn of the fabric to turn out in the point of the corner here whereas with this other one here that stitch right in the corner is holding onto the yarns of the fabric on the inside which then of course prevents it from turning all the way out. I'm just a guy hanging out in his basement studio trying to perfect his sewing skills from a random source of hodgepodge online places and it got me thinking certainly it would be nice to learn from the pros and thanks to Skillshare I can learn from the best in the business. Skillshare is the largest online community for creatives like you and I and it's led by industry experts in topics like fashion, sewing, embroidery, quilting, all topics imagine you and I are interested in and so not only can these skill sets improve the sewing that you and I do but maybe it's time to turn this thing into a real career well those business classes to help with that as well. I'm currently taking Robin Burgess's custom fit clothing sew a made to measure muslin class and something I personally learned is that she ties elastic bands on key points of her body so when she goes to measure herself she knows exactly where to measure to. That is clever I like that but it's also nice to see that she uses the cut and slash technique to alter her patterns to fit better something I also do so good to know it's been confirmed by the experts and best of all the first 500 people to use my link down in the description will get a one month free trial to Skillshare. How wonderful isn't that? Join me over on Skillshare today. One more time angled stitch not angled stitch. One of the biggest challenges sewing thicker fabrics or multiple layers of fabrics is getting started especially when the presser foot is sitting at an angle like this. Yeah it ain't going anywhere so what I like to do is first well in this instance let me first undo the multiple stitches from sitting in place I start by flipping whatever it is that I'm sewing backwards and put it underneath just a short distance so that way I can do my back stitch first like this but of course then when I go ahead and flip it around to do my normal stitch I run right back into the same problem that is why I keep this little piece of scrap cardboard in my chest of tools I lift up my presser foot I sneak this piece of cardboard in behind I have gone ahead and folded it because I've got a rather thick layer here put my presser foot back down and then away I sew or alternatively take a scrap of fabric of the exact same material and in my case I've got four layers here so I'm going to just fold this scrap into four layers tuck that in in behind and look at that my presser foot this wasn't in the way my presser foot is nice and level and so these scraps actually end up getting some use although in my case this is a scrap and a scrap but look I'm here to demo things okay ideas ideas I'm sharing ideas congratulations by the way you're a you're a member of a rare club two-thirds of people have already dropped out of watching this video if you want to be even more rare and check out my website to see the many things I've got going on like this or just click one of the many links in the description next up let's learn about the gathering thread and what I mean by a gathering thread is actually a gathering stitch where the thread in the stitch helps to gather the fabric oh that's a word salad anyways let me show you an example of what I mean I want to do a curved hem but not only that I want to do a double folded curved hem just to make things a little more tricky for myself but anyways I have gone ahead and I have marked out where my folds are going to be and pro tip for the first fold over I always find that doing it a little bit smaller makes it much easier for when I have to tuck it in on the second part I adjust the stitch length on my machine to be the maximum amount possible and then I run a stitch along this first set of markings here which is the first fold and the key is not to back stitch I just go ahead and sew right along now I hold on to one of the thread ends and then proceed to gather my fabric hence a gathering stitch right and so once I've gathered a little bit I go ahead and spread that out as evenly as I can I want to have nice even ruffling happening I'm going to give it a little spritz of water look at that it's coming back again this tip and fold over right on that line that I just stitched and then fold over my second amount like so and essentially what that gather does is help to nicely gather my fabric for an even and consistent double folded hem and it is a little bit fiddly there may need to be some adjusting happening like I may have slightly over gathered so I'm just going to loosen that up just a little bit I'm going to press this to sit nice and flat and now I just do my regular stitch as I normally would and the reason I didn't back stitch this gathering stitch earlier is because I can now just pull that puppy out of here and look at that beauty double folded curved hem which looks even more stunning on the outside of the garment which is what we'll be seeing anyways now where else might one want to use a gathering stitch well you ask the best of questions dear viewer on the cap of a sleeve for example so if you've ever tried sewing in a sleeve and you found it was too big for the armhole this is why you want to gather the top of the sleeve cap enough so that it actually fits inside of your armhole so that way when it gets flipped around the right way it is worn there isn't extra tension on the cap of the sleeve here and causes wrinkling and stuff in fact a lot of folks like to do two gathering stitches so that way you have one above the final stitch and one below the final stitch and you get to more finely control how much gathering you're doing look at the shine on that feather oh oh the light is just dancing on that thing the visual feast when it comes to sewing a straight line or a gorgeous seam there's only one thing you need to know and that's what not to do do not look at the needle let's say i'm stitching together two pieces of fabric i'm going to go ahead and line it up with this seam allowance line right here on the edge and keep my gaze fixed on that spot to make sure that it doesn't waver so really the key is actually to make sure we've done a really nice job of cutting a clean edge on our fabric and then don't look at the needle but the seam allowance align now say i'm doing a hem in that instance i go ahead and align it just to the left of this little marking here and that little marking essentially indicates where the needle is going to be so i want the edge of my hem to be just a little bit to the left and once again my papers are focused to make sure it stays just to the left in this example again the key is to make sure we've done a really good job of folding over our hem an equal amount all along and then don't look at the needle perhaps i want to sew on a curve i'm going to do what i did with the first one and line it up with my seam allowance line on the side here i make sure to keep a nice even pace and then i'm real gentle with my hands and fingers just lightly feeding it along let the machine do the work don't don't don't try to muscle the thing it's it knows what it's doing and oh yeah uh continue to watch to make sure the edge is lined up with my seam allowance line on the side here the key is to make sure we've done a good job of prepping the curve that we're about to sew and then don't look at the needle so i think i should actually expand it to make sure you've done a good job prepping whatever it is you're and you my friend are one of the rarest of all you've made it to the end of the video giant thank you let me know some of your tips down in the comments that are very simple but effective when it comes to sewing also massive thank you to everyone who supports me on patreon especially these top tier supporters not only can you get your name there but you can even get exclusive content maybe you want to check out my pattern drafting courses perhaps you want this gift set that i mentioned earlier huh come on look at that it's even got shiny stuff here i think that's pretty cool hey check out my website or click one of the links down in the description to uh to see everything i got going on