Thursday, December 9, 2010

When you know, you can grow

These last two days have been good sewing days for me.  I enjoy closing off the world when I enter my sewing space, and entering a place of peacefulness, calm and serenity.  There is a certain freedom in sewing that I truly appreciate!

Thank you so much for all of the kind comments regarding my daughter's ER incident.  She is doing great, and her cheek is healing nicely.  Most of all, I am glad to get back to normal life and normal things.

Speaking of normal things, I made sugar cookies with the kids today.  Actually, they are baking as I write this post (I love to multi-task).  When Christmas comes around I can't help but to bake!  I usually bake cookies or some kind of treat every week (no kidding, ask my hubby).  Our Christmas tree is already up, but I need to do some ornament editing = ).  Does anyone else move ornaments around on the Christmas tree until they find that perfect spot?

These are the yummy cookies we are baking, though ours are star cutouts:



I am almost done with my son's PJ shirt I've been working on, will probably post that tomorrow, but I started thinking about sewing in general, and what certain tips have made my sewing experience FAR, FAR better.

I could think of a couple, but my absolute, most favorite is this one:

**Mark the wrong side of your fabric**.


Especially in cases where your fabric sides look the same, such as cotton interlock knit, take the time to mark the wrong side of your fabric.  It is so extremely helpful, because then you do not have to wonder if you are constructing the garment correctly due to not remembering which side is which (and I do tend to forget).  I like to mark my wrong sides with paper masking tape.


I just put a small dot of it on the wrong side of my garment where I know it won't get in the way.  I never have problems getting the tape back off again, and paper tape is gentle enough for all the fabrics I've worked with.
Anyhow, you can use anything you want to mark the wrong sides of your fabric, it is just important that you mark them.  Trust me!

So, that brings me to a question I wanted to ask all of YOU!

What is the best sewing tip you've ever received?

It could be as basic as mine, or more advanced.  In essence, what sewing advice really changed your sewing life?


Stay sew-filled!

4 comments:

  1. My cousin went to design school and in 1997 came to visit for a month and she told me to put in the zipper while only the back pieces were sewn on the skirt I was making.

    Changed my life and my sewing!

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  2. I was sewing some leather appliques on a denim jacket. Didn't want to use pins on leather so a friend suggested double sided sticky tape. I've also found other uses for it as well, such as basting zippers.

    Christiana
    sewamusing.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmmm...the importance and how to of truing up fabric before cutting. Making sure the fabric is on grain, stretching it until it is, before cutting properly, just makes all the difference in the finish of the garments I make.

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  4. Making a rough cut of fabric and interfacing, ironing the interfacing onto the rough cut, and then cutting out the pattern piece--wow, that eliminated a lot of my frustration over cutting out the pattern piece and interfacing separately. That was the best tip I learned at the ASE, from Kathy Ruddy.

    ReplyDelete

Let me know what you think!