Four Effective Ways to Improve Your Sewing Skills is a must-read. It emphasises the continuing relevance of this important skill.
Sewing is, above all, a sensual and emotional experience, and it has been so since the Paleolithic era.
Don’t even begin a project, if you don’t love the colour and enjoy the feel of the fabric.
Fit may be flawless, design stunning, AND workmanship impeccable, but if the fabric doesn’t appeal to the senses, you’ll never wear it.
Let’s get right into the four timeless and effective ways you can improve your sewing skills.
Four Effective Ways To Improve Your Sewing Skills
🖤 Mark the things that matter
It’s important to always mark the centre front.
Thread-trace lines that need to be seen on the right side (pocket placement, roll lines).
Colour-code your markings-how can you tell a large dot from a small dot if you’ve tailor-tacked them in the same thread colour?
This will save time, not waste it. How often do you pull out the pattern pieces to double-check a marking?
🖤 Establish Priorities
It is very important to establish your priorities when choosing a pattern size.
Few of us are one size all over, so be sure to select a pattern size to best fit the part of your body that will carry the weight of the garment.
When buying a pattern for an upper-body garment (jacket, dress, shirt, blouse, or coat), choose the size that fits your shoulders and neckline.
When buying a lower-body pattern (pants or skirt), choose a size that fits your waist and upper body.
Four Effective Ways To Improve Your Sewing Skills
🖤 Use Good and Quality Materials
Poor quality fabric never looks as good as good quality fabric. Finish your seam allowances, and pick appropriate seam finishing techniques.
Include details like topstitching and special trims to make your sewing look special.
Slow down and enjoy the process. Sewing is just as much about the making process as it is about the finished result. It’s not a race!
🖤 Interfacing is a Discretionary Material!
Don’t just follow the pattern, treat the suggestions in your pattern or guidebook as starting points.
Use your own hands and eyes to tell you what areas in this garment need support or body.
Examine your clothes (actually open the linings!) to discover how ready-to-wear uses interfacing to get results you like. It’s got to be either the fabric or the interfacing, or both.
Don’t just buy a basic interfacing or two and use them everywhere; start a collection and test each one.
Also, don’t be afraid to layer your favourite interfacing until you get the effect you want, or to use more than one type of interfacing in the same garment.
It’s sensible to use heavier interfacing in a lapel, a lighter-weight one in a jacket front, and a medium-weight one in a hem.
Even if it isn’t suggested in the pattern. That’s how it’s done in ready-to-wear.
Four Effective Ways To Improve Your Sewing Skills