Today was the second day of my sewing class and I made even more progress than yesterday. Ms Maria started the class by talking about different accessories used in sewing with the help of a accessories box which she owned. She also told us that in today’s class we would make a doll skirt with a gathering and a little pouch with elastic. Firstly, Ms.Maria told us about fabric cutting and the tools used for it.
Fabric cutting is an extremely important part when one is constructing something using fabric. It requires no prior skills but without the right tools and the quick cut, the fabric can be destroyed and most probably one will end up with fabric unworthy of being used ever again.
I was confident at first and then Maria took out the measuring mat and a long and wide ruler. At that precise moment, I felt nervous because I am an average math student and I’m not very good at measuring things and I also felt like I might cut the fabric wrong and never end up sewing anything good. Maria then continued to explain that its essential to always have a measuring mat and a measuring scale so that we would never cut fabric wrong. She also told us that there were two tools used to cut fabric and those were :
A rotary cutter
The rotary cutter is a circular metal blade that cuts through fabric as it rolls and can go in any direction, forward, backwards or sideways. The blades come in various sizes but the most commonly used one is 45 mm atleast for people who sew. The blades are changeable and there is no right or wrong size of a rotary cutter because it completely depends on what you’re going to cutting. If you’re cutting a small pattern with details then a small blade is best so that it can easily get through the pattern and not cut off the details. On the other hand, if you’re cutting a big piece of fabric then a big blade is best so that you can cut your fabric in one go and fast and move on with sewing. Maria also told us to never get confused between a pizza cutter and rotary cutter as they look quite similar! Helpful tip I must say!
Fabric Scissors
Fabric scissors or shears come in various kinds and are different for each purpose. For example, for knitting, knitting scissors are used. When I bought my fabric scissors it was just a common one used for sewing, nothing special so you don’t have to search high and low for a pair of fabric scissors breaking your mind on which one you should get. At first I didn’t get the difference, what made this fabric scissors different from a normal scissors? They look the same anyways! I’m going to be honest and say I still don’t quite get it but after a quick research courtesy of Google, I came across my answer. The regular scissors and shears are two very distinctive cutting tools. Scissors are multi-purpose and have similar small handles with sharp blades that are engaged together. Most shears on the other hand have an obvious design difference: one side or both has a larger handle to allow a couple of fingers. The handles are often attached with an adjustable screw for precision cutting especially dressmaker’s shears
Maria then took a piece of fabric and laid it out on the measuring mat and said that before you start cutting whatever you need, you should always make sure the edges and sides of the fabric are straight because fabric can often be crooked and this results in wrong measurements. All you have to do is place the fabric on the mat and take one side of the fabric and place it aligning to one square
If the side is crooked and does not align with the squares then you need to cut off that part.After that has been done, you can now proceed to cut out the fabric you require. For our first project of the day we needed two 5 x 5 pieces of fabric since we were going to start off with learning how to make pleats.
I first ironed the two pieces of fabric to smooth out any lumps and next I took one piece of fabric and I put the wrong side of the fabric under my sewing machine and basically I pulled the top part of the fabric towards me as the sewing machine worked which created a high tension and in turn created pleats. I learnt that if you increase the tension, you get smaller pleats but if you decrease the tension, then you get bigger pleats. There were also two types of pleats. Inverted pleats and pleating with topstich but these involved pinning your pleats beforehand and then just sewing them straightaway but Ms. Maria did not make us do this. After finishing off my pleats with two secure stiches- one at the beginning and one at the end, I sewed together the top halves of this pleated fabric and the other half of the normal 5 inch fabric quarter.
Next, we learnt how to do a gathering using elastic. This would be an important aspect as gathering using elastic is used in many skirts so if I wanted to make a skirt, this would be the ideal method to do the waistline as elastic is secure and will not fall off and is able to fit many sizes because of its stretchiness.
So first, I needed two 5 x 5 inch fat quarters of fabric and 1-2 inch elastic band. Next, I put the wrong sides of the fabric together in a hollow cylinder shape and I sewed a straight stich on the sides of the fabric to close it up but I left the top and bottom open. Then, I folded about a half inch waistline at the top of the circle fabric which I made and this part was to give the required space for the elastic to fit in. Before inserting the elastic, I sewed the waistline to make it secure and I left the required space for the elastic to fit in easily.
Basically when inserting elastic, I took a safety pin and attached it to the end of the elastic band and pulled it through the space I left in the waistline. This part was time consuming and my pin sometimes would not move it all through the fabric which made it frustrating and I would often just take a 3 minute break to not get angry and end up doing something incorrect. The lesson soon came to an end so Ms.Maria told me that I could continue it in my next lesson.
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