Flatlocking

 In the comments to my previous post, several people mentioned those hems. Badmomgoodmom liked them as a reminder that you can do functional hems on a serger, while redpointtailor and Lakshmi Rajesh wanted to try the technique. 
So, for them and for those of you who thought the same thing, but didn't comment, I thought I'd better explain how to make this type of hem as best as I can.
There are probably a lot of other tutorials for this out there, and better ones as well, but I don't know them. So, to answer any questions, I'll just show you what I do.
In fact, I've only been using this technique for a little while. Before, I sort of knew about it, but it wasn't until my boyfriend bought a couple of RTW t-shirts with this type of finish that I was interested enough to try it out.

It all starts, as so much in sewing, with pressing. Press the amount of fabric you want as the hem up at the wrong side of the fabric (nothing special there, you'd do that for any kind of hem). 

The second bit of pressing is a bit more unusual: Press you hem to the right side of the garment along the line at which the raw edge has come to lie after the first pressing.

Now, it's time to get the serger ready. Normally, when making a garment in jersey, you'll be using two needles and four threads on your serger. For flatlocking, you need one needle (the one on the right) and three threads. The tension settings which work well on mine are: a normal setting, 4, on the upper and lower looper and a reduced tension, 2 (normal would be 4 as well) on the needle. 

And then you can start hemming. carefully guide the edge which has both a fold and the raw edge betweenthe needle and the blade. You don't want to cut anthing away. In fact, try to keep a millimeter or so between the serger blade and the edge of the fabric. (of course you could swivel the blade away but I don't. Having it in the normal position makes aiming easier IMHO).

When the serging is done, the hem will look like this (on the wrong side of the fabric).

Fold it open (on the right side) and pull a bit to open the stitches.

Press flat, and your hem is done!

The dart-and-pocket trick

Remember this pattern piece? Well, I got enough time to work on my jacket last weekend to put it together.

It's not really a how-to, but if you know how to do a bound pocket, this may help de-mystify the dart-and-pocket trick (if it was a mystery to you, maybe that was just me last year...)

Anyway, first I sewed up that front dart. I pressed it open and applied the horsehair in which I had cut out the dart, catchstitching the seam allowance of the dart to the horsehair. The bit about the horsehair is not really relevant to what I'm trying to explain here but it is why the photograph is like this. The dart gives such shape to the pattern piece that some bits of basting and catchstitching had to be done with the bust piece draped over my small tailor's ham.

After that, I sewed the side seam and fused not-woven interfacing (Vlieseline, I never use that stuff except for things like this) to the spot where pocket will be. I prepared the pocket flap and welt pieces, and proceeded to make a bound pocket with flap as normal.

Only when I cut it open, I only had to cut though the interfacing for most of the pocket's length.

And this was the result. I'm rather pleased with it.

After the pockets, I made two bound buttonholes.

Next up: padstitching the collar and lapels.

Buttoned, bound pockets

Yesterday, I left a comment on Tanit-Isis's blog about bound pockets with buttons.

I realised later how hard it is to explain such a fairly simple addition without showing it.

So, I'm showing it here. In fact, I'm surprised about how many unbuttoned bound back pockets there are out there, both in RTW and in sewing patterns. I've made those twice myself and I always get annoyed by the pockets pulling up whenever I sit down and staying up.

There are two ways to add a button closure to a bound pocket:

with a buttonhole, usually used with a single welt

and with a little loop, used exclusively with a double welt.

Mine is wrong, the loop should come out from between the welts. When starting on the pocket, I put my loop between the trouser piece and the strip of fabric which was to become the welt, instead of on top of it. I didn't notice until I had cut the pocket and decided to leave it like this.

If you've made bound pockets before, neither of these is very hard to do but unfortunately, both require planning ahead.

As mentioned above, the loop should be inserted right at the beginning of pocket construction, when sewing the welt-strips.

The buttonhole should be added a little later. This is my test for the first single welt pocket I ever made. It shows the stage at which the buttonhole has to be made.

The welt is in place, the pocket has been cut and the actual pocket pieces have been attached to the top and bottom of the pocket opening. They are not yet attached to each other at the sides. Now, you can make a buttonhole in the outside fabric and the pocket piece attached to the bottom of the pocket. Then, you attach the button to the other piece and finish sewing the pocket.

I guess it would be possible to make a hidden buttonhole by only making it in the pocket piece. However that is the piece which is always made from lining fabric so it would kind of defeat the original purpose of the button (which is keeping the pocket neatly in place. the lining fabric would just be pulled up by the back of the pocket). And most buttonhole feet would not be able to cope with the stacked seam nearby (when make the visible buttonhole, you're placing the foot on top of it, making it invisible, you would have to fold the pocket bits in a way which makes the seam allowances at the bottom of the pocket stand up).

I hope this is useful. Let me know if anything needs clarifying.

Into my sewing history - part 3

After sifting through all my clothes when installing my new wardrobe, I promised you a whole series of blasts from my sewing past.

I've shown you two.

The old achievements were quickly pushed aside by new projects and newer plan... much like... No, let's not get philosophical about that. It's not so bad, after all, those old achievements were the building blocks of all mycurrent crafty endevours... much like.....

Joking aside, I thought it would be nice to do one more post with my old skirts. Completely apart from their looks, they represent an important step in my 'development' as a seamstress. They are the result of my very first tentative steps into pattern making.

I made these before taking lessons in pattern making, using a (unfortunately Dutch-only) book called 'Rok en co' (skirt and co'), with the subtitle 'for the lazy seamstress.

I would recommend this book to all beginners who like the notion of making patterns but lack the time or the love of math/technique to go all the way. It has loads of fun illustration and tutorials for several simple skirt patterns. And the sort of can-do attitude that encourages you to use it as a starting point for your own experiments.

I made these skirts based on the book's pencil skirt. The first one is long, has a little flare from just above the knee and a curved-up hemline. The second one is plain at the front but has a lace-up center back with three rows of circular ruffles underneath.

This skirt was based on the book's gored skirt tutorial. I made a long, plain 6 gore skirt before. This one is treated as a 6 gore skirt at the front and as a 8 gore skirt at the back. Instead of widening the gores themselves, I inserted the red satin godets. The skirt also is quite a bit longer at the back.

The pattern worked out fine, but this was the item which really showed me I needed some extra sewing skills. I had no idea how to make a good hem on such flared bits and the zigzagged seam allowances at the back were on show all the time.

The last skirt was a quick high-summer option. I used the pencil skirt pattern as a base for the yoke and the circle skirt tutorial to calculate the hole I had to cut in the rest of the fabric.

When I went to my first sewing technique and pattern making lesson, I took both of the knee length skirts and the voile blouse with me, to show the teacher my starting point. She was very nice about all of them and told me all I really needed to learn were some finishing tricks. Of course, then my sewing addiction really kicked in, I learned much, much more from her and the rest, as they say, is history.

A coat in the making - sewing secrets everyone should know

Today, I have been able to do a lot of work on my new coat. I loved it, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it finished and wearing it. I just hope I can find the right buttons on the market tomorrow.

Working on it got me thinking: is there anything I do in coat construction which could be considered a 'sewing secret', something I could share here?

Earlier, someone asked me for tips on sewing heavy wool fabrics. Honestly, I don't think I have any. In my experience, midweight and heavier woolen make the most lovely fabrics for sewing. The stretch of the fibre itself makes it very forgiving and it allows itself to be molded into shape by sewing and pressing. Handling the sheer bulk of a thick wool coat under the sewing machine arm can be tricky, but, once again, the fabric is very forgiving. Even if your stitches get uneven because the fabric got snagged somewhere, it won't show through the texture of the fabric.

That is a bit of a sewing trick by the way, one I assume most of you are very well aware of already: always press your seams. It may sound fussy, but believe me it's worth it. Having all your seams pressed can turn your creation from housework to personal couture. And it will make things like creating welt pockets and inserting gussets a lot easier.

The real 'sewing secret' I wanted to share in post, however, is another one: know your fusibles. Choosing the right kind of interfacing for the job at hand can be almost as important as choosing the right fabric. And you can forget about vlieseline straight away, there's a whole world of woven and knit fusible interfacings out there which work a lot better for most jobs. Vlieseline is made from fibres which have been pressed together. This means that in one direction, you can easily pull it apart and it can get quite stiff and 'paper-y' when ironed on. I only use it to back the fabric where I want to make something like a welt pocket. Because it is made of pressed fibres, it can't fray. Usually, I use a light woven fusible for shirt collars and button bands and a heavier kind for skirt and trouser waistbands or facings.

Elaborate wool garments like coats and jackets get a special treatment. M taught me this when I made my first coat and jacket, under her guidance. You can buy a special kind of fusible interfacing for wool fabrics. It resembles thin, soft, loosely woven webbing and should be applied all over the inside of the garment (excluding seam allowance). When pressing it on (you can use steam with this stuff), you have to use a pressing cloth, otherwise it will stick to your iron.

'Interfacing' (yes, I know it's technically cheating to use that term here) like this will prevent unraveling and add weight and 'body' to the fabric, allowing you to create a garment like soft sculpture.