Master Your Machine

In sewing the ‘line’ is everything. Each seam is a line, straight or curved, each hem, each cuff and collar edge. Garments have straight seams, curves at neck and arms, corners at facings and pockets. Think of your seam line as your ‘fitting’ line, the edge of your creation. A beautiful, smooth fit requires a beautiful smooth line. A wobbly seam will give your skirt or trouser leg a wobbly outline which no amount of pressing will be able to correct. 
Once you have mastered sewing without wobbles, staying true to the line itself, your projects will automatically have a professional look and feel to them. I promise you will reduce the number of times you have to unpick; you will complete projects with fewer errors and fewer frustrations!

Each sewing line has a start and end point. Both are very important, and it is part of a dressmaker’s skill to accurately place the needle to ensure each line is correct in length and position. 
We cheat a bit at this! – we ‘hand crank’ the needle. This is a great term, hailing from the pre-electricity days, not that long ago, when sewing machines were indeed powered by the dressmaker's hand. On modern machines* this technique is still valuable, and machines continue to have a ‘wheel’ on the side which enables you to manually lower the needle accurately into position. 
For each of the sewing practice lessons:
I.    Print a couple of copies of each sewing practice sheet – no printer, no worries! – use lined notebook paper or draw on plain paper
II.    Ensure your machine is not threaded – top or bottom 
III.    Set the stitch to straight and stitch length mid-way, around 3-4, depending on the machine
IV.    Raise your machine presser foot and place the practice sheet so that most of the paper is to the left – as you would with fabric
V.    Lower the presser foot and hand crank – turn the wheel – the needle down into position at the start of the line. You can raise the foot and move the sheet as often as you need to get the correct position
VI.    Once the presser foot is down, start to sew! 
VII.    At the end of each line, practice slowing your machine and trying to stop with the needle in the paper precisely at the end. You can also stop 1-2cms before the end and hand crank the needle, but the point here is to practice and build your accuracy, be brave, it’s only paper! 
VIII.    Hand crank your needle out of the paper to the highest point, lift the presser foot and hold your paper up to the light to see your work!

The holy grail of sewing, the beautifully straight line! Once mastered it lifts the quality of all of your projects and removes the need for unpicking and re-doing your work. Master it now before you start, and your sewing journey will be all the better for it.
And the secret is….practicing on paper first works! Practicing without the stresses of thread or fabric, sewing on paper frees you up to concentrate on the line and the task at hand.  We would practice for days, perfecting our lines, understanding the ‘feel’ of our machines and building our confidence. No magnetic seam guides please! 
The practice sheets grow in difficulty, don’t forget, start and end points are important!
Tips:
•    Do NOT watch the needle! 
•    Watch the edge of your presser foot - when sewing seams, you will watch the presser foot or the guidelines on the plate in relation to the line you are sewing
•    Note where the line is in relation to the edge of the foot to ensure the needle consistently stays on the line
•    Place your hands lightly on the paper to guide it, the feed dogs on your machine will do the work of moving the paper forward, do NOT pull or push the paper 
•    You can test this on a blank sheet, simply sew without touching the paper and you will see your machine move the paper forward, pulling or pushing can distort your stitching and should be avoided
•    Turn the paper around for best fit on your machine, this is simply a paper exercise, make it as easy for yourself 
•    Start sewing slowly and as confidence grows, go back and try the same exercises at a higher speed

A corner is simply where two lines meet, how hard can it be?! Sewing a corner is not difficult, however, a professionally sewn corner really does make all the difference to a finished garment, think of a beautifully, crisp point on a shirt collar or a turned coat hem. 
There are several different methods for sewing and turning out corners, depending on the weight of your fabric. The treatment is different from a lightweight cotton shirt to a heavy wool coat. For the purposes of this exercise, we will continue to focus on the accuracy of the sewing line. This method applies to light and medium weight fabrics.

In sewing, to pivot means to leave your needle in the fabric, raise the foot and turn the fabric to the new desired position. The foot is then lowered and sewing can restart along the new sewing line. This ensures a smooth corner as your needle does not stop in one place and start somewhere different. The technique can also be applied to curves, pivoting multiple times to keep the needle accurately on the line.

For a corner, this means:
•    Sew along to the corner point
•    Stop sewing with the needle in the paper right at the point of the corner – hand crank if necessary for accuracy (tough love - you should now be able to accurately stop with the needle in at the end of a line, if not, go back and practice your straight lines!)
•    Raise the foot, leaving the needle down, in the paper, and turn the paper so it aligns with the next stitch line
•    Lower the foot and start sewing again
 

By now you should be more confident in starting and stopping a line of sewing and keeping your machine on track. Then curves come along! There are many types of curves in sewing, a smooth long curve of a skirt over a hip, a tighter curve for fitting a sleeve. The tighter the curve the more difficult it can be to sew, as you are basically having to change direction every few stitches. You can apply a couple of different methods to ensure success.

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Tips:
•    Go slow! No prizes for speed, only for accuracy
•    For a smooth, gentle, longer curve, sewing slowly and pivoting once or twice to ensure you stay on the line, is all that is needed
•    For a tighter curve, apply the pivot method every few stitches, stopping with the needle in the paper, lifting the foot and ever so slightly twisting the paper so the needle stays on the curve itself

These exercises take you from a smooth curve to the trickiest curve - a circle. Take your time, work through the smooth curves a couple of times before attempting the circle. You can do it!
 

We all like to take the easiest path in life and sewing is no different. We can find a stitch length that ‘works’ for us and we leave it at that, never touching the dial or risking something new! 
This would be a mistake; stitch length is important with different lengths working best in different scenarios. You may see terms such ‘spi’ – stitches per inch (good old metric!) which will advise you on which stitch length to use for your project and you should be able to set your machine accordingly. 
One consideration for stitch length is the thickness of your fabric. As a general rule, thicker fabrics require a longer stitch while lightweight fabrics a shorter stitch. This also applies to sewing multiple layers of fabric, in one project you may need to increase the stitch length to enable your machine to neatly sew the layers together while going back to the shorter stitch for fewer layers.
It is good to build your confidence in using the various features of your machine. Stitch length can easily be changed by your machine's dial and the change clearly seen in your 'stitches' on paper. 
For the same straight stitch exercise:
•    Sew each line with a different stitch length, hold up to the light to see the change, write the stitch length on your sheet
•    With a tape measure count how many stitches per inch, or centimetre, your machine sews at each setting, write this on your sheet
•    Start a line with a short stitch, stop sewing and change to a longer stitch midway

When sewing a line or curve in dressmaking it will be most likely you are sewing a seam. Sewing a perfect seam is one of the fundamental processes in dressmaking, or any sewing craft. By now, with all your practice, you will be able to sew beautifully straight lines and fabulously smooth curves. The position of these lines and curves gives your garment its shape and silhouette. The seam allowance (SA) is the space between these stitched lines and the edge of the fabric itself, the cutting line.
Most commercial dressmaking patterns have a seam allowance included, with a standard seam allowance of 1.5cm (5/8 inches). This can reduce to 0.5cm (1/4 inch) on collars, necklines, for example. 
However! A seam allowance can be anything you like! You can set it. You obviously do not want to waste fabric, but there can be advantages of a larger seam allowance for beginners as when fitting garments, a more generous allowance of 2-3cms, will give you more room for cutting and fitting mishaps. 
Your fabric can also impact your seam allowance. A fabric that readily frays may be easier worked with a larger seam allowance, to allow for fraying and to provide enough fabric to finish the seam edges, possibly with binding or turning under and stitching. 
Remember, a large seam allowance can always be trimmed back!

At the Dressmaker’s Apprentice we believe that making your own sewing sample library is the best way for you to both learn and improve your sewing techniques.  
As a fashion student way back in the ’90s, part of our degree course was weekly lessons where we worked purely on sewing our reference samples. From patch pockets to zip flies, piped seams to welt pockets, every technique you can imagine, we practiced and practiced, saving our attempts in our own personal sample reference libraries. I still have mine and still refer to it! 
This approach is invaluable when it comes to dressmaking and design. You do not want to be limited by fear of a process. Too often I see creative people who would love to make a certain garment, stopped in their tracks because they are terrified by the thought of sewing a zip!

 
By learning and perfecting each process on its own, as you are doing here with your sewing, your dressmaking has no limits! By practicing each technique on fabric, which we provide, the fear of destroying the beautiful fabric you have been saving, simply disappears. As your knowledge grows, you can apply the different techniques you have perfected to your dressmaking projects. The fear will disappear! You only need to work through a lesson one time to then be able to apply it to all your future projects, what could be better than that!
At the Dressmaker’s Apprentice we prefer to think couture, beautifully finished garments based on years of sewing tradition, rather than fast fashion and factory machine finishes. By building your own sewing reference library, you will lift your skills from self-taught home dressmaker to professional level. 

There is a wonderful world of sewing tradition to learn from and dip into. What are you going to treat yourself to next! We have a range of exciting lessons for you to choose from including: 

Seams_01
Intermediate Seams
Basic Seam Finishes
Intermediate Seam Finishes
Couture Seam Finishes
Marking Fabric
Zips – centred and lapped
Zips – concealed and decorative

Visit us at www.thedressmakersapprentice.com to see our current and upcoming, lesson packs in sewing and pattern drafting. 

Follow us on Instagram and Pinterest for lots of sewing and design inspiration. 
Even better, share your sewing practices and your own sewing sample reference libraries on our Facebook page or at #thedressmakersaprentice. 
We would love to see your work, from wobbly lines to straight lines and beautiful curves. This is just the start of your journey, excited to see where you finish! 
 

We at the Dressmaker’s Apprentice want nothing more than to remove your sewing frustrations and to share our expertise and love of sewing with you. To achieve this, we have carefully crafted sewing and pattern drafting lessons with everything you need for success, delivered directly to your door. 
Want to learn how to insert a zip, or how to finish a seam beautifully. Unsure of how to move a dart or the best ways to mark different fabric types. Simply select the sewing process you wish to learn and have a complete lesson sent to you. Want to learn it all? No problem, each lesson builds on the next, in the same way the traditions of sewing have been taught for years. 
What makes us unique, is our approach in helping you to build your own sample library and as part of this we provide you with an already worked sample of each process in your lesson! No more trying to see what is going on in a YouTube video or trying to understand a drawing in a pattern instruction. You will have a sample in your hand which you can look at from every angle and see exactly what it is you are working towards.

It’s a sewing lesson, but not as you know it!