I just sewed a tear my bedspread with one of my sewing machines.
These machines are CHEAP at 2nd hand stores - like $10 or $20! So I have 3, each one with a different color thread in it. Easy to make quick repairs.
FYI - About 2 years ago I tried sewing something and made a big stringy mess. I figured if I could repair cars, I could surely learn how sewing machines work and get them working.
So I read about them and learned that the top and bottom threads need to be a certain tension. I bought a cheap kitchen food scale… I attach the bottom bobbin thread to that, then pull and measure the tension of the thread. And adjust it to what it says it should be on the internet.
Presto! Perfect sewing now. Note there ARE scientific specifications of what the thread tension(s) should be and measuring devices for this.
If you teach your children to sew, they’re more likely to have a successful career using a sewing machine then they are being professional football baseball or basketball players.
Patterns… where do you get good patterns for plus sized clothes? I still remember enough, I think, from pattern drafting class to tweak a pre-made one, but I don’t have the skills or space to start from scratch.
Bought a used industrial over a month ago, still haven’t even threaded it to do a test run. I know it runs, just don’t know if it sews.
Last week I sewed new curtains for seven windows in my house. Pretty much on a whim. I have been sewing, all manner of things, since I was 12. I’m a little undersized and finding clothes that fit correctly isn’t always easy. Being able to alter anything to fit comes in pretty handy.
And sometimes you know what you want, but it cannot be found. The only choice is to make it!
YIKES! Bedsheet weight cotton or blend for $16 a yard? I see duck canvas on sale at JoAnn’s this week for $7 a yard. Lighterweight fabric like a bedsheet is going for $4 to $9. I wouldn’t sew anything for $16 a yard, either. But I buy fabric at Walmart for $2-$6 a yard as a rule.
Simplicity makes a line of dress patterns called “Amazing Fit” that I like quite a lot. They have more detailed instructions than standard and economy patterns, and allow for easier adjustments at the bust, waist and hip, along with torso length. I find they give a nicer custom fit to a real woman’s body. You can make it different sizes on the top and bottom. I am about a size 8 on top and a 12-14 on the bottom, so I get the size 10-18 pattern and make my adjustments. Anything with an A-line skirt or a princess seam looks best on my body type. Pencil skirts are not my friend.
I get alot of use out of a 2-3 patterns that I have altered juuuust right, and use them over and over. With some creative fabric choices, you get a lot of looks out of a couple of patterns. You can get them at the stores many have mentioned here already, Joann’s, Hobby Lobby, etc…
Been sewing for 25+years, ever since I learned how to make quilts. My mom and grandmother(27years ILGWU piecework. Wish I still had her treadle machine, I remember the day she paid the junkman to haul it away. Oy!) both sewed at home, but you didn’t teach boys to do it BITD. I can make “simple” things, unlined, not much tailoring called for: robes, nightshirts, vests, zippered jackets and all manner of bags.
It’s a great hobby, but as has been said, not economical. But if you’re going to sew, don’t skimp on fabric quality, 2 dollar a yard stuff is notoriously not well made(learned THAT the hard way) Why put all that effort into a project, and not have it hold up?
The REAL fun comes when you make something that completely satisfies you, an item you can’t get anywhere else except from your own skilled hands. Purple seat cushions? WhooHOO!!!
oh yes! You are so right! I have learned the hard way as well with fabric quality. I made a couple of jackets out of cheaper synthetic tweeds that wound up pilling on the inner arms and looking rather ratty after all my hard work! Hancock, Joann’s, etc…are hit or miss, and of course not much to choose from if you want quality natural blends in suiting fabrics like lightweight wools, crepe de chine, silk, or tweeds. I have splurged on a couple of garments and used really nice high-quality fabrics, and I will have these items until I die. You often have to travel to find the good specialty stores, but so worth it! OTOH, I am glad I cut my teeth on the cheap stuff. Only once you become confident do you go high end!
Also, I have been pleasantly surprised with Mood Fabrics, of Project Runway fame. They will send you swatches, and if you call them, you get to talk to an actual knowledgeable person who will help you select fabrics for your project. Their advice has been spot on! And they really are not that expensive, relatively speaking. I love Mood! I tell you, it hurts my heart to see those designers on PR every week just butcher all that gorgeous fabric…
I am assuming, like most sewers and crafters, I am in the company of fellow fabric hoarders like myself?
I was just remembering how my mom made costumes for the Christmas pageants at our school – including eight for the ladies dancing, etc.! I don’t know how she did it. And she made Barbie clothes for me – a ballerina dress with tutu, an evening gown… She taught me to sew clothes and I can follow a pattern but not for anything I want tailored really well.
Hee – I am mostly a quilter but I have a very smallish hoard compared to other quilters! It fits in one underbed box. (A friend has 150+ totes of fabric!!) And I still have one box of the remaining projects from the pile my Mom was working on when she died. I didn’t know she was sick and she compartmentalized and just kept creating projects and planning them out. And as my father said facing cleaning out the kitchen – “she kept buying meat like she was never going to die”!
Oh, and I am 97% a hand-quilter but somehow ended up with three sewing machines! One my grandma gave me as a gift, one was Mom’s. I asked my father to get them cleaned and serviced for my birthday, two already being more than I needed. He does that AND comes home with a Bernina. :eek: (I’m not worthy!) Crisis hit when I threaded it wrong (you see, there is this thin disk which you need to be to the right or left of, and I just kind of laid my thread without knowing that) and had to take it back in – ruining a luxury item like that even temporarily was traumatic.
I’m in Chicago. We have a dearth of open-to-the-public fabric stores, and what we have are pretty expensive. There is Vogue, which is fantastic and has some great deals, but they only sell ends. I mean, BIG ends, from industrial bolts, but you never know what they’re going to have or how much. It’s hit or miss, and a painful car ride north to get to.
Hancock and JoAnn have all shut down around here. I refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby, and I’ve been less than pleased with the quality and selection at Walmart (which isn’t close, anyhow.)
$19 for 7 yards of 102" wide microfiber embossed fabric? So, like, 14 yards of 45"? Heck yeah, that’s a good deal! Even beats your prices!
It’s been quite a while since I’ve sewn a garment. But I am good at repairs, such as handsewing hems, buttons, and tears.
I’m one of the only people I know who darns socks. I even have a special tool, from my mother, who got it from HER mother, to help with it. It looks like a wooden chicken leg. You poke it into the sock to spread the fabric out and see better where the stitching should go. I only darn once though, a second hole in the same sock gets them tossed into the rag bag.
Gads Yes!! I used to work in a cut and sew shop for commercial and industrial fabrics. I did mainly marine fabrics, and I looooaaattthhheeeddddd zippers, and we didn’t even use metal zippers (mostly, there were a few exceptions)
So, the last time I sewed anything was a little over 10 years ago.
I do a fair amount of manual needlework, such as creating and attaching embroidered patches to cover holes in my old jeans, swapping out zippers, etc.
It’s been eons since I laid down a pattern and cut out fabric and ran it under the sewing machine. And I haven’t done it often. Never learned how to the point of getting to be any good at it.
This made me smile because my mom and grandmother used to be the people at the cleaners who fixed the broken jeans zippers, and it was the job they hated the most! Mom still says she’d rather shorten suit coat sleeves by hand than replace a jeans zipper.
I was going to note this. I have several friends (all women) in their 20s and 30s, who are big into cosplay, and they all have sewing machines, and do a lot of sewing.
When I was a child (1960s/1970s), my mother sewed a lot, and made a fair number of our clothes. My wife’s mother and grandmother were very active sewers, and they sewed a large percentage of her family’s clothes, apparently in large part for budgetary reasons. As others have noted, the widespread availability of inexpensive, imported clothing has likely made frugality less of a reason for making one’s own clothing.
Also makes me realize that a lot of our mothers and grandmothers didn’t necessarily *like *sewing. They did it, because it was part of running a household on a budget and providing for your family. But it was a chore, like washing the dishes or scrubbing the floors. Now, it’s more of a hobby and creative outlet.
And as my father said facing cleaning out the kitchen – “she kept buying meat like she was never going to die”!