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Sewing Tips
To knot thread... hold your thumb on the thread as it lays across a needle facing you, cut end to the right, then with your left hand wrap the thread around the needle two or three times (depending on how large a knot you want) then hold the thread that you wrapped around in your left hand and slide down the needle and down the thread until the knot is formed. Cut off excess thread beneath knot. It's a slick fast way to knot your thread for hand sewing!
By wiseinhimmer
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Use canned air to clean out your machine instead of blowing lint and fuzz because your breath contains moisture and is not good for the machine. :)
By wiseinhimmer
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Making Your Own Pattern Pieces
To make a pattern piece yourself if you use the NON-IRON interfacing it makes a great pattern and doesn't rip as easy.
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Marking The Right Side Of Fabric
I use safety pins to mark the right side of material when it's hard to tell because straight pins will fall out. This saves time and I know at a glance which side is which!
By wiseinhimmer
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When sewing on buttons, especially on heavy jackets, use dental floss or 4 strands of thread that has been waxed with beeswax. This will make the button threads much stronger.
By Karole
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Duplicating a Pattern without Tracing Paper
If you would like to trace off a craft pattern and don't have any tracing paper, just take a pencil and shade the back side of the paper with the pattern below it, and then trace around the pattern. The pattern will be duplicated. This may not work on everything, but you can trace onto another paper or a piece of wood with this method.
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Using Clothing Material for Crafts
If you end up with a clothing item you would never wear but like the pattern, think about using the material for pillows, quilts, etc. You can also stock up on material from clothes for quilts at bag sales from thrift stores or yard sales.
By Melanie
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Keep ribbons, lace, ric rac, seambinding, etc. on a piece of cardboard and place in a snack bag to keep neat. I prefer to use the generic snack bags since they do not have a colored zip strip. I keep mine filed neatly in the bottom of my sewing box.
By C. A. McWilliams
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If your going to use a sewing pattern more than once (thats why we buy them) iron on interfacing/fusable web and you be sure not to tear the pattern pieces when pinning and cutting out fabric. However, you will not be able to fold the pattern to fit back into the envelope (can you ever get it back in anyway?) LOL
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Raising the Table for Fabric Cutting
If you must use your dining room table as a cutting table when you are sewing, you probably get a back ache from leaning over the table. My mother did a lot of sewing, and she found a solution for this problem. Go to your pantry and gather up 4 cans of vegetables of the same size. Set one under each table leg. This raises the table to a more comfortable level.
By Harlean from Arkansas
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To keep your cross stitching, embroidery, or other craft thread from tangling up when not in use simply cut up a plastic milk jug into small squares, put notches on the sides, and wrap your thread around. It keeps your thread together and you reuse your milk jug.
If you cut the squares small enough, you can store them in old, unused slide boxes.
By Heidi
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Coffee Filters as a Tearaway Stabilizer
Coffee filters can make a wonderful substitution for tearaway stabilizer when doing a small hand or machine embroidery project.
By Patti
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Keeping Sewing Machine Needles Handy
When sewing heavy fabrics (e.g. jeans) on the sewing machine, keep the little box the needles on a piece of Blu-tack on the front of your machine. That way you will know at a glance where the right needle for the next job is.
By Lizaixi
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Hand Sewing Tip - Thread Multiple Needles
When starting a large hand sewing or needlework project, thread several needles when you begin. Then you won't have to stop and keep threading needles as you work.
By Linda
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Do you have trouble threading a needle? Try holding the needle & thread against a contrasting background-a dark colored if you're threading a light-colored thread, and a light -colored surface if you're threading a dark-colored thread. It really helps your depth perception.
By joesgirl
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Use the ribbed part of socks as replacement cuffs on jackets, rather than purchasing new ones from the fabric store.
By Syd
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Make Sturdy Sewing Patterns With Leftover Holiday Wrap
I use leftover holiday wrapping paper all year long in my sewing room. I hate working with flimsy tissue paper patterns so I lay them out on the white back of the wrapping paper and transfer them with a sharpie (it bleeds through the tissue). The new paper patterns are easier to fold and store and last through many more foldings than tissue. And I don't have to pay for special pattern tracing paper!
By Amy Bird
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How Do You Know If You're Using The Right Thread?
By Sarah J. Doyle
Excerpt from "Basic Clothing Construction"... Thread type is chosen for its compatibility with the fabric's structure and fiber content as well as the type of project being worked on.
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Do It Yourself Sewing Machine Repair
By Reuben O. Doyle
Your sewing machine is a wonderfully useful machine when working properly, a frustrating, confusing monster when it's not. Oddly, a vast majority of machines sent to repair shops for repairs, could be repaired at home with little or no technical knowledge.
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8 Steps to Optimize Your Sewing Time
By Sarah J. Doyle
1. Be prepared
Gather and purchase all of the supplies necessary to complete your sewing or craft project ahead of time. Having to stop in the middle of the project in order to run out and get a forgotten essential item is time consuming and irritating.
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"Sewing Room Salvage - Save and Sew!"
By Sarah J. Doyle
A collection of sewing room salvage items should be an organized part of your sewing room. Fabric scraps, buttons, zippers, ribbons, yarn and trimmings should be systematically saved so you don't waste time searching for them, nor spend extra money replacing something you have but cannot find.
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Free Patterns at FreePatterns.com
If you knit, crochet, cross-stitch, quilt, etc. you can download free patters at http://www.freepatterns.com. By Robin
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Sewing Shortcuts are Boon to Seamstresses Short on Time
By Sarah J. Doyle
When a deadline is near, shortcuts can mean the difference between it being wise or foolish for an expert or novice to undertake a sewing project. For those home sewers who dislike detail, or those whose temperaments demand that a project must go quickly, shortcuts can mean the difference between continued interest or giving up sewing completely.
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Organizing Your Craft and Sewing Supplies
By Rachel Paxton
If you're a weekend crafter like me, you probably have a lot of crafting odds and ends laying around that get all jumbled together depending on what project you're working on at the moment.
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Sewing With Leather and Suede
By S. Denise Hoyle
Once you've decided to sew with real or fake leather or suede, the next step is knowing how to choose the correct leather or suede for your project.
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Here's a list of topics at the same site with Discontinued Pattern Sources, Applying Sewing Trims to All'Over Lace, Applying Lace Appliques, Sewing Elastic Buttonloops to Wedding Dresses, Sewing Bead Fringes and Drops, Embellishing Lace with Beads, Pearls & Sequins, Sewing Fabric Roses, Sewing Horsehair Braid Hems, Estimated Fabric Yardage Requirements, Fabric Yardage Conversion Information, A Guide to Needle Selection, Fibers, Fabric Descriptions and Fabric Care, Washing Information for Quilters
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Here's a great resource when you are wondering what a Panné Velvet is or other fabrics. It can help when you are trying to find the right fabric for the job or which fabrics could be substituted.
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Have trouble with darts? Here are step by step instructions with drawings.
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