The Best of Sewing with Nancy

I can think of about two to three different ways to stitch most sewing techniques. Yet, I generally just choose one method. What do I choose? Well, the absolute easiest way, of course. Over the years I've tweaked sewing and quilting techniques not only to be easy, but to give the best-looking results. With this three-part series, I'll share the absolute easiest way to sew. Let's start with pattern layout, cutting and marking. Then, learn ways to streamline and improve your sewing skills. "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew" that's what's next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-running sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman is made possible by Baby Lock, a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special-effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover, making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting, and needle arts for over 90 years. Pellon, dedicated to providing sewing innovations in interfacings, battings, fusibles, home dec., and more. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. Layout, cutting and marking are the basics to start with for almost any sewing project. Whether if it's for clothing, for accessories or crafts. And you can usually check the guide sheet for a rough layout. This is certainly workable, but easier would be to just lay out roughly the biggest pieces, followed by the smallest pieces. That's generally how I work. The grainline is probably the most important marking for layout. The grainline on many patterns is very short. It doesn't extend the full length of the pattern piece. So I fold the pattern in half along that grainline and then just finger press, crease it, so that I have the line extended. I've done that on all my pattern pieces and I have my fabric that I'm going to make these little shorts out of. I've folded the fabric, re-folded it so that the fabric edges meet rather than the way it was folded from the bolt, because that may change quite a bit. You want those edges to meet. Re-press it so that you have a nice fold at the top area so that it's crisp. Then roughly lay out the big pattern pieces. I just have a front and a back of these shorts. Then I'll place in these smaller pieces. Let's see, that one goes here I think and then, here we go. This should fit in this area. After you've roughly placed everything out, put each pattern piece on grain. I use two pins. Measure to the new fold that I've created. I'll see where this crease is. It's about 14-3/4" so I'll place a pin along the grainline. Then measure down another 14-3/4". Notice that I'm using a ruler. Tape measures are great but this is much more stable and quicker to work with, getting the pattern pieces on grain. Then I would do the next piece; this one is very short. Notice that the whole width of the ruler kind of uses-- I can align it the whole width of the ruler so that I only have to measure one time. You do the same thing on all the other pattern pieces getting the grainline anchored. Then you can use pattern weights if you like for something kind of quick to place around the edges. Now unfortunately, because I'm on an angle they're just going to slide right off. I'd put a couple of pattern weights on each piece and then do the cutting. Or if you didn't have pattern weights certainly what you could do is just pin at each corner. I usually pin at a 45-degree angle. I don't put a lot of pins in. I don't think it's necessary. Now when you cut, cut with long strides. Just long, smooth strides. It's, obviously, kind of tricky to cut on this angle, but you get the idea. If you're working with a small pattern piece and you have a mat large enough then use a rotary cutter, ruler and mat and just cut along the edge. With a smaller blade you'll be able to cut around the curves much more readily. I cut out another pattern piece, section, of all the shorts pattern. I'm going to show you just some quick marking ideas. For marking, we're going to work with the front-- let's see, I've got it right here-- and the notches. The notches are these little markings at the side that you usually clip just tiny, little 1/8" clips at each marking. Clip, clip. Not very deep; you don't want it to go very deep, but they're accurate markings. On many fabrics where you want more noticeable markings for notches, I use a notcher. This gives a much deeper notch. It actually takes out some fabric. Clip, it goes out. You see a much deeper mark that you'll be able to align it. Those are quick ideas for layout, cutting and marking. Do darts have you in a dither? Here's how to use an index card or sticky notes as a sewing guide for effortless dart stitching. It's the absolute easiest technique that I know. A dart, simple, for shaping kids' wear, children's wear. A traditional place to find a dart at the underarm area in a woman's top. But to get it straight and to prevent the threads at the end from untangling are the criteria that I worked with for this easy technique. You'll mark the dart legs, the end of the dart legs with little nips, like those 1/4" clips that I showed you for the notches. Then I just place a dot at the tip of the dart on the wrong side of the fabric. That's what I have on this particular sample. Here's the dot at the end. And then, I place nips at the dart legs. Match those nips for the dart legs and find that dot, fold the fabric -- whoop, just one fold, there we go -- and align everything up and pin between the nips and the dart point. That's what's exactly happened on this side of the fabric. Then go to your sewing machine set for a straight stitch. We'll start at the-- Always sew from the widest to the narrowest. Lower that presser foot and then take one stitch sinking the needle right at dart legs. If you wanted to you could just stitch one or two stitches. Remove the pin, then raise the presser foot and either with an index card. First, I'll butt the index card right next to the needle and align it at the tip of the dart. I have kind of short index card so I'll just sew one of two stitches more, line it up and I'd get it right lined up. Or you can use sticky notes. Take about three or four at a time, to lengthen this. I'll just put them together and then I can for sure get a long length. Place it, and there we go! We have the stitching line. Then sew along the sticky note, the index card, just with a straight stitch. I'll just speed it up a little bit. There we go. Now slow her down as you get to the dart point. As you get there, I'll take out the pin I'll take two or three stitches at the very edge. Normally, you would clip your threads at this point. That's not going to work; sometimes it comes undone. So sew off the fabric. You don't have to get quite as long of a chain as I have here. But now the next step is to raise the foot and stitch in the dart underlay. Just stitch in the part that's not going to be-- Backstitch, I'll just do a little backstitch to lock those threads so you don't have to tie them. Then you can cut the dart. As I take this off, I'll just take off my sticky notes. You'll see this little dart underlay and the straight dart. One size does not fit all when it comes to gathering. The type of fabric, the width of the seam allowance and the project dictates the absolute easiest way to add gathers; here are a couple of options. This top that you just saw, the gathers were created with the traditional two rows of basting threads. I'm going to give you some insights on how we did this very evenly. I'll sew from the right side of the fabric and choose a different thread color for the bobbin. I have black in the bobbin and a contrasting thread in the top for you to see more easily. The bobbin thread is what pulls easiest of a sewn seam. We're working with 5/8" seam allowances. I'm going to lower the presser foot, stitch a stitch or two, and then backstitch to lock one end of the seam. Then with a basting stitch sew the edge of the fabric. 3.0 to 3.5 millimeters is generally what I use. You'll be sewing a much longer fabric piece, I'm sure. Then raise the needle, raise the presser foot. Don't use the automatic thread cutter because you need threads to pull the gathers. Then cut the threads. Sew a second seam within that 5/8" seam allowance, lower the presser foot, stitch a stitch or two backstitch. Here we go. Let's hit the right button, there we are. Then sew, again, right next to the previously sewn seam. Raise the needle, presser foot, cut the threads, however you'd like to cut them. Then when you go to the wrong side of the fabric you have the bobbin threads, the black ones. They're easier to find because they're contrasting or a different color and then pull. You don't have to worry about anchoring the opposite end because you've backstitched and locked them. Again, you're going to have a bigger piece of fabric but that's the best way to work with it. This is great for medium-weight fabrics. For light, light-weight fabrics, I add a second row of stitching. You wonder why, well here's a sheer. It's kind of out of control. If you stitch with three rows within that seam allowance it has greater control and lies flatter. Just a hint from me. If you have 1/4" seam allowances try using your serger, a basic overlock stitch to do the stitching. Again, you may want to use contrasting thread. You're going to be pulling the needle thread. I have a contrasting thread in the needles. And here's a close-up of just serging the overlock seam within the 5/8" seam allowance. Excuse me, the 1/4" seam allowances. Here we have the sewn seam. On one end, the end you're going to gather, you're going to clip the thread about an inch long. And then, pull out the black or the needle threads with a pin to separate the overlock stitch. At the opposite end wrap the thread tail around a pin and gather. You get really even, even gathers. It works so well, and I like this technique. Children's wear, light-weight fabrics, you can fuse instead of stitch. The fusible tape has blue threads in it that you can gather. I've already fused a tape to the wrong side of the fabric. You're going to look for the blue threads. Notice that the tape extends beyond the fabric. That's where I pull up the blue threads. You'd anchor the thread at the opposite end as we have here. Wrap the extra thread in a figure-8 style around a pin and then pull the blue threads. This is great for quick projects. Not for heavy-weight fabrics, mind you. But for light-weight kids' wear you really can't beat it for a fast way of working with gathers. So here we have the absolute easiest way of working with three types of gathering. When adding elastic to loungewear, sleepwear or sportswear you'll find this by far the simplest way to sew a casing. Changing the rules is part of the sewing game. The rules I'm referring to are shown on this loungewear pair of shorts. The casing at the top usually has an opening left along the lower edge so that the elastic can be inserted and then later stitched. It's kind of cumbersome to work with. This pair of shorts is kind of working as one of my samples as well, the last step of the sample. You can see elastic-- this is not the way it's going be when you wear it -- is coming out of the opening that I'm going to leave. I'll show you what happens with this. I'd also like to show you that the elastic is not overlapped and stitched together but rather stitched to a woven piece of fabric that later I'll trim off the excess little piece so that this is a flat piece. It doesn't have little bunches on the side. You'll see how this works. Notice, it's coming out of a little window. To create the casing, you'll measure or find on your pattern that will say, for example, for an 1-1/2" casing, press under. Do that pressing prior to sewing the seams. Let's get it on the correct side. You put in a little memory, a pressing in the hem. It's easier to press something flat than when it's sewn into a circle. Press each piece flat. Then sew the side seams or the center front and back seams. With the exception of one of the seams, you'll need to leave an opening. On this sample I'll show the opening that's needed. You can see the press mark where the casing top is. I locked the stitches back and forth, back and forth and then leave an opening. Then the very edge, the 1/4" at the edge do the stitching again, so that it's unsewn where the elastic is going to be inserted. The elastic is put into the casing with a safety pin. Some people use or I like to use an elastic glide to place it into the casing. What often happens is, when this is sewn and the elastic glide goes through the casing, it gets hung up on the seam allowances. So before stitching that casing we do some basting, a basting stitch, long stitch sewing down the seam allowances. And again, double the length, the length of the casing and then once again. You'll take that stitching out after a while, but it really will save you time. Then fold under the casing, stitch a little bit from the top, and then along the lower edge. That's just what this sample shows. The casing has been created. Probably the longest part of creating this elastic casing is to thread it through, depending on how large the waistline is. Really, what I want to share with you is that as I'm getting eventually to the side seam, the glide goes right over underneath this, because the seams have been basted down. You go all the way through the casing. You'll see at the end of the elastic that I have zigzagged the elastic to a woven piece of fabric. Then when the two ends come out to meet each other you zigzag the opposite end to the fabric. This has been zigzagged. Trim away the excess fabric, so it's now nice and flat. As I mentioned, this is my last sample. And notice, presto! The elastic slips into place and you don't have to do any final stitching. Okay, I realize this shot of the waistline doesn't look like much; well, that's the point. It's the easiest way to sew elastic to a waistline without the tell-tale topstitching of an elastic waistband. It's great for knits. Here's how. When you look at this skirt that can be made in about an hour of time when you wear it, it drapes nicely from the waistline without that topstitching edge around the lower portion of the elastic. I borrowed this technique from ready-made. I purchased a skirt, saw it made like this and thought, I have to share this with you. The elastic stays in place at the side seams, because we stitched in the ditch, stitched in the groove of the seam to hold the elastic down in just a few places, so that when you're wearing it, it looks nice without that stitching. You don't have to worry about getting it stitched straight either. We just finished with a casing in sportswear where it's woven fabrics. This is great for knits, in this instance. We're going to use the same elastic idea but this time connecting the elastic right away, right off the top before we sew it in. You can see, I've stitched this to the little woven piece of fabric, then you trim off the extra fabric and it's flat. It doesn't have the bump or the lump when you normally would overlap elastic and stitch it. Then divide the elastic in half, divide it in half again. Put pins at the quarter marks. We're using the seam as one of the quarter marks. Also, quarter mark the waistline of the skirt of pants. You can use, if it works out the side seams as two of the quarter marks. Then you pin the quarter marks together from the wrong side of the fabric. Let me get things organized here. So from the wrong side of the fabric, I'm just going to meet the cut edges and pin four times around this small, little sample. I'm going to sew a portion of this for you right now. So you meet together. Now we're going to set the machine at a zigzag stitch. The zigzag stitch that you have-- You can do some testing, but I have a width of 3.5 and a short length, about 2 or 1.8. These are all in millimeters and that's the way all sewing machines are calibrated. We'll start by stitching from the elastic side. Use a needle like a stretch needle that we generally would use for knits. Excuse me, let me get that pin out of there. Do a few anchor stitches then stretch the elastic to meet the fabric. Make sure the edges are meeting, and sew. You could also, if you like, serge this, if you are a serger owner. You're going to do this with the blade raised so that you don't have to worry about trimming or cutting any of the elastic. Then I'll do a little bit more, just to show you. I did not match these up but I can do that right now. Just pin and stretch. Now, as I'm rounding the bend here... you see, you just keep on going around and around and around until you've sewn the elastic around the whole edge. And presto, I have a sample with it already done. Now to attach the elastic so it doesn't flip forward, fold the elastic to the underside and pin. From the right side, stitch in the ditch. Stitch in the groove, just a straight stitch in the seam to hold that elastic in place and you're done. Do you and your fabric-loving friends have an abundance of fabric? Consider sharing fabrics with your community using the Charity Sharity group as your model. The founder of this St. Louis group is Carole Splater who joins us via Skype. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Carole. Thank you, Nancy. It's a pleasure to be here. Charity Sharity is a unique model that you and your friends have been working on for many years. Give our viewers an overview of Charity Sharity. In Charity Sharity we collect donated fabric. People donate fabric to us that they no longer want, or they no longer need, or perhaps they die and their children clean out the sewing room. We then turn around and give it to many charities, people that use it in service of others. We concentrate on not-for-profit groups, but anybody that's in education or the arts also gets fabric from us. You've been doing this a long time. We've been doing it about 14 years. We're not exactly sure when it started because we started out sharing with each other and it gradually grew into what it is. I find this a unique model, because you're encouraging the viewers to do something like this in their community. You don't want them to ship the fabric to you in St. Louis. Give our viewers some tips on how you and your friends share fabrics with others. If you are going to start-- If you have an abundance of fabric, I think that you do want to share it and you don't know where to go. A lot of people just dump it into the Goodwill bin. That's really not the place to take it. You need to, first of all find out that you do have a lot of fabric. And then finding places to take it.

There are places that you may not dream of

hospital axilliaries, churches, military support groups. Sure. Schools are wonderful places to take fabric, theater groups. And there are just-- We've uncovered so many more that we didn't dream were there. Now you get the fabric and then you sort it in your basement. We do. Tell our viewers how you and your friends on Thursdays do the sorting. We do the sorting. Most of it comes in bags or boxes. We take a bag or a box and we put it on the table and we sort according to fiber. All the cottons go together, all of the garment fabric. We have a notions department that's phenomenal.

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There are places that you may not dream of

We sort it that way. We also sort by size, because a group that's making small, little stuffed bears will not need three yards, you know. We give those the smaller pieces. And then we have quilters. And we have all different needs among the places that take the fabric. Then you put them in bags, large bags and then tell our viewers -- I think this is so fascinating -- where the drop-off center is. My front porch.

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There are places that you may not dream of

Your front porch. My front porch is the donation center. I don't have to be home. They just put it on the porch. And groups that pick up fabric, pick it up from my porch. It's labeled, 13-gallon white trash bags. It's interesting the number of-- the weight of fabric that you have given away, that you have shared in the last 14 years. Your husband, you told me yesterday determined the weight. So share that, please. Well, especially in the last four or five years, we have moved in and out of my house between 12 and 15 tons of fabric. That translates to 1,000 or more white trash bags. And we think it's so amazing that not only did we move 15 tons into the house, we were able to give away 15 tons. You and your friends have done a remarkable job of sharing fabric and being very generous to the community and making sewing accessible to many. Carole, I thank you for being my guest. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. You're welcome. If you'd like to watch this program again or any of the past three seasons of Sewing With Nancy programs you can watch it online at nancyzieman.com. You can also join us on social media, blogs, Facebook or Instagram, by following along, clicking on those icons. Well, this concludes our first program of our three-part series on "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew." We'll be back again with two other programs of the series. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now. Nancy Zieman has written a fully-illustrated book titled "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew" which includes all the techniques featured in this three-part series. It's $19.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

or visit our website at

sewingwithnancy.com/2816. Order Item Number BK2816, "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew." To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's website at nancyzieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman

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