The Best of Sewing with Nancy

Sew it simple, sew to have fun. You're asking how? Well, it's rather straight forward after you learn the absolute easiest way to sew. Welcome to my third program on this series.

And that's just what I'm going to do

show you techniques that are easy to sew. Pockets are my first focus for this episode. Clever use of household tape will give you the guide to sew the outright simplest mitered corner. "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. On this jacket the pocket has a very sharp miter not created by folding the corner to get it sharp but by stitching on the wrong side. We can follow this jacket up to the collar and this is a single layer jacket, where the miter is done the same way on the lapel. So you'll have many areas that you can apply this technique. First of all, interfacing. You need to add fusible interfacing to the pocket, and I prefer to full-fuse, which means, basically fuse the whole size. But because the pocket has a hem allowance, you can see in the one that I've already done that I split the interfacing just by cutting it before I fused it on. There's a 1" hem allowed in this pattern. I would just cut off 1". Separate it at the 1". And then cut, oh, just a sliver of the interfacing away. So that when we fuse it into place it will definitely cause a definite, easy break for the fabric to fold. Now with fusible interfacing I like to choose a weight that's one weight lighter than the fashion fabric. Not too heavy, because you just want it to add shaping. Follow the manufacturer's instructions. They'll vary slightly, but it usually involves a lot of steam, heat and some time. What I'm not supposed to be doing is ironing but rather pressing to hold it down. Those are the techniques that you use for fusing the interfacing in place and then leaving a space so that you have definitely a place where it will fold back easily. Now, that's kind of a side note. The important part is mitering that corner. The seam allowances on this particular pattern are 5/8". Pretty traditional garment sewing. You're going to double the seam allowance measurement. Double of 5/8" is 1-1/4". You'll see why in a minute. I'm going to measure that 1-1/4" at each corner, each of the lower corners where the pocket will be mitered. You'd do the same on the other corner. Then I mentioned household tape. Get some tape and cut it longer than you think you may need. Extend it from the wrong side from the 1-1/4" mark to the 1-1/4" mark. Then fold the fabric in half meeting right sides. Start at the point, where I am right now. Fold it in half. There we go. And then align the edges and the pieces of tape. And stitch along the tape. Here's a close-up of me sewing right along that tape, making sure that the fabrics have been aligned properly. Here's one that has been sewn. You can see, I stitched along that area. Truth be told what it takes longest to do on this is to remove the tape. Remove that tape. Then, trim off the excess fabric. I usually now finger press, just crease it a little bit. Then turn this to the inside so that the right side forms a miter, just like that. You'd do the same on the other pocket if you can possibly see, if I can get it lined up there. It's like a picture frame, or doing woodworking and mitering a corner on woodwork. On this particular pocket both of them are mitered and all the bulk from the seam allowance is gone. You know, traditionally when you do this on a pattern oftentimes they'll just ask you to fold the fabric once, fold it twice, but then you have a lot of bulk in here. Let me just show it. You get bulk and you have this raw edge. You don't have it this way by mitering that corner. Not all pockets have mitered corners, some are rounded. If you have that, I'll show you some tips on rounding the corners. On this particular fabric, I did the same split of the interfacing, and then to press a corner you can use a pressing shape. This has 5/8" seam allowances. I'm going to align this and I'm just going to move it a little bit closer to my work. On this gauge I can align the edge to 5/8". First, I'll do this edge. Get a little bit of steam. Then, the other edge and I'll go this way. And then... you can kind of mold around here. Mold it around. This tool-- Use a tool to kind of be your fingers, so that you're not going to get pressed where you don't want to have pressing done. So from the right side, then you can get the other corner identical to the size, because you've used a shape comparably formed to the shape of the other side. So you can either sew in a miter, press in the shape, and I'd trim out some of that fabric. I'd trim out some of this extra fabric of course, but then you'd get the pockets shaped and pressed perfectly before you topstitch them onto your finished garment. Much of what makes sewing easy is invisible from the outside. Case in point, the facing. Around the neckline of this dress, a facing quietly finishes the edges and provides shape without making an announcement. Yet, done incorrectly, it would make the wrong kind of statement. Here's a simple yet sure way of sewing the absolute easiest facing. You just saw the close-up of this dress that has the facing around the neckline. It has a zipper finish, which we'll be detailing a little bit later. But from the wrong side really, there's no evidence of it other than it's a nice, soft, finished shape. I'll give you some hints about working with this on the facing. The facing pieces are cut about 3" wide and there's usually pattern shapes. Always pattern shapes, I should say, that come with your pattern that are the size and shape of an armhole or a neckline. These are two facings for an armhole, a circular armhole area. And I have fusible interfacing cut the same size as the facing pieces. Now, when choosing interfacing, just make certain it's not too heavy. You want to make sure it's drapable, because it's going to add some weight to your fabric. You want it to give it shape, but not make it a suit of armor so light-weight, and then follow the instructions. And then do the pressing, not ironing to place it in shape. I usually cover it with a press cloth, so that in case the iron is too hot or whatever, and you get the idea. Here we've got some steam, and press. You're going to be pressing a little bit longer than I am taking time right now to fuse it into place. Then with right-sides meeting, you'll be sewing the facings together... sewing the underarm and the side seams. This is for an armhole facing. It's pretty simple stitching. The facing is met to the right side of the garment and stitched around the armhole. And when sewing in a curve always sew with short stitch lengths, because your sewing curve will be easier to maneuver around these curves. I'm not a real fan of clipping fabrics. I would rather grade. Trim the seam allowances different widths. But before I do that, I would recommend to set the seam by pressing flat. Pressing usually takes two steps, in my opinion. Press it flat, then press it open or to one side. Since this facing is going to be invisible from the right side, then I press the seam allowance toward -- Whoop, I got too many layers here. One more time. Press the seam allowance toward the garment or I should say, facing. Press it away from the garment. That's totally opposite of what I said. I'm pressing it away. It's easier to press on a flat surface than an angled surface. After it's been pressed, then I do the grading, the trimming. Always make the facing smaller, the facing seam allowances smaller. And then, the garment seam allowance just a little bit larger. If you trim properly you don't need to clip. Clipping being clip, clip, clip, that weakens the seam. I think with proper trimming, I rarely clip. You're going to do this all the way around the edge. If you watched our second program of the series, we did understitching. That's to stitch the seam allowance to the facing. Here's a close-up of sewing this understitching, sewing around the armhole, stitching the seam allowance to the facing. You might guess, we have that sample right here, where it's been stitched. That will allow that facing when it's pressed to the underside to be neat and clean and the edge is totally finished. One remaining step is to attach the facing to the garment. From the right side we'll stitch in the ditch, stitch in the groove to hold that facing in place so that when you take it on and off, it doesn't keep on coming out. Here you can see, how that's stitched right in the ditch, and it will hold it down. Let's take a close look at that same facing from the right side. This point of interest is now the zipper or more correctly, the zipper pull. To seamlessly -- pun intended -- sew an invisible zipper into the seam, it is best done after the facing is attached. It's an approach that is rather new and is one of my absolute easiest ways of sewing. Putting a zipper in the back of a dress or a top, or even putting a zipper in a skirt, you put the facing on first. It's a little different from the traditional way. Then, in this instance, the invisible zipper is inserted into the seam. On my sample that I have here, first of all let's look at the zipper. It's going to be the invisible zipper that only shows with the tab. Open up the zipper and press. This is probably one of the most important steps. You need to flatten out the coil. It's curled up; flatten it out. It will make sewing so much easier. So on both sides push that coil away from the tape and flatten it out. The sample that I have is just a partial top as you can see, but you're not going to sew the center back seam. That's going to be done at the end. So leave that whole seam open and finish the neckline with the facing, the whole facing, as you can see. It's not attached at the center back. I'll flip those facing pieces up. Then in the zipper opening, you'll see some markings. I've marked the 5/8" seam allowance on both sides. Now the zipper is placed right sides together to the garment. We're going to start on your right side. You're going to place the majority of the zipper into the garment. Align the teeth with the 5/8" markings. Starting at the top, I'm just going to put a pin right at the top of the zipper pull. That pin is going to be set down just like 1/8" from the finished neckline. Then I will match one side at a time, match the teeth right next to the tape and pin all the way down. Then one more time, pin. Then I'll be ready to do the first stitching and I'll do that at the machine. If this is your first invisible zipper application, when you purchase a zipper, next door you'll find a foot that you can purchase; it's generic. It can go on almost any sewing machine and has little rollers in the front part of it. What happens is that the center roller follows in the groove of the zipper teeth and the teeth fit right to the left or right of it depending which side you're sewing it. Now just as kind of a quick review, the top of the zipper where the teeth stop or the top stops, is offset, recessed down, about 1/8" or 1/4" from the top, so that it's not going to go beyond that seam. Then the teeth are next to the marking, right sides meeting. Most of the time when you put in a zipper you're going to start from the bottom up. Not this time. You start from the top and sew down to the end of the zipper. You can't go any further because you'll soon see the mechanism of the zipper is there. I've got to get this aligned. Give me a second to get it aligned so you can see and get this out of the way. I'm starting at the top seam. The roller is down that groove. Let me just backstitch to anchor it. I make certain that the right-sides are meeting. The zipper teeth are along that line, along the line that I marked; I'll take out the pins. Now, I'm getting to the end of the zipper, the short, little 7" zipper.

Get those two aligned

the marking aligned and the teeth. You can see, I have to stop. I can't go any further. Backstitch, cut the threads. And then, as I raise this up, I'm going to just do a little check to make certain that I've stitched properly and that the top of the zipper ends just a little bit -- Let me fold that down for you so that it clears the very edge, so it clears that top area. You don't want it to go any further. You need a little hook and eye perhaps. But you can see, you can't really even see one half of that zipper. Now to put the other half in, you're going to meet right-sides together. When you're on your table you can make sure your garment is lying flat. Meet right-sides together. and align then the second half of the zipper, so it is at the same distance. I'll put a pin right there. Unzip the zipper. And you do that same thing. This time sewing on the opposite side, aligning the teeth to the 5/8" line, doing some pinning. I'll get it lined up here. You sew from the top down. Same thing, only on the other side. Mirror image. On this next sample it's been stitched. Imagine that, a sample of that stitched. Here in a little different color zipper, but you what happens at the top and it's going to be finished almost perfectly. Because the facing is already there, you just fold down the fabric. If you want to do a little trimming in there, you certainly may. Then we'll fold down the other side and hand stitch and then that zipper is complete. We'd do some pinning and look it, there you go, the zipper's in the there. You can take out the markings from your marking pen. Now, the center lower seam is still open. Keep this foot on and adjust it. Move this foot all the way over to the left so that the needle clears the foot. I'm going to start sewing at the bottom of the seam. Now, this is where I sometimes set my machine and loosen the tension. Simply because, I've been known to have to take this seam out, but we'll see what I can do. I'm meeting the cut edges of the fabric below the zipper tape. Here you can see where I've stopped stitching. Now I'll just scoot this underneath the foot area. I have the foot lined up with that last stitching. I'll sink the needle right next to my stitching. Lower the pressor foot and you can see the zipper tape is out of the way. Now just sew the rest of the seam. You can't use a traditional seam -- or foot, I should say. You have to use the other part of the zipper foot, and it will work; I'll see how good I did. When I lift this up, take quick look. Oh, my goodness, it worked! Here's the rest of the seam. Right here it's gone continuously from the zipper to the seam allowance. It would require some pressing on the other side, but with some savvy stitching, putting on the facing first, marking the zipper, placement, pressing the zipper and stitching it in with that crazy foot, you'll have a neatly-put-in zipper. Book club members are often inquisitive minded.

You know the premise

read a book, get together to discuss or debate the topic and then eat. Not so with the Cover to Cover book club. They discuss their books through creating quilts. Welcome Dianne Kane and Joanne MacNaughton who join us via Skype from Portland, Oregon. Welcome Joanne and Dianne. -

Both

You know the premise

Thank you. -

Nancy

You know the premise

This is a fascinating book club. Dianne, will you give a brief overview of your group of 11? -

Dianne

You know the premise

Sure, the group started in about 2000. It was a group of ladies that were quilting together at a local shop and one of them decided we needed to challenge ourselves and work a little harder at this. They decided they would read a book and then create a quilt that was inspired by the book. There are 11 of us now. Three original members are still with us. We live in the Portland, Oregon/ Vancouver/Washington area. We read two books a year. We feel like we have a really nice, diverse group now. We all use a lot of different kinds of techniques and we think that helps create a really interesting show for our viewers. -

Nancy

You know the premise

And Joanne, the book that we're going to discuss via quilts is an interesting title. Could you share that with our viewers please? -

Joanne

You know the premise

Hugo Cabret. It's a book about a young boy who ends up living in a railway station in Paris. His father passes away. It has to do with a clock in the train station with gears, etc., etc. It's quite a powerful story. This is a perfect transition because the first quilt that we're going to share with our viewers is by your group member Linda Reinent and it's called "Gears." Tell us a little about this quilt. -

Dianne

You know the premise

Linda does a lot of quilts with circles, so she really wanted to use her circle technique to create this piece. It's a fairly large piece. It displays well; people love looking at it. Linda's done a great job creating it. She's a Master Quilter too, so from up close, it's a beautiful piece of work. Like you said, these are masterfully done. I mean, not little wall hangings quickly done. This is a real art. Judith Phelps also did one called "Value of Gears," Joanne. Tell us your insights into that quilt. -

Joanne

You know the premise

Truly in my life, I have never seen anything as masterful as Judith's quilts. I believe she draws first, and paints and then it's all stitchery. It's precise and it's simply magnificent. [Nancy)} It is. -

Joanne

You know the premise

That quilt, I think, is only one-sided. -

Dianne

You know the premise

Nope, it's two. -

Joanne

You know the premise

Okay, it's two-sided. -

Dianne

You know the premise

It's all done with thread, so we always tell people make sure you look at the back because the back is just as interesting as the front. -

Nancy

You know the premise

Oh, my. Dianne, your quilt is called "Suspended in Time." Yes, I knew I wanted to create a piece that would represent the gears. We have an opportunity every year -- This was year number four -- to display our quilts at the Sisters Oregon Outdoor Quilt Show. So our quilts hang on clotheslines and they move in the wind. I wanted to create a piece that you would be able to look through. So the black background that you see on the photograph is simply the backdrop for the photograph. When you look at that quilt hanging on the line you can see through those holes. -

Nancy

You know the premise

You have openings. I do, yes. One of those openings was not supposed to be there but I couldn't get all the pieces in the middle to match so I thought, "Oh, I'll just make a hole "like I did with the others." And I love the effect. And then when I found the clock gears, I knew I really had found the perfect piece to hold all those circles together. -

Nancy

You know the premise

Nice. -

Diane

You know the premise

Thank you. Joanne, your quilt is up next. -

Joanne

You know the premise

I love the quilt that I made because it makes me think of the times that my husband and I have been able to travel in Europe. Typically, the buildings that I portrayed are the kinds of buildings that I have seen on our travels. And I felt the cafe could fit into that. -

Nancy

You know the premise

It's lovely. Our final quilt, and to close our segment by Pat Busby is "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." She gave it the same name of the book. -

Dianne

You know the premise

Yes, Pat is one of our Masters. She and Joanne are two of the members that have been with us since we started. Pat starts by reading the book and then she's able to combine all the components into some masterful artwork that she creates. Then she builds from that. That is a huge quilt as well, it's -- I'm not sure. It would certainly cover a full-size bed, perhaps even a queen-size. It's just a stunning piece of work. It's one of those that you have to just keep coming up and looking at, because each time you look at a different part you see different things that she's done. -

Nancy

You know the premise

Well, Dianne and Joanne, a wonderful time to see what variety comes from a book, the inspiration. And I know others will join you in perhaps, doing this is their book club. Thanks for joining us -

Both

You know the premise

Thank you. And thank you for joining us during this three-part series on "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew." You can also go to nancyzieman.com and watch many other shows, re-watch this one and also join us via social media. 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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Baby Lock; Madeira Threads; Koala Studios; Clover; Pellon; Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Riley Blake Designs. Sewing with Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.