Sewing With Nancy

My first job after college was teaching at a Minnesota Fabrics store in Chicago. The favorite classes back then centered on easy ways to sew. Fast-forward a few decades and the most requested topics still include those sewing techniques. In developing this series I've take the most requested techniques and fine-tuned them resulting in "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew." Taking the lead off spot in this episode are collars. Learn to cast aside traditional techniques and learn, hands down "The Absolute Easiest Way to Sew." That's what's next on Sewing with Nancy. Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing 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 30 years. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. To sew a collar is really nothing new but to change it by sewing it in three steps may be new to some of you. Traditionally, you sew the front edge you pivot, you sew the lower edge and then return on the other side by pivoting again at the other corner. What happens is that usually there's a little bit of bulk. Well, quite a bit of bulk at the these corners. So we can eliminate that. I've shown this before on Sewing With Nancy so some of you may have used this but for those of you who haven't here are my basic steps. Later on in this series I'm going to talk about fusible interfacing but I fused interfacing to both collar pieces covering the wrong side of both collars completely. The edge has been pinned together the outer edge has been pinned. And you're simply going to do some sewing by sewing the 5/8" seam allowance. Sewing starting at the very edge not pivoting, but starting at that very cut edge. Then you just sew the whole long length using the seam allowance that's allowed in the pattern which in this instance is 5/8". I'll just quickly sew the whole long edge of this complete collar. Now then, when I get to the other edge I'm going to sew off the fabric not pivoting. Here normally you would pivot I'm just sewing completely off cut the threads. Then do some pressing. I like to press the seam flat to set the stitches and then we'll do some pressing to one side. So steam, set it flat and then press to one direction. I don't press the edges down just along that seam. I'll just do part of that for you. But if you can see I'm not pressing down these edges just along that edge to get it nice and crisp. My scissors is over here so I'm going to scoot back and then do some trimming grading the seam allowances. The seam is pressed to the under collar. The seam that's underneath is going to be trimmed the smallest about 1/4" or so. You just trim that. This is called grading. Soon I'll be trimming the upper seam allowance and you'd trim the whole length not quite as narrow. This is trimming off a scant 1/4" or 1/8". So here we have the under collar, the upper collar and then the seam allowance. Now we're going to change the stitches. On my screen you'll soon be able to see that I'm going to change to a multiple-step zigzag. I like to, what's called understitch with that stitch, and lengthen it because it needs to be longer and about that width. You can see how that will look. Then stitching on the under collar I'm going to start sewing at the cut edge. Traditionally, if you are stitching a collar and you've sewn it in the normal way it's impossible to stitch right to the corner. This way you can because you haven't enclosed that edge. So you stitch the whole works. You get the idea. I'll just show you what has happened here. Here you see the understitching which started at the cut edge all the way around. Now I'm going to turn this, turn the collar. Turn it so that it's folded on the stitching line. I have a little nest of stitches here. Just ignore that. Match these edges. There's no bulk here the seam is gone. As I pin this I'm going to turn my stitch back to the straight stitch and then sew the edge. I'm starting to sew at the fold. Stitch, I'm going to back stitch a little bit to lock those stitches and then sew the seam. When this gets removed from the presser foot you see that here's my stitching. Now I just clip off the edges do some more grading trimming the seam allowances at uneven widths. One is going to be wider than the other. I think I'll just clip off a little bit more. And you would press this but to save time I'm just going to turn this to the right side and presto. You have a great collar. Look at how that point comes out just perfectly because I did not pivot at that edge. I did the understitching and the grading before sewing that front edge. You can use the same wrap-corner technique to get sharp, crisp corners not only on garments, but also on pillow corners or wherever you my have seams that intersect. I'd like to show you how to do the same process, practically, on this pillow. This wrap-corner technique can be done almost in any place where you have two seams that intersect that make this corner. On the little sample that I have for this pillow we're not going to understitch. But let me show you what I've done. This is a heavier fabric this is double-faced, double-quilted fabric. Here you can see, I have two fabrics and I've stitched along the edge the complete edge. I've done some trimming of the bating but that immaterial. Really what I want to show you is that to turn a corner on quilting, on home decorating you fold it along that stitching line. The stitching line, if you can possibly see is in red. I'll just wrap that to the underside and then I'm going to straight stitch this sewing the seam down the seam allowance down the way I had it folded. When I turn this right-side out you will see that-- Let me do a little clipping. When I turn this right-side out it will be a sharp corner even though it's bulky fabric. Wrap corners on garments or home dec. Learn to use the feed dogs, that crazy named machine part to make light of work when setting in certain sleeves. You can stream-line sewing knits and also woven fabrics when you learn this trick. I'm going to be showing you two types of setting in sleeves during this program. The first is the easiest where a shirt sleeve not a tailored sleeve but a very casual sleeve is set in without having to ease the extra fabric from the sleeve into the armhole. You can use your sewing machine or if you have a serger you can do that. To tell the difference between a shirt sleeve and a set-in sleeve it's not designated on the pattern you have to kind of look at the design of the sleeve. A shirt sleeve has less of a cap pitch. It doesn't have this dip or slope. It's pretty gentle a cap. Granted, these aren't the same sizes but you see how this has a very distinctive slope like a ski slope. This is a smaller hill rather than a slope. When your sleeve has a hill rather than a slope then you set it in before sewing the underarm seam to make it easier. Now here's my sample fabric. I just have the shoulder seams stitched or serged in this case. Now I'm going to meet right-sides together. But let's take a look at this sleeve. I have some markings a little nip or clip at the center at the top and then nips, as we discussed in our first program one in the front and two in the back as the pattern guided me. This is a knit pattern, obviously so I don't have to finish the edges. I'm just going to meet right-sides together and I'm going to do three pins that's all. One at the cap, the top where the seam is I have a pin, pin the layers. I'm pinning from the wrong side. Then at each end, at the underarm seams. When I just show you here you'll see that-- Here being how much the sleeve is bigger. You can see the sleeve peeking out. But when I do the sewing it's going to be eased in. Let me pin the other side and then I'll show you why it's going to be eased in. We'll be using the feed dogs that funny named part of a sewing machine. Let me get my fabrics here. There we go. The feed dogs really do a lot of work. If you use them to their fullest potential you'll find that you'll put the longer layer toward this little mechanism underneath. When I just run this you'll see them. They kind of bite and advance the fabric. Well, if you put the longer layer there then it works out so well. Now when you have a lot of ease in a sleeve it doesn't work enough. You have to encourage it in another way. Let me get going and start to serge or sew with that seam allowance. Start to sew, and now I'll simply just match the cut edges as I'm serging. And that extra fabric is eased into place. Now, I'm serging, so take out pins before you reach an area. That would be disastrous. Or probably maybe better yet you should maybe pin parallel but I kind of just do this my way. Sew these edges, and everything is going well. Now I didn't serge that underarm seam at all but I just will do that next. Here it's been set in and eased in just by the use of the feed dogs. Now sew the underarm seam and your sleeve is set into place. For tailored sleeves setting the sleeve into the armhole takes two steps. First easing the sleeve and then stitching it into the armhole. Here's how to minimize the sewing effort to professionally set in a sleeve. Now when you look at the tailored shirt and you see the set-in sleeve it eases in nicely. It's with woven fabric, not as easy to put in as knit but the steps, if you follow the steps it's going to work for you. I really should have added that the third step is pressing. With appropriate pressing you'll put the finishing touch on this sleeve to make it absolutely easy. During the first episode of our series we discussed gathering. The same type of gathering set-up can also be accomplished on the sleeve to do the easing, to ease in the extra fullness of the cap. Notice how much deeper the slope is of this cap from that first sleeve that I showed you for the shirt sleeve. We stitch two rows of basting stitches about at 1/2" and 3/8" from the edge stitching from the right side. This is the right side of the sleeve. You can see the seam has been stitched. The reason, if you recall from that episode it's easier to pull the bobbin thread. It gathers more readily than pulling the top thread. I don't know why, but it just does. So take advantage of that. So I'm going to anchor the threads wrap it around the pin like this and then just ease this around until it starts to look like a cap. This takes some time to do the fullness. Then I will check it on this end. The reason I'm anchoring the other end is so I don't pull out those threads. Okay, there we go. I think that looks about right. You can see how it shapes. You kind of do a little preliminary shaping and then we're going to meet right sides together. Here's my half bodice. Now I've added some notches or nips those little nips little 1/4" clips at the center and then the notches of the sleeve. We'll match those. The first thing you do is preliminary matching. Unlike the last sleeve we set in we're going to sew from the ease side. You may think that's counter-intuitive to what I just told you but because of all the ease that has to be smoothed in, you can kind of help it along with your fingers and see what's happening by sewing with the sleeve side up. Okay, we're almost there. See how this is kind of coming together? I'm matching the little nips and notches on the underarm area and then-- Here, this is kind of nice. It eases in there without any puckers. Then meet the edges. So it takes some time to pin but that's all part of it. Now I'm going to match the notches at the back and then double check that that's eased. The easing is, you know continuously around so that there's not more in one area than the other. Now when we wear clothes some of the greatest wear is at the underarm so I like to double stitch the underarm. And that's where I start I start at the notch from the underarm. So as I put this underneath my sewing machine you'll soon see that I'm going to start in the area that does not have any easing in it. Let me get those threads out of the way. I'll just sew this whole sleeve in. We're starting from the notch I'll take out the pin. Let's cut away those gathering threads. So I'm sewing from the underarm the first notch. Here's the underarm area. And then smooth it out and again, this is a one to one ratio right in this underarm. I'll cut away these extra threads because it's already been eased into place. You should be fine in that area. Now I'm going to get to the easing part. Take out your pins as you go around. Now, here's the time-- The absolute easiest way to do this is just to work with your fingers as pins. Notice I don't have a lot of pins. I kind of hold my fingers in place and position the fabric. In ready-to-wear they rarely pin. They do the same stitching time after time, of course so they get very adept at it but they use their fingers as pins on the side. If you're not sewing exactly straight which kind of I'm not as I'm talking as I'm doing this but you can take out or re-stitch around it. But you want to just make sure at this point that the fullness of the sleeves is correct and that what you have is kind of nice. And we're coming up to where I started. Now, that's what I mentioned we're going to double stitch in the underarm area making it more secure. So stitching just 1/8" or 1/4" away from that first stitching. Then I stop sewing. I wanted to sew the whole thing for you. Usually I just sew parts of things. But, you know, this needs to show how it's done. Now we can check and let's hope it's okay. I think we're pretty good. If you had a little pucker you could always re-stitch that but I think it looks quite well. So now the pressing. The pressing is probably the most important next step. Because we've eased it, we've set it in so this is the third step. Set the stitches flat. Stitch from the wrong side pressing out the extra fullness. Press and press. Just keep pressing and we'll press all the way around. After you've set the seam flat then check from the right side. Ah-ha! It looks better now that it's been pressed. You can do some pressing now over a mitt. I usually press from the wrong side. I don't press from the right side. And don't press this open. Let me get my left hand in the mitt. It's got a secure ironing board surface on there so it's not going to hurt you. Then just press around this. Again, not pressing down the cut edges just along the seam line. Press. There you go. And in the underarm area you can do some trimming. If you'd like to trim out some of those extra seam allowances, you could. But let's look at this. There, I did this. Just like that. The seam has been pressed and it's shaped and draped well. So ease first. Gently ease it then do the setting of the sleeve double stitch that underarm area. And then press. Press flat and press over a shape so that when you're finished you have a set-in sleeve that looks great and was easy to do as well. I'm sure most of you have sewn a quilt, clothing, a pillow or even a handbag but have you considered sewing a kite? Please welcome my "Nancy's Corner" guest Paul Fieber who is a kite enthusiast as well as a kite stitcher. He's been known to hum along to "Let's Go Fly a Kite." Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Paul. Thank you. It's a pleasure being here. You have made, and are making, beautiful kites. I think we're going to start this interview by sharing with our viewers some of your great designs. Okay, well, the first is della Porta Kite. It's based on a theme called the Mound Builders. It's a fairly large kite about 4-1/2' by 5-1/2'. And it's a flat kite, flown with a long tail. In our studio we have a smaller version that you made or an adaptation of that kite. Right, we'll take a closer look at that later. It's got a lot of color in it it's great. It has that Mound Builder theme. The second image that you have a kite that's flying is an interesting story. Yes, it's a on a Genki platform a little variant of a Genki. It has some Maori theme graphics. We've traveled in New Zealand and I was inspired by a lot of the interesting way that they've done their artwork and graphics. So that's what that came from. I think I've seen a lot of banners at lakefront festivals and, obviously, at kite festivals. You make those too. Right, we make some banners. There's a lot of folks making banners. Some are 16', some are 20'. They're made with the same materials. Banner cloth is used for some, some use ripstop. I like to use a patchwork using a Seminole patchwork technique. That's very attractive. Now you didn't always make quilts-- make kites, excuse me. But first you flew them. Tell our viewers a little history of that. Flying as a child, of course, we flew paper kites. Yeah, yes. Along Lake Michigan, in Cudahy is where I grew up. We flew kites very high. Of course, we never got them back at the end of the day.

laughter

And that's different today. Sure. I didn't really fly as an adult until I was in my fifties. And you were inspired by the photography. Yes, a friend here in town, Craig Wilson is an extraordinary kite aerial photographer and had an exhibit downtown. We got to check with him and talk with him and he said, well, the first thing you have to do if you want to dabble with kite photography is get a kite. So one thing led to another and suddenly I was just making and flying kites. Speaking of making the kites let's show our viewers again that quilt-- I'm sorry, I keep saying quilt. The kite that we have. This is about 40" by 40". Yeah, this is a little smaller della Porta. It's 41" by 46". It's, again, a flat kite that needs a long tail to fly. It's the same Mound Builders theme. Now when you make it you first create a design. Right. You must typically create a full-size pattern of the kite. I usually try to project-- You make a piece of artwork first and then project that image up onto that-- You layer the fabrics of ripstop nylon and then you do some tacking. Right. I use a hot tacking technique which is very common with a lot of kite makers that do appliqu. Some use a spray adhesive to keep the fabric together. The ripstop is very slippery which is one of the difficulties. And you have to keep it together when you're sewing something very large and stuffing it in and out of the arm of the sewing machine. You have to have it together. Then you sew from the back of it. Yeah, we sew from the reverse side. We're trying to create a stained glass effect. So much of the front of the kite is covered with black fabric and then we cut away after that's finished to reveal the design. It's really lovely, just how you trim-- Sewn with a zigzag stitch. Right, a zigzag stitch. It's about a 1/8" stitch 14 or 20 stitches long. That seems to work the best. Very stunning colors. You don't have a lot of variety of fabric I understand. Right, it's harder and harder to get the colors that you'd like to have. A lot of kite makers have stashes from old times where that's not even available anymore. It's hard to-- But brilliant colors work up in the sky. Yes, they do. That's one of the other problems is it has to look good on the ground but it also has to look good at 200 feet in the air. Yeah, and the colors do look good in the sky. Paul, thank you for sharing your art with us. Beautiful job. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. If you'd like more information on Paul's quilt-- quilt. Kite! --making process, you can go to nancyzieman.com and click on the "Nancy's Corner." We have a link to a blog on this. Also go to nancyzieman.com to re-watch this program and many other shows and join us by social media. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Nancy Zieman has written a fully-illustrated book entitled "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

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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 has been brought to you by Baby Lock; Madeira Threads; Koala Studios; Clover; Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Pellon. Sewing with Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.