Sewing With Nancy

There's a topic that I've completely avoided in the past. It's generally not fun to sew, but often needed. Can you guess? Mending. Zippers that need replacing in a coat or jeans that require a patch are often stashed away in a corner and forgotten about. Rather than taking a conventional approach to repairs I'll show you the cheater's way. First, fool 'em jeans hem. I'll show you how to shorten a pair of jeans that keep the original hemline stitching. You'll be surprised at the results. "Quick Stitch to Wear Again" 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. Fool 'em jeans hems requires just a little tuck. A tuck in the fabric so that we can maintain and keep the topstitching along the lower edge. Often in jeans, when you cut this off you can't replicate this stitching. If you'd like to keep it I'll show you how to work with it. When we look at this pair of jeans that have been already hemmed you can hardly see where the seam has been stitched. It's tucked underneath. There you can see the little tuck that I created. I finished the edges. It's kind of a fooling-type of hem treatment. These are not difficult. These are simple treatments. This technique works best for straight-legged jeans. If your jeans have a flair or are tapered it's not going to be one of your options but I'll have another solution for that. Determine how much you'd like to shorten your pants-- your jeans, I should say-- and then divide that number by two. So, if you needed to shorten them by 1-1/2" I'm going to set my gauge at 3/4". I'll do it this way for you, 3/4". Then, measure 3/4" from the hem. Sometimes, I like to go just a little bit beyond it. Not quite butted up against it, but just beyond it. Mark the 3/4". I think you can kind of see what's going to happen next. You just keep marking all the way around. After you've done both pant legs and done the measurement, then pin along that marking. I have that done on this pair. I've pinned it up. Set your machine, if you can for a free arm. Remove the housing around the machine so that you can take advantage of slipping the cuff of your jeans in this area. It will just rotate and move right around this free-arm section. I have a zipper foot on the machine. Now, the zipper foot will obviously make it easier for you to stitch next to the fold. Now, I mentioned earlier that you don't want to stitch right next to that fold you want to go just a touch away. That zipper foot also helps you do that. I may want to go one stitch or two stitches closer so I'm just going to move that needle. You might want to set your machine at a basting stitch and sew a couple stitches just to test where you're going to have the stitch, and then sew. You don't need any special thread. You can have a speedy sewing here-- Special thread, and just sew around the edge. Just guide the edge of the zipper foot along this area. Now, we're getting to bulk. This is what you're going to have to contend with a lot when working with jeans. If I would start to sew up this area it might take more stitches per inch. You can see the angle of the foot. You can use a notion that helps level off the foot. You put this behind your foot. Lower the presser foot. You can see now it's level. Level to go. Then, it will just go down. It fell off, because it's level. You'll keep on going down. Just keep stitching along this edge, going around. You could hem or shorten a whole bunch of jeans in about ten minutes a piece. Now, I'm getting to the other bulk. You'd use this technique for a lot of fixing of these types of jeans. You can see, I can't really climb that mountain very well so I'll lift up that presser foot put this little notion behind here. You could also just wad up some fabric place it behind, and sew over it. It works so much better. After getting all the way around, which I'm reaching my starting destination I'll clip the threads. You could trim off the excess fabric and then zigzag over this edge. But when it's pressed, ta-dah, it's shortened and you can hardly see that it has been shortened. A beginner can do this. An experienced person can do this. It's just the fool 'em jeans hem. When tapered or flared jeans must be shortened another fix-it approach is needed. Usually, it's tricky to sew over the fixed seams. Not so with the no-bumps jeans hem approach. No steamroller needed, just a "Quick Stitch" tip. The last technique that I worked with the jeans had straight legs. In this instance, they're more flared. If we tuck up this large amount you'd see that the cuff would go way beyond the pants and it would be hard to kind of ease that in, or take it in. It's not worth it. So here's another quick fix approach. We've cut the pants, leaving an inch hem. You can see the mark of the hem. The first thing I do after doing that marking us some pressing just press up the hem. Like working with the free arm of your sewing arm if you can use a pressing tool that you can easily press around the edge that works out well. Just press up that one inch. This bulk of the seam this is where it gets really thick to do the topstitching. The tip is going to be kind of fun to see. You'd do this all the way around. Now, the next step is to do some trimming or clipping, I should say, at each of the seams. At each of the hems you're going to clip half the amount, to about 1/2". Let me clip it this way. Clip on either side of the bulk. Notice how this sticks up. I'll clip and then clip next to the fold so that the bulky amount is extending above. Now we're going to do a double fold. Fold under 1/2", and then another 1/2" at the hemline. There we go. Then do the pinning. When you pin this under the little tab at the seam will be extended right like this, on both sides. You're going to pin all the way around, a double 1/2" except this has the full inch. Now, if you want to match your thread to the topstitching that's in your jeans work with all-purpose thread in the bobbin and top. Here's a close-up of the stitching. As I'm sewing, around the pant leg along the fold when I get to the bump, it's not as exaggerated, because I'm just going over four layers of fabric instead of six. So, you just keep on keeping on and just stitch around that area. If you'd like to back track backstitch in the hem area, you could. But it's probably not that necessary. On this pant leg, you'll see that I've done the stitching in that matching thread. It just kind of matches the topstitching of the jeans. Then, clip off the extra. In jeans in particular it's very dense fabric, densely woven. It's been washed a lot so that's really not going to ravel. It's just flush. No one will be the wiser, and it was a lot easier for you to sew. The pants that we have hemmed using this technique we didn't choose a topstitching thread that was in the seam but chose a topstitching thread that was used in the embellishment. You can see the simple stitching around the edges. It's flat. It's crisp. They're shortened and they're shortened without a bump. When pants or jeans fit around your hips but gape at the waist you can snug up the waist without a second thought. Grab a seam ripper or scissors and some elastic and I'll show you how to create a snug fit in mere minutes. In our series on "Quick Stitch to Wear Again" we're not going use the conventional way of doing fitting techniques, or mending, or patching because on this particular pair of pants for this little girl, the waist was just too large so we added elastic in the back. The elastic is added just by cutting the inner waistband and threading some elastic through. I'll show you the process. You don't want to spend a lot of time on fixing things. You'd rather spend time on creating things! So that's why we're going to take this easy approach. I know I'm going to get letters saying that maybe this wasn't the right way. But this is the easy way. On the pair of pants, in the back area measure in approximately an inch from the side seams so you don't have to detail or be concerned with or avoid, the bulk of the seam. Then, separate the waistband, the front and back. You just pinch it so that you have the inner band. Make about an inch cut through this opening. On some pants, it may be raveling a lot. If that happens-- and jeans maybe not as much-- but I would recommend at this point to put a drop of a seam sealant. I'm not going to let it dry so just make believe I've put some seam sealant around that opening. I need it a little bit wider for my elastic. I'll give it one more little snip. There we go. You can see on the other side that we've already cut this, sealed it, and let it dry so that it's not going to ravel at this point. Don't cut the elastic to the length that you'd like. Just take an extra long length or piece of elastic about an inch wide or 1-3/4". You can kind of make sure it's not going to pull through that back waistline as you're putting it in. You can put a clamp at the end of it an elastic clamp. Or you could maybe even sew a piece of fabric a larger piece of fabric to the end which I've done in the past. You'd take that off after you've done the stitching. Then use some type of tool to glide the elastic through the opening. Some people like to use safety pins. They sometimes pull out easier. We're just going to start to pull this through. Through the back. It comes out, which you can kind of see very easily. Now, here's where I like to do this in two steps. I'm going to pull this just a touch leaving about 1/2" or so, and then do some zigzags. Set your machine at a zigzag stitch, and sew through all the layers. I'm using a contrasting thread color. Just sew one side. Cut your threads and then do some trimming. Trim off that elastic. Then you can sew the other side. Just cover that up, and sew the other side of the elastic. Then try on the pants. Have the person that you're fixing this for try it on and pull it to the right length. It's best to do, at this point-- Snug it up. Again, sew one side of the elastic trim it off, then sew the other side and you have a snug fit around the waistline making it maybe an inch or so smaller maybe up to two inches. You've securely stitched the elastic into place. Two rows of stitching on each side. Well go back to the original and it's been completely stitched. We did it in some highlights with pink. But wow, what a fast way of making it fit and a quick fix, at that. Sew True! You'll never see zippers the same way! The cover-up is exposed! Okay, we're having a little fun with the topic that can be rather dry. The cover-up zipper technique replacing zippers in jeans and pants is truly sensational. Don't look for the latest edition of "Sew True" at the grocery check-out, just stay tuned. When working on this program and trying to figure out ways to do simple fixes for difficult areas, this technique kind of evolved. I was amazed how it turned out, because the zipper was broken in these pair of jeans and we replaced it by covering up the old zipper area. It took about 20 minutes to do. We never had to take out the seams or the area below the end of the zipper. It's really quite amazing how it goes in. The first step is to buy a jeans zipper that's just a little bit longer than the opening that you have. So, you can make it a little bit longer. Buy it longer. Then we're going to add some double-sided tape to the zipper. This really is the way to go because it helps "pin" it into place without using a lot of pins or any pins, as far as that goes. On your right side of the zipper I've added a little tape a strip at the top of the zipper tape. A lot of tapes here. This is the double-sided tape. This is the zipper tape. Fold down the zipper tape end. Then add double-sided basting tape over the fabric part of the zipper. I think that might be the better way to differentiate. I'll just call it the fabric part. You can see it's not really straight, the tape isn't. This is 3/8" wide, so we just cut it in half because the 3/8" would've been too wide. Then flip this zipper over to the other side. On the underside, tape down the fabric part of the zipper and add another strip. So, you have it ready to position into your pants. Many times, when you have a zipper that's broken in jeans maybe some teeth are worn out or the top area is broken. Well, we can cut it out and not open any seams. I start with the overlay side. With this overlay side if you have zipper teeth that go up into the seam you're going to have to use a needle nose pliers or zipper clamp here, just to cut off the zipper teeth just to get it going. There we go, you can hear that clip. It's so you can use your scissors accurately so you don't have to worry about cutting the teeth of the zipper. Now, here's the trick. You're going to be trimming next to the stitching. Then, the zipper fabric will ravel away. Clip over to the next stitching. This maintains the topstitching of the zipper. It's kind of there as a facade. It's not really holding anything in place. You just trim this away and ravel it's completely raveled away. This takes the longest part. On the pair of jeans that are underneath I've raveled out that complete zipper that underlay. Now, you might also need to go into the zipper and clip. There's usually a bartack holding these two areas together. Just clip that apart so it's nice and open. Then cut away right next to the fold the other half of the zipper and your zipper is removed. How about that? Now the tape comes into play. I'll cut it out at the end, there we go. Now we're going to start by placing the top of the zipper over the stitching. You can place it over here just audition it first, the overlay side. It's going to line up. Remove this section, remove the tape and then line it up, so it's centering that stitching. Place the zipper down, just get it down into place. Here's a close-up of stitching this. Stitch from the top of the zipper. Bartack at the top and stitch down the middle of the fabric of the zipper the zipper tape, so right down the middle. And it's in, one half of it is in. Use thread that matches your jeans so that you maintain the thread color that you can see here. Now, on the opposite side you can do just about the same thing. This zipper has been inserted. Button the pants, and see where he zipper tape falls. It falls right here, put a pin in place. Then, remove the double-sided tape cover and start. You can open this up, that'll help. We can then position the zipper right where it belongs. Again, here's a close-up of stitching from the top. Bartack it down and stitch all the way until you can. Sometimes you can't stitch the whole length. It's okay. Here is our zipper. It has been stitched down and then I restitched the bartack just to hold the two pieces together.

There were two rows of stitching

on the overlay side, on the underlay side. And it covered up the original zipper area and it was easy. Over ten years go, my Nancy's Corner guest received an impassioned email asking for volunteers to teach quilting to women in Mongolia who needed a skill in order to support their families. Most of us would've deleted the email without a thought. Not Maggie Ball, who traveled, taught and continues to mentor Mongolian women piecing together a better future. Maggie joins us via Skype from Bainbridge Island, Washington. Welcome back to Sewing with Nancy. Thank you, Nancy, I'm delighted to be here to give you an update. It was 2004 when you made your first trip to Mongolia and you helped the women learn a quilting skill. Give us a little brief history about that trip. The women were starting from scratch and so I taught them really basic techniques using scraps that we had available. I also taught them how to piece a traditional Mongolian symbol, the ulzii which we put on tote bags. The women were able to sell these. The ulzii brings long life and prosperity. It's all over the place in Mongolia. Then, after they learned this basic ulzii appliqu more teachers went to Mongolia, and more techniques were advanced. Explain the process the evolution of their learning skills. Yes, well, I've been four times now. But several other teachers have gone there. The women take whatever skills they learn and have this ability to adapt and to apply it to their own culture. So now the development over the last ten years has been fantastic to see. We recently had a quilt show in Mongolia this summer and it's just been fantastic to see these wonderful horse quilts that they're making from silk, and also Mongolian scenes. They have developed their products, as well so they have a whole variety of things to sell. They're using locally available silk which they get remnants from the clothing industry so it's a great way to recycle those pieces. They're just making these gorgeous bags all kinds of items, and art quilts in different forms. In 2004, there wasn't a retail establishment where people could sell their works of art. You helped fund that. And so have people buying their products they've done the same. Yes, and we had a capital campaign and raised money to buy them a center. This was hosted by my church St. Barnabas Episcopal Church which is our base in the United States. All the money goes back to the Mongolian women so we were able to have a capital campaign and raise $82,000 and purchased a center for them in 2008 so they have a shop a classroom, and a small office in that center. It's in a good location close to town so the women can get there to come to take classes and also the tourists can get there. In addition, they sell their products in other locations in the city. Well, so many of these women are suffering from unemployment or not necessarily the best circumstances at home and you've helped over 2,000 women through that center is that correct? Yes, they have taught that many women. They are able to teach for the government to teach unemployed women. Many organizations have funded them to go into the countryside to teach and also out to the one district which is a shanty town of yurts on the outskirts of town. So from just starting from Selenge Tserendash's vision of creating this center, we started with nothing and now there are five part-time teachers three seamstresses, a manager, three designers and as many as 30 women doing piecework at home. So, it's really making a big economic difference for these women. And all because you answered an email inviting you to come to Mongolia. It's impressive. Yes, I never realized how this would develop and I feel like I have a Mongolian family. I applaud Selenge Tserendash, whose perseverance and tenacity has made all this happen. I want to continue to support her as much as possible. Maggie, I'm going to invite you back after you go back to Mongolia and get more photos and see the progression from the tote bags to these beautiful wall hangings. It's amazing. Thank you for joining us. You're very welcome. Thank you, Nancy. If you'd like to re-watch this program or this interview with Maggie or anything Sewing with Nancy

you can go to

nancyzieman.com and click on Nancy's Corner to find more information about the Mongolian Quilting Project and also to watch four seasons of Sewing with Nancy programs. We have one more episode of this "Quick Stitch to Wear Again" which you'll find next time on Sewing with Nancy. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Nancy has written a fully-illustrated book of quick and easy sewing techniques used to repair clothing. Many of the techniques are featured in this two-part series. The book is $14.99 plus shipping and handling. To order the book, call 1-800-336-8373

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sewingwithnancy.com/2903. Order Item Number BK2903 "Quick Stitch to Wear Again" Credit card orders only. 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.