Costume Education: Sewing Techniques
The craft of attaching or fastening objects with stitches constructed from a needle and thread, sewing is an old textile art. While sewing is mostly related to household linens and clothing, it is also utilized in many industries and crafts. These are upholstery, shoemaking, bookbinding, sailmaking, and even sporting goods-manufacturing. Though all sewing was done by hand in the past, since the 19th century’s invention of the sewing machine and the 20th century’s rise of computerization, sewing has turned into a mass-production industry. Fine hand sowing is an attribute of haute couture fashion, high-end tailoring, and customized dressmaking.
Stitches
• Running Stitch: Hand-sewn stitch that is made by passing the needle out of and into the fabric. This makes a row of stitches that appears like a line with dashes.
• Straight Stitch: Machine-sewn stitch that is the most widely used machine stitch.
• Zigzag Stitch: Machine-sewn stitch that features a multitude of uses. The stitch is created when the needle on a sowing machine goes from side to side.
• Back Stitch: In reference to sewing machines, this is a procedure that involves sewing in the reverse over a line of stitches that was previously laid.
? Blind Stitch: A hand-sewn stitch that is made out of long stitches that can be found on the back of a piece of fabric. On a sewing machine, this type of stitch is a specialty stitch that is utilized with a folded fabric to fashion a blind hem.
• Slip Stitch: A kind of stitch that is invisible, slip stitch forms when a needle passes perpendicularly in between two pieces of fabric that must be joined.
• Herringbone Stitch: Stitch used to fasten pieces of fabric together when they have edges that have been butted together.
• Whip Stitch: A hand-sewn stitch that forms when the needle passes through the fabric’s edge, but always from the same side.
• Blanket Stitch: Mainly used for decorative purposes, the blanket stitch is created by passing the needle through the fabric in the same direction. However, the needle passes through the loop of the stitch, creating interlocking stitches that encase the fabric’s edge.
• Buttonhole Stitch: Similar to a smaller type of blanket stitch, this type of stitch features stitches that are so near together that they end up touching.
• Bartack Stitch: Stitch utilized to reinforce areas of a fabric that are under a strain. This stitch is identifiable by its rectangular blocks of stitching and can be both hand-sewn or machine-sewn.
• Arrowhead Stitching: This stitch is meant to be more decorative than the Bartack stitch, though it’s used in the same instances. It’s made by overlapping and alternating stitches that are parallel and laid along a triangle’s two sides.
• Crow’s Foot Stitch: Stitch that is like an arrowhead, with the only difference being that it is worked on all sides of a triangle that is a little bit bowed.
Stitching Techniques
• Baste Technique: Technique utilized to hold pieces of fabric together for a temporary period of time.
• Double Stitch Technique: A technique that is used best in places that experience large amounts of strain.
• Under Stitch Technique: Technique that involves pressing seam allowances of one completed seam to one side. Next, they must be stitched down to the layer of fabric that is underneath and near the original line of stitching.
• Stay Stitch Technique: A stitching technique that is employed to stabilize curves and other areas that have a tendency to become distorted.
• Top Stitch Technique: Technique that is utilized for only a decorative appearance, but it may also be utilized to keep layers together in case they are at risk of shifting.
• Edge Stitch Technique: Technique that is nothing more than a top stitch, which is near to the edge.
• Overcast Technique: A technique meant to stop the raw edges of any fabric from fraying. It is achieved by sewing a line of zigzag stitching over the raw edges.
• Tack Technique: A technique that is used to hold either garment parts or pieces of fabric together at a single point.
• Darn Technique: A technique that is employed to either repair or reinforce an area by way of overlapping and randomly oriented stitching.
Seams
• Standard Seam: Seam attained by putting two pieces of fabric right sides together and then sewing through both of the layers.
• French Seam: Seam achieved by putting two pieces of fabric wrong sides together and then sewing. Next, fold the fabric on top of the seam allowances and then sew them again, which will encase said seam allowances.
• False French Seam: From a standard seam, fold the allowances of the seam in onto each other. Then, sew said seam allowances together along the fold’s edge.
• Flat-felled Seam: Seam achieved by folding over one fabric’s seam allowance right sides together while folding the other fabric’s allowances wrong sides together. Now, after interlocking the folded edges of the pieces of fabric, sew one line of stitching on each edge of the fold.
• False Flat-felled Seam: Seam achieved by putting two pieces of fabric wrong sides together and then sewing. Next, after trimming one of the seam allowances and having the other one folded over it, press both seams flat. Complete by sewing along the fold’s edge.
• Lapped Seam: Seam achieved by sewing through both of the layers of two fabric pieces that have been overlapped.
• Butted Seam: Seam achieved by butting the edges of two fabric pieces against each other and then sewing a line of stitches so that the edges of both pieces are caught.
Seam Techniques
• Ending Seam: Seam technique that anchors the ends of threads. This can be done two ways. The first way involves back-stitching the start and end of each seam. The other is pulling both ends of thread through to a side and tying them in a knot.
• Hiding Threads: Technique used to hide threads when seams are put on a garment so that they are viewable from both sides of a fabric.
• Finishing Seams: Technique employed to keep seam allowances and fabric from fraying, especially if they are prone to a lot of wear and tear or are easily frayed.
• Binding: Technique where a braid or tape is put over a raw edge and then sewn down.
• Pinking: A technique that cuts a fabric’s edges in a zigzag line. This technique might remove fraying in certain kinds of fabric and lessen the seam allowances’ bulk.
• Grading: Technique that reduces bulk and enables turning linings and facings. This technique calls for seam allowances to be trimmed to unequal widths.
• Clipping & Notching: A technique that prevents the fabric from not lying out flat because of varying lengths along the fabric’s edge and the seamline.
Hems
• Selvedges: Hem that cuts pattern pieces so that the fabric’s selvedges form the actual hems. Not often a wise choice.
• Folded Hem: The simplest kind of hem that is made by folding over a fabric’s raw edge twice and then sewing down the folded edges.
• Rolled Hem: This hem is a takeoff on the folded hem. It is made by rolling a small amount of a fabric’s edge and then sewing it down.
• Blind Hem: A kind of hem that is formed out of generously spaced stitches, which don’t catch the garment’s front but only the hem’s edge.
• Bound Hem: Like a bound seam in that it is made by putting a braid or tape over a raw edge and then sewing it down.
• Casing: Casing is most of the time seen in cuffs, waistlines, and necklines. They are utilized when a garment’s opening or edge must be gathered with either an elastic or a drawstring.
Marking
• Pencil: Normal pencils may be used to mark fabric, but some sewers like to use pencils that are specifically used to mark fabric.
• Chalk: Chalk is a favorite type for marking fabric because it leaves no marks that are permanent on a fabric. However, this is also a drawback, so chalk is not preferred if it needs to mark something that must endure a lot of handling.
• Soap: Soap is utilized to mark fabric, but only in smaller slivers. It fails to work effectively on light-colored fabrics since soap is light in color.
• Tracing Paper: Similar to carbon paper, this tracing paper features color on only one side that is then transferred onto fabric by way of a tool like a tracing wheel.
• Chemical Pens: The ink on chemical pens at times dissolves after exposure to water or air. It also reacts, at times, with some types of fabric, leaving an unintended permanent mark.
• Tailor’s Tack: Tailor’s tacks are well-suited for marking points that match on pieces of pattern that are identical. They don’t work well for marking lines.
Positioning
• Pins: The most conventional way of holding fabric in place while sewing. They are commonly utilized when cutting out fabric and then, later on, to hold fabric together as seams are sewn.
• Pattern Weights: Pattern weights are utilized to hold in place the pattern pieces during the cutting of the fabric.
• Basting: Basting is a positioning technique that is useful in the case of shifty fabrics, or when trying to match the curved edges of various radii with the seam allowances of fabric pieces.
Miscellaneous
• Lining: Lining is used to totally cover a garment’s interior; it is a second layer of fabric.
• Facing: This is like lining, except that it only goes in a small distance from the edge of a garment.
• Interfacing: Much of the time utilized on cuffs and collars, interfacing is a piece of fabric that is a supplement to a restricted area of garment, which sits in between the facing and the main fabric.
• Underlining: Underlining is added in order to provide added stiffness, and it is added to cover a pattern piece’s whole interior surface.
• Interlining: A layer of fabric that insulates, which is placed between the lining of a garment and the exterior for some warmth.
• Gore: This is a piece that has a trapezoid shape and which is added to improve the width of a lower edge. It usually goes the full length of a garment.
• Godet: A piece that is triangular in shape and which is put in place to add width to an edge.
• Gusset: A piece shaped like a polygon that placed into a garment’s interior to add extra space to a tight area like the underarm.
• Dart: This is a fabric that is shaped like a small wedge. Its purpose is to be shaped over any curved area, like the bust, for instance.
• Placket: A placket is an opening or a slit that is finished on a garment.
• Button Shanks: Button shanks appear naturally on shank buttons, due to the shank, or projecting loop, that comes from the button’s back. This feature lets the button be attached to the garment because it will be slightly away from it upon attachment. Flat buttons have no shanks like this, so what sewers have to do is allow a bit of slack in the thread that holds the button to a garment.
• Buttonholes: These are tiny slits that are that are cut into fabric; its raw edges are normally covered with stitches. Buttonholes come in different varieties like straight, eyelet, corded, and bound.
• Tuck: A tuck is a fold of a decorative nature that is oftentimes sewn along most of the length of the fabric.
• Pintuck: A small tuck in the fabric; sometimes it only makes a raised edge due to insufficient fabric in the actual tuck.
• Pleats: Regularly spaced folds of fabric, pleats are utilized to control fullness when wider fabric pieces are attached to ones that are narrower.
• Gathers: These function like pleats, although these are more irregular in arrangement. The extra fabric on a line of stitching is commonly drawn up to form gathers.
• Shirring: A procedure of compressing an area of fabric that is small in size, which is done through numerous lines of gather.
• Easing: This is a gathering of fabric that permits a seam in between two pieces of fabric that are not the same length.
• Ease: Ease is nothing more than the difference between an actual garment and the measurements of the person.
• Ironing & Pressing: Ironing is the procedure in which an iron is pushed around over a cloth’s surface. Pressing is the procedure of how the iron is actually positioned on the cloth, then lifted, and, finally, repositioned (sometimes with steam).
?Finger Pressing: Technique that requires the use of two fingers between which to form a crease through tight pressing.
• Draping: Garment-design method that calls for fabric being draped either over a person or a dummy. Once there, it is arranged, then marked, then cut, and, finally, sewn with no flat patterns being used.
• Thimble: This is simply a protective cup that is meant to be worn at the end of a finger.
Further Resources:
- Inventor of and Historic Implications of Sewing Machine
- Profile of a Sewing Machine
- List of Sewing Techniques
- Instructions on how to sew by hand
- Sewing Machine History
Article written by Carolyn J Todd