Читать книгу May Martin’s Sewing Bible: 40 years of tips and tricks - May Martin - Страница 61

Having gathered together all the items you need for your dressmaking project, here are a few tips to help you on your way.

Prepare your paper pattern. Iron the pattern pieces – they need to lie flat on your fabric.

Press your fabric, too; it will be easier to lay out your pattern and will allow for greater accuracy when cutting out. Press wool on a steam setting to pre-shrink it.

Make sure your pattern is laid out following the grain line. Follow the pattern layout for your fabric width and style.

Use plenty of pins when pinning the pattern to the fabric – put pins in each corner and several along the edges (photo 1). But make sure that they don’t project over the cutting line, as this will damage your scissors.

Use tailor’s tacks to mark where zips are to be positioned and darts are to be sewn, along with other necessary reference points on the garment. Clues to aid construction are good!

It can be difficult to identify the wrong and right sides of plain fabric, so put chalk marks on the wrong side.

If in doubt about whether your fabric has a nap, pin all all pattern pieces so that they are lying in the same direction. Cut out the individual pieces of fabric for your garment with care, using sharp scissors and following the line of the pattern pieces as accurately as possible.

Remember to cut notches outwards so that they don’t steal your seam allowance.

If you are right-handed, place your left hand on your pattern piece to hold it flat while cutting out (photo 2). This will be the other way round if you are left-handed.

Take care when cutting two garment pieces out of a single rather than a double layer of fabric. Cut one piece with the paper pattern print right side up, then turn the paper pattern over to cut out the second piece. You will then have a right and a left piece!

Practise your machine stitching on a double piece of fabric before you make a start on your garment.

Place garment pieces right sides together before you attach them, carefully matching the notches together on each seam.

When you’re pinning seams together, always pin at right-angles to the fitting line. This makes them easier to pull out when you’re sewing the seam.

As you construct your garment, remove pattern pieces one at a time, matching to the adjacent piece. This avoids confusion when you have lots of pieces. Where there are many sections of the garment to cut out, it may be helpful to label each one with a slip of paper attached with a pin so that you can identify which section it is once you have removed the paper pattern.

Don’t screw up your garment in between sewing sessions. Lay it over a hanger so that it is kept flat for the next stage.

Press every seam as you make it, to bed the stitches in, and then press the seam open or to one side if that is indicated in the pattern.

Neaten each seam as you construct it. The minute you trap one seam in another with a row of machining, it is very difficult to get at it to neaten any raw edges.

Trim, clip and press at every stage of your project.

Measure, measure, measure! Be as accurate as possible when you sew. I sew with a tape measure on a lanyard around my neck!