Sewing

Learning A New Skill: Sewing

There are several reasons why people may choose to sew. Some people sew as a hobby because it may be a fun way to occupy their time, others do it to achieve a specific style and tailored fit of clothing especially if they have an awkwardly proportioned body (making it hard to find clothes that fit), some people also choose to sew because it can be cheaper than buying items in department stores or at the mall, or others may choose to be more artistic and sew stuffed animals or make other crafts to give as gifts or use as holiday ornaments.
There are many steps to creating the perfect outfit, especially one for such a special occasion as the senior prom. The first step to making any article of clothing is to take measurements of the person who the clothing is being made for, the subject. When making a dress it is necessary to take bust size, waist, hip, and height measurements (Mentzer D, Interview).
The next step is the design process. People may choose to follow a pattern or may design their own pattern to follow if it is difficult to find the exact look they are trying to achieve in a store bought pattern. Patterns can be found online or in catalogs in most sewing or craft stores. “When sewing something as complicated as a dress it will be much easier to follow a pattern than to create one, especially for a beginner” (Mentzer D, Interview). When buying a pattern make sure it fits the guidelines for person’s measurements the dress will be worn on, or there will be many alterations when the dress is finished. One of the advantages of buying a pre-made pattern at the store is that someone can achieve a tailored look and fit without spending the time and energy to design and plan out the exact pattern which could take several days (Mentzer D, Interview).
After deciding whether or not to use a store bought pattern or use a uniquely created pattern, the next step is to go out and buy the rest of the materials. The easiest way to pick materials is to choose one of the materials recommended on the store bought pattern. If a person chooses to design their own pattern, then obviously the choice is a matter of personal taste. But also keep in mind that one should not “expect to get a flowing dress made out of a stiff fabric such as wool” (Mentzer M, Interview). When buying the fabric make sure that the measurements taken of the subject are used to determine how much fabric is needed to make sure that enough is bought to make the dress, and always buy some extra to account for mistakes. The most important idea to keep in mind when picking a material is the coloration wanted to produce the style desired in the end product, the material is what everyone will ultimately see as the final product. Another thing to check on is whether or not the material is dry-clean only which would make it much harder to work with because dry-clean only materials are usually more on the stiff side, as well as more expensive in the long run for care (Mentzer M, Interview).
Along with the actual cloth needed to make the dress, it is necessary to buy matching thread and some extra needles to use along the way as well as any shearing scissors, pins, and a sewing machine if needed. Also it would be a good idea to buy a measuring board to make the measurement and cutting steps easier (Maresh, 7). Most of the other accessory materials such as buttons and zippers can be bought later, just prior to the finishing steps. At this point, the majority of the money needed to actually complete the project has been used and there are only small nominal items left to buy (Mentzer M, Interview).
After buying the materials the next step is to cut the material into the shapes in the pattern. First thing is to lay the cloth out flat on the measuring board with the good side facing down and place the pattern on top of the material. Then pin the pattern to material making sure there are no bumps in the way the fabric is laying. Next, cut the fabric around the pattern making sure the pins are left in the material (Sewing 101, Internet).
The next step is to follow the instructions in the pattern. The pattern will show which pieces will be shown together and in the order the pieces should be taken care of. Take two pieces that need to be sewn together and line them up on the edges that need sewn together. Unpin the pattern from the pieces of fabric, and then pin the two pieces together making sure the two good sides of the fabric are touching (Griffith, Interview).
After pinning the materials together, one can begin sewing the pieces together; however, there are several ways to do this. One can choose to hand sew the pieces or machine sew. “I usually machine sew the inner seams, but hand sew the hems because hems are visible to people and hand sewing gives a more finished look” (Griffith, Interview). Also, there are several different sizes and shapes of needles. Choosing the correct one may be very difficult, however reading the magazine article “Machine Needle-Know How” from Threads magazine really gave a lot of information about choosing a machine needle. First off, the type of needle the machine uses narrows down the type of needle that is needed. After that keep in mind the type of cloth, thread, and type of stitch that is being used to decide the type of needle. The most important thing is to make sure the thread passes through the eye of the needle with ease, if it does not, it may be wise to choose another needle. Just remember, “For every correctly chosen, new needle you put into your machine, you should have eight to 12 continuous hours of trouble-free sewing” (Morgan, 59-61). It is a matter of personal choice whether to hand sew or machine sew, but obviously machine sewing will be much faster and sometimes easier than hand sewing.
After sewing the first two pieces together, continue on with the other pieces following the same steps until the dress begins to take shape. Keep in mind that the dress is inside out at this point because the good sides were sewn in so that the inner seams will not be shown. After the dress has been roughly put together, try the dress on the subject to see how it fits. Use pins to hold wherever alterations are needed for future reference (Griffith, Interview).
At this point it is time to put in any extra accessories such as buttons or zippers. The first thing in choosing a zipper or buttons is the color. Obviously the zipper should blend into the dress without being seen, so pick a color that matches the fabric color. The next thing to decide is how long the zipper should be. Measure the length of zipper space left in the dress, and buy a zipper that is at least one inch bigger than the space in the dress because it is easier to cut a zipper to make it smaller than to buy one that is too small and will not fit (Percy, 14).
After sewing in the zipper, try the dress on the subject again. Make sure that the dress fits, or pin again to make any alterations. If any alterations are still needed, simply take the seams out where needed and sew in new seems to go with the pins that were just put in (Griffith, Interview).
There are a lot of decisions that go into sewing a dress. Keep in mind that all of those choices made, whether big or small, will determine how well the final dress appears when it is completely finished. If those choices are made well, one will have the perfect dress, both in fit and style.