Sewing Tools for Beginners! The perfect guide to sewing equipment for people getting into the craft.

welcome everybody i am talk custom and we're going to do a very short quick little video to show you guys what tools you're going to need to get into the craft of sewing i will do my absolute best to categorize all of these tools as i think they should be and then there will be links of each of those products listed in the description below obviously the first thing you're going to need is some kind of a sewing machine we're not going to be talking about embroidery or vinyl cutting or any of those other things in this video we're just going to be talking about sewing and the tools you need the next thing you're going to need is some kind of a fabric so you have to ask yourself what kind of projects do you want to make so if you want to make apparel and quilts and bags and things that stay stiff you're going to need some kind of a woven fabric this will not stretch now if you want to make things like t-shirts and hoodies and scarves and things like that you're going to need some kind of a knit fabric so this will stretch this is actually a sweater knit so it's knit on the outside and it is fleece on the inside which is great for making hoodies as an example i'm making a pair of men's jeans out of this beautiful mermaid fabric and this is a woven cotton fabric so this will not stretch it's great for apparel stuffed animals pillows bags and things like that so figure out what kind of fabric you need for what projects you want to work with and then we're going to move on to what we need next now thread for beginners uh there's two different types of thread you'll need to know about as a beginner in sewing there is standard sew all thread now these are 1 000 meter guterman black and white so all thread and they call it that because you can use it on pretty much all projects they also have them in colors but most of the time i just use black and white now for all these smaller colored spools these are known as top stitch threads and these are used to add a little bit of cosmetic color and decoration to your projects i use topstitch thread in apparel bag making pillows and tons of other projects so these are all very important too now as an example between different types of thread all of my seams on the inside are this black thread so that's our standard sew all thread all of the construction is done with black you can't see any of that on the outside of my project but what you can see is all of this purple top stitch right here and for that i used this royal purple top stitch thread so that's the difference between sew all thread and top stitch thread my next recommendation is some kind of a self-healing cutting mat there's lots of different brands a lot of them are very good this one is enormous which i need because i do a lot of men's pants and i can actually fit a whole panel of hands from top to bottom on here which makes a lot easier but pick the size of a cutting mat of what kinds of projects you're going to be using now what makes a self-healing cutting mat so special is i can cut with an x-acto knife and i can cut right there or i can use a rotary cutter and i can do that or i can use a utility knife and make a cut like that and this mat is going to heal from that it's not going to leave marks and you can use it over and over and over again my last one i used for like six years and i just replaced it with this one about a week ago obviously the other benefits is that you've got a nice big clean workspace that's got one-inch grids to help you with your measurements and it is a nice workspace for whatever projects you're working on all right so i know there's a lot going on right here and i'm gonna make this really easy on beginners right now if you're a brand new beginner to sewing all you need is fabric scissors thread snips and a seam ripper these are entry-level fiskars brand scissors and if they get dull they do have a sharpener now when you're sewing it's very common for loose threads to come through your seam so these will help you keep those clean and snip those little threads and your seam rippers are basically your erasers so if you make a mistake the little point here will go between your layers of fabric and there's a blade right behind this red bubble that will let you cut through your stitches open up your panels and re-sew them together properly after you've been sewing for a while you might want to make some upgrades to your equipment my first recommendation is a rotary cutter this is simply a razor blade on a wheel so you will lay your fabric down and roll the blade along it and it very easily cuts right through your fabric this is a higher end one by quilter select and it allows you to go both left and right handed and it has an even sharper blade now rotary cutters will save you a tremendous amount of time when it comes to sewing and cutting fabric but be careful i have cut off the tip of my left index finger twice with one of these and i had to go to the hospital once so keep them away from kids and be very careful when you're using these now if you notice that your entry level scissors are not staying sharp anymore i'd recommend upgrading to some higher quality shears or fabric scissors these are made by a company called femore this is my favorite pair of sheers these have stayed sharp for about two years until this week and all i did was sharpen it with a standard knife sharpener i probably won't have to sharpen these for about another two years these are extremely precise and i absolutely love them the next things you're going to want to look at are some precision scissors these are some needle nose snips so for very precise cuts if you're doing certain types of pockets and zippers you're going to want some precision scissors one more recommendation i'd recommend this is a pair of thread snips by femori it has a curved end which allows you to lay it flat on the fabric clip your thread and it looks extremely clean now obviously this is optional but because seam rippers are so important and we all make mistakes my friend tim from tim's woodworking made me a custom talk custom branded seam ripper with both a large and small seam ripper on either end no matter how many years you've been sewing you will continue to make mistakes and that is totally okay it's good to have a nice sharp utility knife an x-acto knife this is another type of seam ripper and this is a rotary punch tool i use this for both fabric and leather and normally when i need to punch holes where a button will go for like jeans or something like that i'll use this now that's pretty much it for all my cutting tools if you have any questions please let me know there will be links to all of these products in the description below something else you guys might want is some kind of a tool chest i made this out of eva foam from tnt cosplay supply it is just foam and i painted it to look like a little treasure chest but i made a little compartment so i can put all of my tools in the top here these are all organized so let's talk about what's next now we're going to talk about some measuring and marking tools here so i've got two different size clear acrylic rulers which helps with measuring but it also helps with when you're doing straight cuts with your rotary cutter so if you line up your blade with the edge of your ruler it will allow you to do nice straight cuts another cool thing is there is this little pay phone looking thing that has two suction cups that you can put on top of a larger ruler and snap it on and you will be able to hold this with a little bit more control another good thing about this is that if your blade for some reason jumps on top of your ruler you're not gonna cut yourself obviously another very important thing is a tailor's measure or a tailor's tape i don't think i need to explain why this is important but just get one all right our last measuring tool is what's called a seam allowance ruler now i'm not going to go into detail about this but as you start developing your own patterns you're going to need to add your own seam allowance and this device allows you to do that very easily all right so at some point you're going to have to start marking your fabric now early on i started using these little taylor's chalk things here now you basically mark it it leaves a white line or a blue line depending on what kind of chalk you have if it gets dull you can buy these little plastic chalk sharpeners you go like that it gets sharper you get cleaner lines so later down the road i found out about these things now this is a chalk wheel and it's got a little ratchet wheel in here and there's powdered chalk inside so as you're ready to make your marks you just roll it along your fabric it leaves a very thin line of chalk that's very easy to see to help you with your measurements the other good thing about these is it's so thin and it puts it on so light that the chalk wipes away very easily and you don't get big chalk marks in your projects uh so the last thing we're gonna finish up with is a good iron and an ironing board so i've got a nice tall stand-up ironing board and i've got a tabletop ironing board sometimes it's nice to have both it's important that your iron has steam and this iron when you leave it upright will turn off after 15 minutes now as you get into sewing you're gonna realize how important ironing really is so every time i do a stitch or a seam i end up pressing it with an iron and then there's gonna be other techniques like fusible interfacing which is how you make collars stay stiff which you're gonna need to iron in so don't be intimidated but it's very important that you get very familiar with using an iron so for beginner level sewing stuff we're pretty much done now there's lots more stuff that i'll talk about in future videos like this is sewing machine oil which you'll need these are one two three blocks which are great for cosplay and also for pattern weights there's things called seam turners to help you turn seams as you're doing certain projects there's a product called fray check to help you from making buttonholes fray when you end up making a shirt uh then there's all these different types of needles so i'm going to talk about all these other things in future videos where they apply but everything we talked about earlier are things that you're gonna need just to get started sewing and to help make your life easier i've done a ton of tutorial videos on how to thread and use a sewing machine and do basic stitches but i thought this could be very valuable to show you guys what kinds of tools that you might end up using and maybe some upgrades down the road as you get familiar with sewing so if you made it this far in the video i just wanted to mention that i work for a company called tnt cosplay supply so we sell the raw materials that people use to make armor weapons props and cosplay so this is a helmet i made as part of a competition i was in last year and this was the weapon that went with it which is a giant bass guitar that lights up and stuff like that um we also have a youtube channel where i teach you guys how to make your own props so this is the master sword from the legend of zelda last night i finished this elven bow from the game skyrim which turned out very well and once i put the real string on it will kind of work and in our next video i'm going to be teaching you guys how to do a metallic gold paint job on a raw sort of foam so not only are you going to get to learn how to do all kinds of sewing stuff here on this channel but if you go to tnt cosplay supplies youtube channel you'll also be able to learn how to make lots of costumes props and other things for cosplay once again i'd like to invite you guys to visit my website at talkcustom.com i have lots of photos of things that i've made tutorial videos recommended machines and products i also put up big galleries of all the cons and events that i go to so if you're looking for more sewing resources you'll find it at my website this was my first video of 2020 i'd like to thank all of you for all of your support i've got a ton of great ideas of content to bring to you guys throughout the year but i hope you had an amazing new year's and i wish you all the best in 2020 thank you so much for watching and i will see you guys in the next video

Channel: Tock Custom

Views: 79,881

Rating: 4.9636898 out of 5

Keywords: sewing, how to sew, sewing tools, sewing for beginners, sewing scissors, sewing iron, sewing cutting mat, tailor, sewing tutorial, sewing equipment, what do i need to start sewing, how to start sewing, rotary cutters, sewing thread, gutermann, famore cutlery, tailors measuring tape, seam allowance, top stitching, tock custom, cosplay, how to use a sewing machine

Id: sMq9fg94250

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 02 2020