Sewing With Nancy - Favorite TV Techniques (VHS, 2002)

welcome to sewing with Nancy's favorite TV techniques 20 years ago when I first stood in front of a TV camera I gave new meaning to the word nervous but once I started imagining that I was teaching to a roomful of people the TV studio became a comfortable classroom from the beginning we've offered 26 new shows every year most are organized into three part series my staff and I gather new ideas and notions keep a running file on topics and develop scripts and samples when we feel we have a great series some of the series take months to organize others just a few weeks just like your sewing projects at home I put together eight of my favorite techniques to share with you in celebration of the 20th anniversary of signing with Nancy and to give you a cross-section view of the topics we've covered if you've never watched the show welcome to my classroom if you are faithful viewer you'll find a refresher course on some of my favorite ideas so take the phone off the hook pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea and get comfortable I have an hour sewing fun just for you it's time for class to begin sewing with Nancy celebrating 20 years of sewing with Nancy seaman is brought to you by five the largest European producer of sewing machines Fox creative line of sewing machines and hobby lock sergers are simply the best ganger a tradition of quality and scissors and shears for home classroom and industry qinger scissors and shears are the choice of professionals Madeira superior quality threads from Germany specializing in embroidery quilting and special effect threads because creativity is never black and white trim drifts the source for sewing and quilting notions including products by Dritz Collins and Amna grid amazing designs by great notions your one source for home embroidery and design software over 200 discs pack collections currently available in pudding designs by Nancy Zenon koala cabinets from Australia quality crafted fully assembled sewing furniture designed for maximum storage in minimum space Rowenta professional performance and beautiful results for all types of ironing the choice of professionals and Nancy's notions catalog featuring specialty sewing books and unique hard-to-find sewing notions and supplies I'd like to start this video sampler with something old and something new no I'm not talking about weddings I'm talking about quilting Gretchen you doc designer and author of the book quick quilts using quick bias join me for a three-part series based on your book to share her ideas and techniques for working with quick bias this clip is a favorite because it combines something old the traditional piecing technique and something new contemporary fusible bias tips what I like about this while hanging quilt pattern is that it combines as I said earlier the traditional and contemporary techniques the traditional being the piecing the patchwork to create the basket and the contemporary area of adding the handle not with piecing but just by pressing on fusible biased tape Gretchen there are two types of fusible tape that we can use yes this is a premade fusible tape and this one happens to have all the colors in that I used in my quilt and you would just peel off the paper backing and the fusible element is exposed sometimes the most difficult part is just to peel it off let's get it off there we go okay and then you will fuse this into place and then stitch it down later mm-hmm the other option would be to make your own tape perhaps you didn't have a fusible tape that matched the patchwork that you were using you would cut half inch strips that are on the bias thread them through a bias tape maker now this tape maker happens to have a fusible guide for use fourth of an inch white tape but as it comes out of the tape maker we can catch it with the tip of the iron and as we lead it forward there you can press just a feeding a little bit at a time and then as it comes out it presses into place and again you can just peel off the backing and this fusible is not permanent it works as pins right and it when you're doing curves it makes it go on very smoothly we're going to show you the step by step process of working with this quilt block combining the traditional and the contemporary and Gretchen you have cut some interesting fabric combinations first I have a four and a quarter inch square of black and I've made my template that is given in the pattern and this is placed matching the corners and then I've traced around this design and this gives me the area that I can add my basket handle now I have a five inch piece of the quick bias cut to the color coordinating my basket and then I just place it over that line and press it in place and you can see how beautifully it goes along those curves and it is a little bit longer and that's what we want because we're going to be sewing a seam and here's one finished and we will be stitching that down I do have a stabilizer underneath because there's going to be no other layers under this so we have to add the stabilizer so we don't get puckers here's a close-up of the stitching of the tape onto the fabric just stitching along the very edge you'd stitch both along the left edge and the right left edge and I'm using monofilament thread so that the thread coordinates are blends in right with the fabric now you need to cut us another square the same size as the black square and they're just placed right sides together and then stitch down the diagonal and you want to check that you have it stitched across the base of your handle and then you trim away a quarter of an inch from the opposite side of the handle mm-hmm and then this is pressed open and you get this and what you want to do on these is press this seam flat versus the traditional method of turning them to one side the added bulk from the handle is necessary there in the basket pattern there are we you'll need two other smaller half triangles and to create that we're going to use Gretchen same technique this time cutting two-and-a-half inch squares so of the black and the coordinating color of the basket and after you have match the right sides together stitch down this marked on the center and stitch on either side and then you cut them apart so you will be getting two and you again press these open and you trim it down to one and 3/4 inches so out of one square or excuse me a pair of squares you're going to get two smaller little pieces together neck forms the basket base now we have all the elements on right side of our table just to show you how these elements go together so we have the center square that has a handle stitched on we have the two smaller squares that are an inch and 3/4 and we have inch and 3/4 strips right and one in 3/4 inch squares the next step is to do some more piecing you can chain piece these together as well sewing the longer strips in the square the solid square the piece triangles and then of course the other portion and when all the piecing is complete I'll show you what we have the finished basket really a unique way of making this quilt block now as we place this quilt block on our finished while hanging you can see the positioning of it you have five different baskets and then we've taken the same size block finished to make our squares to put in between take special note along the borders how Gretchen has used the variegated quick bias to add accents plus adding some extra square detail right and to get the color balance I've chosen the center block to form the corners and then I've taken the opposite color here I have the purple and then the opposite colors are in the corner and then that helps balance the quote colors so it's very interesting so if you can find variegated bias that goes with your fabric this is a wonderful solution or perhaps you'd like to make your own bias to coordinate with the fabric you've chosen to make your quilt regardless this is a wonderful technique to use and as it's as we mentioned it combines really new and old techniques to make a quick quilt I'm sure you're aware that quilting is one of the most popular areas of sewing with Nancy but did you know that quilting is also a great technique for layering vests in the series viva la vest quilting was just one of the six different sewing options I showed to create stylish vest from one pattern in the following clip you'll be amazed at how easy it is to transform hi-low fleece and cotton batik into a reversible vest with channel quilting inspired by the fabric choice our next vivillon vest has twice the options as the standard fare the outside can be the inside and the inside changes to the outside a vest with double duty the fabric combinations are unique high-low fleece and motika some may say oh it's just reversible I say it's reversible it's quilted it has a fresh new style and it's our next viva la vest style on sewing with Nancy here's again the best that I was speaking about making it totally reversible interesting fabric combinations the fabric that's used for the fleece on the outside is also used as the binding but the channel stitching has been determined by the style of the fabric that we chose for this vest because it has a stripe option we were able to stitch along the stripes and these stripes are not perfectly straight which i think is kind of nice because you don't have to worry about having it just exact but we do like to have the stripes match at the shoulder seams so that as we're coming around this area you get a nice Chevron look at the shoulder as well as at the collar where the collar meets the front and the back this takes just a little bit of pre-planning really the planning takes place before you cut out your fabric pieces I'm using the same fabrics or pattern styles as I used earlier that means I've trimmed the seam allowance from the outer edge the armholes the same detail that I gave you for the single layer vest so here are the pattern pieces for this pattern it's about a size medium I've used a yard an eighth of the lining fabric or the batik fabric and then about 7/8 of a yard of the high-low fleece like polar fleece or Nordic fleece get by with less because the fabric is much wider but the key here is marking the stripes I staffed the fabric so that I've matched the stripes now if you've worked with stripes or plaids in the past you know that you have too late stack them one on top of the other as you're cutting that out so that both front both front left and right side match so that's simply what I've done and it would place of pins periodically to make sure that my stripes are matching all the way down the yardage of the fabric place the pattern back the vest back onto your fabric pin it into place and then do some marking and the marking I've done is on the shoulder seam area as well as the neckline first the shoulder seam fold under the five-eighths of an inch seam allowance of the pattern piece and mark the starting point of the stripes on your tissue paper and I've kind of marked the right side of the stripe you could also do the same at the neckline since the neckline is curved a little harder to fold under I'm just going to extend it a little bit longer so that you can see where that stripe goes the purpose of this is to align the pieces that will match on the front piece I've also folded under the five eighths of an inch seam allowance and I'm going to meet these folded edges together and the way they will be sewn so that I'll mark the starting point of those stripes right on the second tissue paper on the back piece I'll take the center back which this happens to be of the collar fold under the seam allowance and again mark the stripes now if you're wondering what are you gonna do with this well we're going to now lay out the pattern pieces of the front and the collar now I realize that this front piece will not fit on this width but just assumed it would I'll lay it out later further down the yardage but so that you can see a little bit more clearly how this is accomplished I'd unfold that seam allowance and then just double check that the stripe mark and the stripe itself are aligning one on top of each other make sure it's on green but I would place a pin or my pencil point as a stripe mark fold it back and make certain that I'm at a stripe that way these two soldiers the shoulder seams will line up and match you do the same to the collar piece so it's just a matching step it's really not too much of a sewing step cut out your pattern pieces collars front and back of both the fleece fabric as well as the cotton fabric as we've used here so the two pattern pieces together or this the styles together and then I've done some trimming of the seam allowances then you're going to be stacking with right sides meeting of the two vests and then close all those seams and stack them one on top of the other match in the ditch stack the seams stitching are pinning the two fabrics together in the ditch so that they align also align the outer edges as well as the shoulder seams and the underarm seams and then I'll do some sewing I now have the two vests pinned together along the collar seam shoulder and underarm seam pinning in the ditch placing a pin in the seam line and matching it to the seam line on the opposite side so that the vests will be aligned also pin the outer edges the outer edges or the armhole edges it would take time now to do some zigzagging to zigzag these other edges together so that it's easier to attach the binding just the way we did on the single layer vest that I showed you earlier in today's program after the zigzag stitching try some pinning lots of pins use curved safety pins in this instance to easily attach those two layers together so that the channel stitching the stitching that you see on this sample can be accomplished without having the layer shift we're going to sew from the batik side the stripe side for obvious reasons because we're going to use those stitching lines as the guideline or excuse me the printed lines as the guideline for stitching now if you didn't want to stitch every single line in this and you could skip one skip every other one or if you would like to make a nun and let's a a symmetrical design you could do that the same nice you get to the neckline stop with the needle in the fabric and then pivot the fabric move it so that you can continue to stitch onto the collar and that's why we use that technique to match the front back and the collars together and there you go we have the channel stitching of one row accomplished use your dual feed on your machine or a walking foot if you have problems with it shifting as I mentioned take out the pins it will take a little bit of time to do all the stitching but it's really a very enjoyable process the next step are practically the last step is to attach the binding in the first vest of this series we worked with the bias cut fabric and you can do that too you could add a bias cut fabric and bind the edges using the same fabric as we used for the inside it does give a little limitation because perhaps this is too light to go with pants or whatever you might want to accessorize it with but it does give a nice option but the option we have chosen is to use the fabric of the fleece as the binding and it's really quite a fast way as we can just cut strips of the bias cross Y strips we don't have to I should take the word bias out of this description because you're just gonna cut crosswise strips and it has a lot of stretch as it is a knit this rolls to the wrong side so that you know which is the right side and you meet the right side of the strip to the right side of the edge that which has been Zig zagged has been channel stitched we're going to sew this with about well 3/8 of an inch seam allowance you may want to experiment with different widths that you want to work with I press our foot with what works well for me in this instance we don't have a line to follow a press mark to follow but other than that we're gonna follow the same techniques molding the fabric around the edges making certain that they're about as even as you can get and Stitch the beauty about using fleece as the binding and we just have a little sample here we're not taking obviously the the full area we're not binding the full area is that the fleece will bind and move so nicely and now we'll just wrap this to the underside on this sample I've pinned the layers so that I can wrap it to the underside and then I'm going to stitch in the ditch stitch in the well of the seam from the front of this area so that I attach all layers and as I stitch in this area on this sample you can see the stitching is complete and you may want to trim off any extra fabric from the back after an impressive performance fans often stand up and yell encore Eileen Roche editor of designs a machine embroidery join me for the three-part series amazing machine embroidery on cork as an update to an earlier series Eileen shared her expertise on embroidery a hot topic and sewing combining modern high-tech sewing with traditional elements such as fabric and thread choices in this clip we demonstrated how to use a memory card to create a simple framed embroidery project our first project in this series is very simple but it takes some planning as all the projects of machine embroidery take and you saw this earlier where we have the Chinese proverb of a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step plus we have several other designs that go with this this simple little quote and how true it is now Eileen I'm gonna first show everyone how to set up the machine and then Eileen will give you the basics of working with embroidery for a computerized machine embroidery there are two different types of mediums possible three really of that you're gonna find your designs on we're gonna first start with the simplest that's a memory card the cards are purchased to fit with specific machines the cards go into the machine and the designs come right up on the screen so it's a fast way another type of format is a floppy disk floppy disks and CDs need to work with your computer plus software or a reader writer program whether your machine so that the computer can transfer the design into a memory card so then you can put in the machine takes a little extra step usually floppy discs are more reasonable but you get the same wonderful results with either format or or any of the three formats you're gonna use a machine embroidery thread I have R and thread shows and all the colors that I need for this design a lightweight bobbin thread this machine embroidery needle put on your embroidery unit depending upon your type of machine you'll have different instructions you'll also be instructed to use a darning foot and lower the feed dogs so that you the Machine will determine where the design will be stitched so that's the basic summary of the machine setup but Aileen when you chose this designer worked with it you did a lot of planning I did and it begins with the fabric I chose a hand-painted fabric because it's a wonderful backdrop for embroidery it lets the embroidery just pop right off of the scene and then I worked with templates so that I could place my embroidery and know exactly what my end result would be before I started to get the the seen effect Eileen chose a darker fabric for the ground drew a light line which he'd like her horizon then did a straight stitch along that line that's right Nancy and then I use applicators and remove the excess fabric at this point I start my embroidery because I don't want satin stitching underneath of my embroidery it may cause a bump now we have added a little extra stability of permanent stability a fusible stabilizer heavyweight to this design since it's going to be framed and we did that before doing any of the stitching of course and now you can use templates as Eileen said purchased templates that we have here and you kind of just tape tape them into place wherever you'd like to design don't look at the crosshairs right now just look at where you'd like the footprints or the silhouette of the hiker to be now if you don't have the purchased templates you can make them yourself by stitching on a heavy or densely woven fabric just the outline of the design mark the top you can possibly see I have top marked on it and I've cut it the size of my hope so that I could place this wherever I'd like the footprints to go either way that we don't we don't really it doesn't really matter which you use just use a template that's right because it you'll get professional results before you even start now I'm going to frame this within my hoop placing the larger hoop on the table top and the smaller hoop on top of the fabric which is over the Lark Laura hoop and I'll press and then I lean you have the phrase already hooked on your sample and I do you can show that that's right Nancy we what I did initially was I took the frame that the finished project sits in and I laid that over top of my landscape and determined exactly where I want those words to be centered in that left frame once I determined that I then you know I had my template taped down and it was time to embroider once my fabric is hooped I like to go and push the inner hoop down a little bit that's called countersinking and that adds a little bit more stability to your hoop project now I have my memory card with my designs on it and I'm going to insert that into the machine select card I'm gonna have a whole menu of designs that come up and I need to search for my verse once I find it I select it at this point the machine is going to ask me a number of items that Nancy had just walked us through like did you lower your feed dogs and insert a full bobbin and since I did do all those things I can go ahead and raise my presser foot so that I can insert my hoop once I do that I select ok now I see that my burst does not match my template it is actually in a horizontal position in a vertical position and I needed to be in a horizontal position so I'm going to rotate it 90 degrees and then I have to move my needle to the start position of my template I'm able to do that on my machine by the up and down arrows once I'm exactly where I want it I then lower my presser foot remove my template you don't want to stitch through it because you might want to use it again and then it's time to stitch but before you stitch why don't you put some stabilizer underneath oh absolutely Nancy and you know you had a really good point earlier we she takes cutaway or tearaway stabilizer and she slits a cut into it so that you can get underneath or right through that needle that is already penetrated the fabric I guess Nancy you've taken one or two stitches before doesn't realize you forgot that extra stabilizer coming right and now I'm ready to sew as it shows and this is a great design because it's only one color so I only have inserted the one color and I can either walk away from my machine or stay with it to make sure that nothing happens to the thread and it's gonna stitch it right out and it's a beautiful process actually we have one done Nancy if you want to take a look at that it's all in the planning because the stitching is so very simple after the embroidery would be stitched this is what the the phrase will look like the Chinese proverb and you'll notice all these thread tails that jumped between the various verses it's needed now it's just to clip those away after you've removed them from the hoop and it will be a beautiful design after one design has been inverted then remove the hoop from the fabric reposition it so that you can stitch the other elements and presto you'll have a great gift 20 years of sawing is a long time but it can feel even longer if you haven't been taking advantage of the presser feet that are part of your machines accessory box in my three part series fabulous feet and fancy stitches I demonstrate how to use those feet and introduce a few new options one of my favorites is the multi cord foot if you've ever wrestled with decorative threads trying to keep them aligned as you couch them in place watch the next clip closely as I demonstrate the multi cord foot you just saw a close-up of the ingeniously designed multi cord foot that has many openings for decorative threads so that you can stitch them down very easily with just a zigzag or a multiple zig-zag stitch here's another look at that foot and you can see that there are many openings this one happens to have nine openings three different rows of openings and to thread the foot with with the decorative threads you're going to place the serger looper threader using one of those crazy little threader's inserting it from the underside of the foot then inserting the ribbon through the opening and here we go and then pulling it through to the underside now here's a hint that I find invaluable and that is just tack down the thread and so that as you're threading your next rows you're not going to pull out what you just threaded trust me I've done it done that and they pull up very easily because the threads are lightweight and slippery now speaking of the threats a heavyweight threads decorative threads work best embroidery thread is too lightweight so you have to do something that's as you can see I'm using a very lightweight ribbon you can see how slippery they are lightweight huibin thread it through this area and pull it to the wrong side you don't have to use all nine cords you could just use three or two the choice is yours up to nine after you have threaded all that you would like thread it then tie a knot in the ends holding these so they do not slip through the foot I'm going to show you what we're going to be creating and the block that you saw earlier is one of the many blocks on this baby blanket we drew a heart shaped with a soluble pen on the block of the fabric and then a centerline down to have one anchor stitch so we determined a positioning role and then adds a stabilizer in the first program of this series I discussed a lot about two stabilizers this is a press-on stabilizer it's really important that you press this to the underside and then you'll be stitching along one row of this the marked row and then all subsequent rows would be a presser foot width apart I'm I wish machine I have five threads four threads I should say inserted through my foot so that I've already done the work and I have a knot tied on the underside so that I do not have the opportunity of the threads pulling away and to keep the threads on my lap from falling all over I placed them on along knitting needle or perhaps you'd like to put them on a coat hanger just something that so that they can be secured my machine is set at a multiple zig-zag stitch it goes three stitches one way three stitches the other way and I have a four width because that's the width of the opening of my presser foot and the stitch length is about at one so I'm just gonna raise the presser foot and kind of straighten out my threads make certain that I have them pulled straight and lower the presser foot and the the difficult part or not the difficult part but the interesting part is doing the threading and now as you can see it's just zigzagging down into place and I can try to comb these threads so that they stay somewhat straight but they will feed through the guides of the multiple cord foot so I don't have to worry about this that multiple stitch works so well to secure everything down but if you had a zig zag stitch it would work fine too just so I'm gonna stop sewing at my mark I use that air soluble marking stop sewing at that area and as I pull out my fabric from behind the foot I'll just pull this out cut the threads but then is you might guess I'm going to tie these into a knot so that as I'm getting ready to do my next row of stitching I'm not going to pull out the threads so the key is just to keep that knot area not stitched and let me show you in our sample where we've done several rows of stitches how you handle the thread ends or the decorative thread ends you can't just clip them off because they'll Ravel thread these through a large eyed needle thread them to the underside here we have a water-soluble stabilizer on the underside and then you cannot them or what we did on our quilt sample is we did a straight stitch around the shape of the heart to secure the threads into place so with a little a little time of threading decorative threads through the multi cord foot you can have a very impressive see stitch whenever someone asks me what's the easiest fabric to sew I quickly answer with one word knits that was true 20 years ago when the primary focus are sewing with Nancy was garment construction and it is true today as garment construction continues to play an important role knits are refreshingly simple to sew the technique in this segment is what I like to call the easiest rugby shirt the placket is sewn with one stitching step you'll soon see why I call this series easy does it knits rugby shirts are a mainstay in many wardrobes for casual wear for sports wear and to make one is extremely easy especially if we take a little time to change the pattern piece the facing pattern piece if you look at a rugby shirt you'll notice that there is a placket and underlay placket and the placket is also part of the under portion of the buttonhole side I'll show you how easy it is to get this to a lineup without a lot of work and very very simple sewing I traced a size medium on my pattern for the shirt front and I've placed a small piece of tissue paper over the top of the fabric or the top of the pattern this tissue paper is extending one inch beyond the centre front of the shirt that's the first important measurement one inch beyond the centre front then trace the neckline the cutting line of the shirt and your garment facing is going to have the same cutting line except it'll be a one inch longer for the ruler I'm going to measure to make certain that this is this facing is about seven inches long and then across the lower edge make a line that's four and a half inches wide it doesn't have to be exact this is just a rough measurement but approximately seven inches across the shoulder seam measure two and a half inches or just the middle the shoulder seam will be about the same thing then just simply connect the lower edge with the top edge and now you've become a pattern designer just like that you may want to also transfer the grain line this is your new facing piece the extension that was placed at the one inch beyond the center front is going to be a fold so you'd mark place on fold on that pattern piece and you're ready to cut this out the pattern piece that I have already cut out also has interfacing placed on it but let me just show you placed it on the fold with that 1 inch extension before actually fusing the interfacing I do a little nipping or a clip a clip at the center front fold and as well as another clip at the lower edge will help me marking a little bit later so take off the pattern piece and open this up you'll see some markings as well as interfacing in place I used a knit fusible interfacing a lightweight fabric requires a lightweight interfacing it's a knit fabric so we haven't had interfacing as well you can see that I've already marked the pattern pieces or with the markings and now I'm going to simply just show you what I marked and here get my cutting tools the first mark is to mark the fold the center front and I'm going to use a black pen you would use your fabric marking pen then 3/4 of an inch to the left of the center front mark place a line that's six inches long 6 inches from the cut line 3/4 of an inch and then the six inches long now keep in mind that we always have these instructions written in the booklet that accompanies the program center front 3/4 of an inch to the left we can set this aside now in I can mark the garment we have small samples but I'll show you we did much the same thing I placed a nip at the center front as well as the lower edge and now I'll mark the center front just to give you a bearing where we are those nips really save time in trying to find where the center front would be just little clips you can see here that I have a strip of fusible interfacing it's about 2 inches wide and I fused it to the left of the center front I need a little stability there and then do the same marking making it 6 inches long from the neckline 3/4 of an inch to the left of the center front sounding like a broken record but it's the same markings we're going to stack the facing to the garment along these three fourths of an inch markings I always meet right sides together so the first time you have to kind of peek underneath to make sure that you are lining the right pattern pieces together and then let me check underneath here you may want to place a pin through the bottom area and see how close you come out on the garment and I'll just move this over just a touch this is going to be the stitching line and mentioned it's a one-step stitching we're going to stitch with a guide and the guide will be basting tape usually use this eighth of an inch wide basting tape to put seams together to hold seam edges it's double sided well we really only need one side and we need it as a seam guide here you can see that I'm sewing along the tape edge as I'm reaching that bottom point simply going to shorten my stitch length so to a point and then sew up the other side so it's a really one step of sewing after doing the sewing and here you can see a sample that has been stitched you can cut right down the center I've removed the tape as you can see here it's been cut and if you found that you went one stitch too far you clipped a little bit too far just research this lower edge to reinforce it when I flip the stitching or flip the facing to the inside you can see how this is forming the placket when I match the shoulder seams of the left side the two fabrics align right at the fold when I matched the shoulder seams of the right side we have the placket the extension already formed now the next step is to work with a caller you can use a caller pattern piece and use the single Natur interlock you're working with or I'm using a knit collar you wouldn't use such a contrasting color as I have here but then match the collar at the center front markings one edge is finished one edge is raw so you can tell which edges to go together and you pin the collars to the respective center fronts and I'm just going to use this on the sample you would have the back shoulder seam stitched at this point but just to show you where they're matched up I'd like you to see this then simply rap the facing around the collar sandwich Inge the collar between the garment and the facing match the shoulder seam of the facing to the shoulder seam of the garment let me show you that in actual another sample that really has a back attached I have lots of samples as you might gather this has been stitched and it has also been matched properly the shoulders seam of the facing is aligning to the shoulder seam of the garment you may find that you have to stretch this front just a little bit because the interfacing has made it a little bit more stable this pattern called for 1/4 of an inch seam allowance and so that's what we used when sewing around the neckline and you might want to before doing any trimming just turn this right side out to see how it looks and I'll do that for you now I'll just turn first of all the left side out bring out the point notice where the collar is matched now turn the opposite side and bring it to a point there are a few finishing details left we need to tack the facing attach it to the shoulder seam but here is the underside where the placket is formed and here's the top side all it is left of the buttons and buttonholes in the 20 years I've been on TV I've had the privilege of sharing my classroom with some of the sewing industry's best teachers Mary malari is one of those teachers she has joined me for a remarkable number of these TV programs and you my viewers never tire of her charming personality or clever techniques recently I taped a program with Mary based on her book made for travel this next clip is your ticket to a carefree sewing journey as Mary demonstrates how to make circle bags circle bags are the next mate for travel easy so accessories that are perfect for day trips or extended vacations circle shapes on the ends of the bag create the unique shape choose from a wide variety of fabrics for these bags including medium to heavy weight fabrics such as denim tapestry fleece corduroy quilted fabrics and even valve Atene Mary and I would now like to show you the easy construction of these bags you need to cut two shapes a circle and rectangle Nancy for this project today we've chosen the medium size circle and this is approximately five and a half inches in diameter and we'll cut two of those and then we cut a rectangle that's 12 inches by 17 inches in size 12 by 17 and a zipper that's longer than 12 inches that will be the edge that we sew the zipper to so we'll bring the two at raw edges together and we'll match the zipper two of these edges and pin pin it in place and then sew it I often use two seams to make a good sturdy zipper attachment now the zipper is stacked on top of the fabric and stitched the zipper we're not making a concealed zipper or lap zipper it's just a very simple zipper but use the zipper as part of the decoration of the bag a nice feature to add are some tabs on the end this is a piece of synthetic suede that I've stitched across the end of the zipper and then we'll add the other one to this other end this will help you to open and close the zipper on the bag if you didn't have synthetic suede use a ribbon loop that's right or other fabric after sewing across the zipper then you can cut off the extra zipper length and then we're ready simply to match the circle ends to the opening on the sides of the bags we'll simply fold the bag at half and Mark the point at the end and fold it in half again to quarter market I have the circle quarter portioned also and it's a very easy thing then to fit the two together matching the marks so we would just stack the marks all around the edges and I have found Mary that when sewing a circle if you put place the feed dogs or the the square a rectangle next to the feed dogs it will ease in a little bit eat more readily that's right fourth of an inch seam allowance is all that is needed next to do the sewing and if you'd like to clean finish the edges zigzag resurge that would be fine too but in minutes Wow turn it right-side out and we have a completed bag that can hold all kinds of things in your travels notice how these little tabs work so easily I like to add that to the end of the zipper for ease and opening and closing also now the smaller bag which you saw earlier was this one right here great pencil bag cosmetic bag but look at this one just change the fabric this is quilted velvet Nancy and I chose a very elegant zipper and the cord is satin cord and so you have a great handbag you might store your essentials in it in the suitcase but then for travel and for the evening lovely you're set now you could just extend the length of the bag and this uses a neck roll this for traveling and and sleeping in an airplane I've stuffed it with two plastic dry cleaner bags that I store just with a rubber band and then I carry the bag empty but when I want to use it as a neck roll a stunt with wind the plastic whether you're making a neck roll a cosmetic bag or an evening bag the circle bag pattern is your ticket for made for travel accessories 20 years ago the initial focus of sewing with Nancy was garment construction after 20 years we've shown all types of sewing if you can sew it I've taught it one of the people who has helped me behind the scenes of sine with Nancy is Donna Fenske designing many unique projects in this clip Donna joins me in front of the scenes for a three-part series entitled chalk it up to demonstrate using non-traditional chalkboard fabric to make a clever wall calendar we would like to start by pointing out the various elements of this calendar first of all the chalkboard which is the most novel part of it the main component this fabric is made out of polyvinyl chloride PVC and on the back of this fabric you'll see a scrim that's cotton in polyester you can't wash it but you can wipe the surface clean the unique part of this calendar is that a calendar sheet can be put in a window it's a window pocket it's basically 9 inches by 12 and we cut out so that we have a window frame out of clear vinyl then the various fabrics to grow go around the edges this is a directional print you can see the houses and done you have a sample of another directional we have another directional print here and the yardages will change with the directional print versus possibly a border print the next fabric here we have is a border trim print and we would basically just use it across the 12 inch section of our chalkboard calendar now the fabric needs to be cured before you can work with it so what you do to cure the fabric as you take the chalk and you actually color color the whole piece of chalk or the whole whole piece of chalkboard fabric after it's been colored with the chalk you have to wipe it clean and again let the surface dry and we're going to do it again then we have to color it one more time and again we will wipe it clean and that here's the chalkboard fabric then we're ready to construct our chalkboard calendar it's like an old-fashioned slate and simply can be sewn through the vinyl pockets our first right we're going to start with 9 by 12 window pocket basically it's a solid piece of vinyl and I like to tape it to my cutting mat and what I'm going to do is simply cut one inch in along the edges I will come close to the corners and I will finish cutting the corners with my sewing my scissors so I will cut all the way around with my rotary cutter and finish cutting into the corners with my scissors then after the window pocket has been cut we're simply going to tape it to the bottom edge of our calendar and this piece is 9 inches wide by a total of 23 and a half and then we have a second vinyl pocket that will be positioned slightly above the window pocket and we save the paper because we're going to use that at the sewing machine and we're going to place the paper over the top of our vinyl and here you can see that we're stitching on the paper edge stitching down the lower edge of our vinyl pocket and by magic here we have it already stitched these machine stitching perforates the paper and you can remove it and notice our pins we can't use pins per se alright next what we're going to be doing is adding borders again our borders are three and a half inches wide by 23 and a half inches in length and here we used like little hair clips to secure it prior to sewing because we cannot use pins again the top borders have four patches at each end and to make the four patch if you haven't made that before simply cut two inch strips of two fabric so we have a black and a red checkerboard stitched together I'm going to pin unpin my samples and after you have stitched them together press and then alternate two strips so that you have black on one side and opposite on the other and cut into two inch sub cuts right and basically we're going to be making a total of four four patches and we're going to then attach them to our cute little border print and then these will be stitched at the top and lower edge of our calendar and then after that the next thing will be is to layer the batting in the backing we have lots of future calendars here Donna here we have all the borders attached simple sewing techniques very marginal fabric requirements and then the backing and batting are next the backing is about five eighths inches I mean five five eighths of a yard and also the batting and what we do is we lightly tape the backing to our surface and smooth everything nice and flat we will pin through just the fabric areas and then we will at the sewing machine will basically stitch in the ditch around all of our chalkboard fabric we will also come into the four patch and now we'd like to show you the finishing details of this calendar now for the finishing details Donna mentioned a few minutes ago about stitching in the ditch attaching all the layers together on this sample you can see from the wrong side of the calendar where she has stitched in the well of the seam around the chalkboard fabric the blue fabric is the rod pocket cut about 6 or 3 inches wide excuse me a little bit shorter than the length of the top and basted to the top area after folding it in half and finishing the short ends so that later a rod could be inserted through this area the next step is to create the fabric for the binding we have cut binding strips two and a half inches wide and on the starting end of the binding angle cut it at a 45 degree angle and turn under some fabric about 1/4 of an inch along that fourth of an inch press press some paperback fusible web this will make attaching the top or the starting and ending spots much easier and down we'll show you how easy it is to attach the binding okay also on our wall hanging after you have it all stitched in the ditch you want to square it up so you have a nice clean finish and we I have positioned the French binding in the middle of my border and I'm going to start sewing about four inches to five inches from the folded under edge and I'm also have my open toe foot on because I like to use it because I can set a quarter inch seam with my open toe foot and get a perfect seam and at the corners what I like to do is I like to place a pin in diagonally at the corner because we're going to stop sewing right at the pin mark so we're going to sew again a quarter of an inch seam all the way down to the corner stopping right at the pin then we're going to pull it out from our machine and to create the mitered corner we have to do some folding techniques what we're going to do is we're going to take the binding and and fold in a by a diagonal fold up to the top edge of our wall hanging then we have to bring the binding back down on itself we're going to create a very square edge up here and we're lining up to two folds here and I want to just get this a little better and now we're going to sew right on the edge excuse me and we're going to sew our quarter-inch thing starting right at the fold right at the fold we're going to repeat this four times all the way around our wall hanging this sample shows a smaller sample showing how all four corners have been stitched there's an opening yet through the center but I want to point out what Donna just stitched this special corner when you turn this to the underside it folds or forms a mitre perfect by sewing 1/4 of an inch seam stopping 1/4 of inch from the corner this is what occurs now to finish the binding in the center remove the paper of the paperback fusible web nest the other binding inside the first binding and press this closed you may want to trim off some of the excess seam allowances then stitch the remaining of the seam the last step will be at the top to turn under all the corners and pin another stitching the ditch stitching in the well the seam will finish the top edge and all around the edges of the quilt and those are the simple finishing details over the last five years promoting volunteerism has been a mainstay of signing with Nancy we started with so a smile series which received the greatest number responses of any of my shows we've changed the name to creative kindness to include sewing quilting and other handiwork Gail brown another popular guest join me for a series entitled creative kindness to share inspiring stories and projects in the following clip Gail and I demonstrate how to make items for a baby lay it after being featured on sewing with Nancy pins and needles a sewing machine dealership in Cleveland Ohio received donations and inquiries from across the country their sewing for babies Club shown here at one of their weekly meetings remains dedicated to sewing for needy infants one volunteer sums up the sentiment shared by so many I suppose I started because I wanted to help but after sewing and donating layette items I find I have gained so much more than I have given next gail and i would like to share with you some late items with a small investment of time and fabric you can make a big difference in the lives of needy family and their new child this fast to finish four-piece layout includes a sleeper t-shirt pants and receiving blankets that can be either sewn or surged our multi size pattern includes the often hard to find preemie size shown on our babies sighing four little babies is fun and really doesn't take a lot of time and as I mentioned we have preemie sizes and the preemie sizes are the size of our cute little babies here and the ribbing is so small and the patterns are tiny that we're going to show you how to complete the garments with flat construction ideas but the pattern that we include in the reference book that accompanies this program you need to have it enlarged 150 percent for preemie sizes and then use a small size or for the regular small medium and large enlarge the pattern 200 percent and Nancy I go to a quick copy center they have that done it's very fast easy and inexpensive great idea now as I mentioned sewing in a circle putting the ribbing on the lower edge of the cuff or the pants it's almost impossible with these little sizes so we just cut the ribbing this happens to be the preemie size so you can see it doesn't have to be quartered it can just be pinned on each end of the lower edge of the sleeve and stretched and and you can just stretch it to fit the edge and doing it in the flat is just makes so much sense and you're just using a straight stitch for that straight stitch for the first go around and then follow it by a zigzag stitch if you had a serger you can definitely surgery and all the seams on this pattern are a quarter of an inch that's right so quickly one row with a straight stitch and then after doing that straight stitch and the quarter of an inch seam we'll just push a zig-zag stitch on your machine or set your machine to a zig-zag stitch and put all the edges together I'm using black thread he would use of course in this instance a mint color thread with the contrast Joseph then after attaching the ribbing to the top I'm excuse me to the lower edge of the sleeves to the lower edge of the pants then you can sew the sleeves to the front to the back and put the ribbing around the neckline now Gail when working with a preemie you'd like to scale down the red I like to cut the ribbing two inches wide rather than three inches wide for the preemie size it comes out less of a turtleneck then we can simply sew or Serge the final edge which includes making the neckline in a circumference or in a circle so the underarm seams put in a hem and the top is finished we can also work with the sleeper item and just lengthen the t-shirt pattern I liked it at 10 or 12 inches mm-hmm for the depending on the length that you do need and it's the same construction and in the booklet that accompanies this series we give you the simple zipper construction idea babies need blankets they sure do and I'd like to show you a blanket that I've made using flama on one side and a lightweight fleece on the other and I finished with surged yarn and for this setup and I've got my blanket in my machine right now but so that I can Serge continuously I pre rounded all my corners and I notched out an edge so that I can tuck my serger foot right in there and search around for a neater start and finish and as I search I'm searching with a loosened surgery Arn so that it wraps the edge and then a tighter tension on wooly nylon thread in the needle and a width narrow to medium width and it's very easy to perfect your stitch only using the two threads set up now if you did not have a cert on have a serger you can definitely create baby blankets with a straight stitch or a decorative stitch on your sewing machine but be sure and vary the sizes you can range anywhere from 22 to 45 inches wide depending on the size of the baby and the needs and in this instance we have cut the backing larger than the top layer and then after doing some stitching in the ditch or I should say not really stitching in the ditch but quilting the layers together about every 5 inches then you can make folded corners by trimming the backing 1 inch larger than the top fabric folding once Boulding twice at each corner and then to create the folded mitre fold once and fold twice and I'll quickly pin this and then the other corner fold once fold twice and you can get that mitre just folded perfectly and then state a straight stitch or Decker de Lille stitched into place now I would like to tell you about another creative kindness star needy babies bring out the best in volunteers and Eunice sprung shown here with a special little friend is no exception her Corona South Dakota based volunteer group so special has made nearly 33,000 layette items in just seven years despite her diminished eyesight the high demand for her labor of love projects an exhaustive fundraising schedule Eunice persevered steadfast her calling serving children and their families one of our goals in presenting this series to you is to connect you with other Soares and other groups to connect and to keep you up to date on charities and the answer to that was our creative kindness website yes and we've compiled a comprehensive resource list on our creative kindness comm website and here you'll find this up-to-date information on groups projects and need if you're not connected to the Internet then send us a stamped self-addressed envelope whose no size diamond business size I'll go to Nancy's notions P o box 683 Beaver Dam Wisconsin five three nine one six and we'll send that listing to you in the mail thanks for joining me in my classroom to celebrate 20 years of sewing on television I hope that you've enjoyed learning some of my favorite techniques keep in mind there's much more to learn from the other portions of the videotapes and books and as I've closed every show for the past 20 years by saying thanks for joining me bye for now visit Nancy's website at wwlp.com for more information on this program sewing with Nancy has been made possible by grants from the following companies baath simply the best european line of sewing machines Jing er a tradition of quality and scissors and shears [Music] Madeira threads because creativity is never black and white prim drifts these sores for sewing and quilting notions amazing designs by great notions your one source for home embroidery and design software call cabinets designed with maximum storage using minimum space Rowenta professional performance and beautiful results for all types of ironing and Nancy's notions sewing catalog featuring specialty sewing books and notions [Music]

Channel: PFAFF Talk

Views: 12,557

Keywords: pfaff, creative 7570, sewing machine, coverlock, nancy zieman, sewing with nancy, knits, sewing knits, embroidery, embroidering, 7550, creative 2140, creative 2144, creative 2170

Id: Y0Dy5RoOJ7U

Length: 61min 3sec (3663 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019