Sewing With Nancy - Sew 'n Go Separates (VHS, 2001)

songho separates as a topic for this miniseries unsigned with Nancy thanks for joining me I'll start by giving you hints on sawing an old standby a pullover top but this time with an updated crossover neckline once you know the basics I'll show you how to expand this pattern changing it into a short or long dress with two additional collar options it's the perfect pattern to sew and then go to work or for leisure discover the joy of sewing separates next on sewing with Nancy sewing with Nancy TV's how to sewing program with Nancy Zeeman is brought to you by far 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 scissors and shears for home classroom and industry ganger scissors and shears are the choice of professionals Madeira superior quality threads from Germany specializing in embroidery quilting and special effects threads because creativity is never black and white trim drifts these arts for sewing and quilting notions including products by Dritz Collins and Omni grid amazing designs by great notions your one source for home embroidery over 200 dispatch collections currently available including designs by Nancy Zenon koala cabinets from Australia quality crafted fully assembled sewing furniture designed for maximum storage in minimum space and Nancy's notions catalog featuring specialty sewing books and unique hard-to-find sewing notions and supplies I'd like to begin by showing you the basic sewing techniques of this pullover top the pattern is very simple the detail is in the neckline here we have the rib collar then I'm going to show you a hood as well as a button-up collar neckline treatment to accommodate that unique treatment at the neckline the pattern front is shaped with an inner corner and I'll show you the details of working with this the other main pattern pieces are the back and the sleeves very simple sewing very simple styling the ribbing for this particular pattern needs to be four and a half inches wide and for a size medium the four and a half by 24 is the size of the ribbing you fold it in half meeting the wrong sides then fold the length so that you can mark the center back and then place a pin at each end 5/8 of an inch from the cut edge this pattern requires 5/8 or has 5/8 of an inch seam allowances it works out best for this construction of the neckline but in the seams itself you really don't need all that 5/8 of an inch amount so to work with the seam allowances here are two guidelines Serge the seam serging it with a needle at the 5/8 and the serger blades will trim off the excess seam allowances for those of you using a traditional sewing machine simply stitch at the five-eighths of an inch trim and then zigzag with a wide zigzag so that the seam of the knit fabric has a slight amount of stretch when working with the pattern piece there are just a few construction tips that I'd like to pass along right now the shoulders seam you would surge or so as I indicated but I like to surge or sew over clear elastic to allow the shoulder seam to have give when you're putting taking the top off putting it back on then it goes back to its original size so just surge or sew over the elastic to work with the neckline because we have the corners inside corners we're going to stay stitch and this stitching has been highlighted with a marker to stitching at the 5/8 certain seam allowance to give that seaman little extra support you'll see how I work with that a little bit later find the center back of the collar and the center back of the garment and pin the two together which I have done here meeting right sides and pin all the way around the neckline and then pin matching that 5/8 of an inch pin to the lower edge of the square neckline then on the opposite side do the same pinning overlap the fabric with the ribbing fabric meeting the cut edges meeting that 5/8 of an inch stitching line and pin the objective is that the pin and bluemark that I placed I'm lining up the rest of the neckline is going to be almost at a one-to-one ratio and if you have a little extra fabric little extra of the garment fabric put that extra in the back so it fits snugly and now I'll show you how to stitch the neckline I took a little extra time to do some additional pinning of the ribbing to the neckline the ribbing has cut one inch shorter than the neckline of the garment and I have the garment being one inch longer in the back so I just have the ribbing stretch to meet the back so that it hugs around the neckline the rest of the ribbing is pinned at a one-to-one ratio to the garment I'm going to start to sew at the lower edge at one corner placing my needle in the fabric exactly where the stay stitch marking is and where I have the pin mark this is probably the most important part of creating this project is to get the marking just where you'd like it and to start at that corner so take a little extra time to put the needle at the pin mark as I'm stitching I'm going to be stitching at the five-eighths of an inch stitching line because the pattern has 5/8 of an inch seam allowances even though I'm working with knit fabrics for this top you may want to consider using an interlocked knit a Lacoste knit or a Ponte knit right now we're working with a Lacoste it has kind of a waffle weave effect to it and it's a very sporty looking type of interlock and will just stitch around the neckline now I'm at the back area where the ribbing is a little bit shorter than the garment so I'm going to stretch the ribbing to meet the garment and I'll just keep taking out my pins so I don't sew over the pins and now I'm on the homestretch the area of the front of the neckline and now I'll stop sewing again at the corner the opposite corner of the collar now just get at the right spot I'm going to slightly shorten my stitch length so that I end right at the pin mark but the needle in the fabric and then maybe backstitch one or two stitches just to make certain that I have stopped at the right spot and we'll see sometimes you may overshoot or undershoot your stitching and the time will tell when you pull up your fabric now as I'm bringing this up we'll check this out and I have start/stop sewing right at the marking on one side and yes I did it on the other so to do the next step I'll flip it to the inside and cut to the stay stitching marks cut to the corners this is why you need that stay stitching area there so that you do not Ravel the fabric now I'm going to meet the ribbing ends so that they're crossing over one another they're crossing over the seam allowance width and I'll pin then this little extra extension from the garment is going to again be meeting these cut edges so you have this v-shape marking at both ends now I have highlighted my stay stitching which you would not be doing on your fabric you would have that looking very nice and I'm you would not see that you just see the stitching and I'll stitch across the lower bottom edge of this collar area and we'll see how good I can get this on my first try it's a little bit easier to do this topic when you're not talking but we'll see how I'm getting all these collars to meet that's just one minute I need to pull one collar a little bit longer there we go and you may again want to do a basting stitch across this lower edge just in case you have to take it out and as I pull this up I'm quite lucky because things are meeting quite well you can see how one is overlapping on the other and you may want to do a reinforcement stitch a lot cross this lower edge after getting the color just the way you'd like it then you may want to trim your seam allowances around the neckline trimming them down further and use a double needle and Stitch the seam allowances to the garment the double needle has two needles on one shaft as we have on this contrasting sample and it allows the neckline to have some stretch but yet finishes the neckline perfectly I rarely saw anything the same way twice which prompted me to base a program and how easily a pattern can be slightly changed for a variety the classic so and go pullover can be quickly changed into a short dress with a hood or a longer dress just with a few strokes of a pencil alongside of a straight edge here's how when you're changing a pattern you just need some tissue paper a pen a straight edge and a little imagination we're going to be making the same changes to the front and the back pull over pattern pieces I'll show you the front piece right here I've outlined the pattern on tracing paper just tracing the cut line the cutting line of the pattern and then extend the center front line the long straight front line or back line when working with the back pattern piece approximately 30 inches making it much longer for the side seam you're going to continue the a-line style I'll just pull over and so that you get the right pitch but we're I'm going to recommend is that if you align the ruler so that the last four inches of the first line are then extended down continue down again that same length approximately 30 inches you can see we've already made the markings on this particular pattern piece but to show you how to go about the process I'll give you the quick steps to make a short dress from this pullover length we're going to extend the length 12 inches and I'm going to use a pin first of all I find that a little bit more convenient just make a pin mark in the tissue paper every couple of inches then later on you can connect the dots as you can see we've done here you want to make sure that you get the same curve as the original pattern piece and then draw in the line to get the correct curve for the hemline of a long dress again align the ruler but this time add 14 inches now depending upon your height you may want to add less or a little bit more but we found 14 inches of is about the right length and then again do the same tracing our connecting of the dots after you made the marks on your tissue paper and again repeat this on your back pattern piece now I'd like to show you you can use these length changes to give riot e to your pattern I'll show you how to add a hood to the neckline with a simple pattern change the neckline of the sew and go pull over converts to a hood add that casual feature to the short dress length version of the pattern you have a comfortable yet go anywhere a dress that sews as easily as the pullover top let's take a closer look at the neckline of this short dress the model was wearing this dress with a vest and will detail the vest in the third program of this series but right now let's just concentrate on the cross over hood section it has the same construction ideas as the rib neckline but it looks a lot different just because the pattern is shaped a lot differently once you know how to do this construction area the assembly area you can Soraia t a pattern changes in the companion book and the pattern that go with this series this is the hood pattern you'll be cutting to pattern pieces and sewing together along the hood section you may wonder how is this going to fit into that neckline well I just am going to compare it to half of the ribbing here's half of the ribbing that we just put in and it's the same length as the original ribbing that we worked with even though the shape is slightly different to finish the front area so that the edge has a finish we've pressed under one inch and used a double needle or you could use a cover stitch on your serger to stitch the knit into place we're using an interlocked knit a drapey fabric for this technique comparable to what we did earlier with the neckline of the crossed over rib section I have stays stitched in this area and highlighted it with a blue pin so that you could see the stitching and then simply align the hood even though it's a much different shape but align the hood with the neckline using the same principles I just showed you I have a 5/8 of an inch mark penned in or with a marking pen on my fabric and I would use that as my starting point so that both sides are marked clearly and then I would pin the rest of the hood to fit that fit the neckline and so with a 5/8 of an inch seam the same seeming technique my life is and samples I have samples practically of everything and here you can see we have already stitched the neckline stitching from point to point the next step is to do some trimming or clipping I should say not trimming but clipping to the point of the stay stitching and you can see how the word got its stay stitching got its name it just keeps the fabric in place from stretching out you want a clip to the stitching but not beyond it now that little extension is there and now we simply cross over the hood pieces one on top of the other and they are cut just the right length so they fit into that extension and we would match all the cut edges and then sew across the lower edge again you may want to baste it at first because it sometimes needs a little extra help and then after you have the right meat then you can simply double needle or cover stitch around the neckline and you have a nice variation this button-up color dress will take you everywhere you need to go again use the sew and go pull of a pattern change the length and add the third option to the neckline it looks great alone or accessorized but best yet it can be created with a minimum of time and a maximum of ease you might guess that the lower portion of this collar is created in the same way that we created the rib as well as the hooded collar using the same technique in this lower edge but notice a different look just by a few changes of the pattern we have a button-up collar and I'm going to show you the technique of putting this together plus a few hints of putting buttonholes in to knit fabrics we're using a Lacoste knit Ponte knit interlocked whatever weight you'd like you'd want something drapey though because of the long line of this aline dress for the collar piece it has the same neckline shape as the hood identically but the front is much different you're going to be cutting two collar shapes on the fold the fabric and here you can see I have the two pattern pieces cut on the fold and when I open this up if you'll see that there is a strip of interfacing fusible interfacing pressed about one inch wide down the center fold you do this on both sides of the color on both color pieces I should say to give support to the buttons and the buttonholes the seams are the centre back seams and we're going to meet these collars meeting the right sides so right sides are sandwiched together and you'd pin what will end up being the center back seams so one seam as well as the other and on this next sample the seam has been stitched this is kind of a magical collar because it certainly doesn't look like a collar right here but if we pinned together a pinch together the fold lines you'll see how the collar then becomes or you get the shape of the collar you need to press the seam allowances open maybe do some grading trim them a little bit and then stitch the top edge of the collar and then you'll have your fabric or your collar shaped after you turn this right side out this next sample shows the collar turned right side out and I have the lower edge kind of pinned together so you can get the idea how this has been shaped now on pin it and then you'll even get to see a little bit more the important part now is to put in the buttonholes I like to put the buttonholes in before attaching it to the dress because then you don't have to work with all that weight on the right front I have transferred the markings of the buttonholes five little dots with a blue marking pen at the points at the top of the buttonholes now if you're able to use a stretch buttonhole stitch set your machine for that right now most knits do have greatest amount of stretch in the length or excuse me in the width and are more stable in the length so we would like to put the buttonholes lengthwise direction to give them stability I've already taken some time to do a test buttonhole to see the appropriate length and I'm simply going to stitch this buttonhole into place now I'm using a slightly contrasting thread color so it's not the blended thread color that you would normally use but you'll be able to see it more clearly because there are five buttonholes down the front of this area the buttonholes are small you really would not like large buttonholes in this area so I want to give you some hints about cutting and preparing those buttonholes by the way I find your tessa buttonhole you find that your fabric is not feeding through your machine place a layer of a lightweight stabilizer on the top like a wash away type or an Avalon stabilizer on the top so that it glides more smoothly you can see this tiny little button hole and the many times the button cutters are as that size are even larger than the buttonhole what I'd like you to do is do the cutting of the buttonhole in two steps I'm going to simply just place this down on my table but instead of putting the fabric flat on top of the wooden cutter I'm going to put half of it half of the buttonhole on the cutter and then cut half of the buttonhole flip it around and then cut the other half this way the blade as you can see cannot cut through all the layers so after stitching and then cutting through all the buttonholes you can attach the collar to the dress using the same techniques I detailed earlier the song goes separates pattern can be made as a pullover a shirt dress or long dress or a rib collar a hooded collar or a button-up collar the choice is yours how you'd like to combine the various necklines and hemlines because you're the designer or the creator at home and at my studio I so with koala cabinets because of their perfect design there's no waste of time in getting started because of the Koala soft-touch airlift system the machine quickly and gently raises to the perfect sign position the design allows me to sit directly in front of the needle in clear view of my work with no strain on my neck or back and koala has a place for all my favourite notions and supplies I always feel more efficient and more motivated to do my best work when my space is organized a perfect design that's why I so with koala here's a hint from ging err when I'm adding a decorative touch to a project and I need to trim really close to decorative edge stitching and applicators makes that job easy the curved handle ensures a comfortable hand position and eliminates stress on my hand and wrist while the large bill efficiently lifts the fabric I want to trim away I also use my application says errs when I'm doing reverse applique for trimming fabric from behind lace for grading seams and to trim quilt batting and applique scissors is the right tool for trimming away anytime anywhere here's a hint from Madeira machine embroidery is a great way to personalize garments and home decor when I do machine embroidery on garments for my sons or for the home I want the thread that can stand up to the rigors of high speed stitching as well as the challenge of repeated laundering the new colorfast poly neon thread fits both criteria I'm especially pleased with a continued brilliance of poly neon even after repeated exposure to sunlight chlorine and machine washing this 40 weight polyester filament thread also is extremely strong suit resists abrasion and breakage welcome to sewing with Nancy when creating your own wardrobe you have many options that take solo effort that's why my staff and I developed this series so and go separates we're in the second program of this three-part series detailing the versatility of a fleece jacket the pattern is styled for comfort with options for personalization I'll show you the details of adding accents to fleece quickly inserting the zipper and adding the finishing touches of stretch binding that's what's next on sewing with Nancy if you've never worked with hi-low fleeces such as polar fleece or Eskimo fleece this is a perfect opportunity to give it a try I'm going to be showing you some creative steps by adding for example diamond-shaped appliques as well as the functional steps of adding the stretch binding and inserting the zipper we're going to start with some basic seam ideas hila fleeces really require very minimal sewing techniques straight stitches are perfect a 5/8 of an inch stitch straight stitch is really all you need in many times because the fabric is very lofty pressing it the traditional way just doesn't work you'd flatten the NAP finger pressing is what works many of the times and if you really need to steam a seam use the steam technique not press the seam just by pressing having the iron over the fabric allowing it to have the moisture from the steaming iron and then Pat it with your fingers and that's all you need to do for pressing other options to consider for seams would be a serger seam a 3/4 thread serger meaning two threads in the needle a left needle and right needle and an overlock stitch which works out extremely well or a straight stitch followed by zigzag if you'd like a compressed seam after doing the straight stitch trim and then zigzag the edges because fleeces have the greatest amount of stretch in the crosswise grain and are very stable in the lengthwise grain and most seams are in the lengthwise direction this is a perfect seam choice so you can see there isn't a lot of detail that you need to know when working with high loft leases when it comes to embellishment these felices again require very little extra knowledge or extra detail we've started to add three diamond shapes or appliques to the very lower edges of the front shape we positioned these before doing any of the sewing notice the side seam has been stitched and to position these rather than using a fusible web which you would use in a normal applique pressing with a web would flatten a nap I'm simply going to use an adhesive spray and position all appliques before sewing now I'm doing that the opposite of what I'm going to be actually recommending that you're doing but position and then stitch and what's nice about the adhesive spray I'm just going to try to get it position so it's about 3/8 of an inch from the lower edge and position and then you don't have to pin at the front edge by the way we did start the applique 5/8 of an inch from the edge to allow room for the zipper which you'll see in a little bit the inside of this jacket since we've already sewn through these appliques shows the detail of what the stitch we're going to recommend you don't need to finish the edges with this heavy satin stitch this is a blanket stitch it's straight stitched followed by a straight inward stitch a side stitch three stitches straight and then like a zigzag three stitches straight a zigzag and it really looks very hand done but obviously it's done by Machine the blanket stitch is set with a length of 2.5 and the width about 3 do a test at home so that your machine and your taste is reflected in your stitching I have an open toe foot and I machine allowing open space so that I can see that as I'm stitching along the edge really along the tan color and then the zig goes into the navy blue color notice I don't have any pins just that adhesive spray is holding everything in position and again position all appliques first now I'll be stopping with a needle in the down position and then would do the pivoting you know I'll just pivot this around so you can see that it's really very simple to do this type of applique on the fleece fabric make sure all your little edges are flat and then continue so with a little bit of effort you can apply those appliques extremely extremely easily after applying all the edges then the next step on this particular pattern is to apply the binding along the hem line usually a think of doing the hem at the end but because of the zipper application we're going to do the binding right now I'm going to change my machine to a straight stitch and the stretch binding is a remarkable fabric remarkable trim lots of lycra in it so it stretches a lot it curls to the wrong side so I'm going to meet the right side of the binding to the right lower edge of the jacket right sides meeting and just pin the binding to the jacket on a one-to-one ratio so that it's nice and flat later on I'll be showing you how the binding can finish the sleeve hem and slightly give the hem a cuff look so that's encased a little bit or it's tightened but this instance we just want the edges bound the way they do it and ready to wear so we have this one-to-one ratio the machine has been changed to a straight stitch and I'm going to have about a 3.0 length to the stitch you could leave your open toe foot on or change to your traditional foot choice is really yours and guide the stitching right along at the edge so that what I mean to say is a guide the presser foot along the edge of the fabric it's about 3/8 of an inch seam you do not want to have it any more than that and you would just stitch all the way around the lower edge very simple seaming this is a two-step process to do the technique and then the next step after stitching that 3/8 of an inch seam allowance is to finger press the binding and then wrap it around to the underside and here's where you'd like to take some little extra time to pin so that the binding wraps nicely to the underside and so that you have an even amount of binding showing at the front side now with that same stitch the same straight stitch I'm going to stitch in the well of the same stitch in the ditch that funny term we use stitching right where the two fabrics meet the open toe foot is a nice guide here because you can see very clearly where you should be stitching and I'm just stitching along the blue and well Dreyse color line when I pull this up this small section of course you'd be sewing around the entire lower edge of the jacket you can't really see that seam at all from the right side from the underside you can see that the binding has been caught what a fast and neat way of finishing the jacket edge if you're with me for the first program of this series I used a simple pullover top and change the neckline the neckline like the top I'm wearing has a little square lower edge we're having the same signature mark the same design detail on the jacket the pattern piece the jacket front has this collar with a square inner corner the collar pieces have the same inset as we had on the top piece for the jacket you're going to cut four collars and sew two together along the center back seam and then a second one together along the center back seam so you have an inner collar and an outer collar the two basic techniques you need to learn and when working with fleeces is just how to seam it which is basically a straight stitch and then how to bind the edges if you'd like with stretch binding the rest is just different applications of those two ideas to put the collar into this jacket I'm going to show it to you on a sample it's just going to be a straight stitch that inside corner that I showed you earlier has a stay stitching five eighths of an inch stitching at that corner just to give it some stability I've darkened it so that you could see it more clearly on the collar itself you're going to mark the inner corner and I've marked it with a black dot you would be marking it with your washable marking pen dot but I'll stack these two together and would stack both the left corner and right corners together and pin the remainder of the collar around the neckline just meeting it on a one-to-one basis all around the neckline magically flip this out and on the opposite side we've already stitched the collar into place from the dot all the way around to the center back and you continue then to the opposite center front area when I kind of fold the fabric forward you can see that this collar is almost complete except this lower edge section to do the last stitching we're going to utilize that stay stitching in other words clip to the point or that corner where the fabric has been stitched it stays stitching it's just another term for reinforced stitching then magically you can bring the two collars to meet that clipping allows the center fronts to meet and then notice that v-shaped area that forms because of the clipping and then simply stitch straight across this edge using your 5/8 of an inch seam allowance this next sample shows the collar that has been stitched and it's just with two rows of stitching of straight stitches it doesn't take a lot of effort but has a very tailored look in the inside we've done trimming of the seam allowances so we didn't have to work with the bulk and then you simply finger press the fabric flat that's all there's to it the zipper is next we're going to have the zipper go all the way to the hem finished at the hem edge and also at the top edge it's 24 inches long I have one side of the zipper already sewn into place I've started by it placing the zipper across from the finished edge remember the binding at the finished edge meeting the edge of the zipper to the cut edge of the fabric and then again all the way up to the top it's important that the zipper teeth and I'm going to show you this kind of the silhouette of these zipper teeth they're rather strong they're plastic you cancel through them so make certain that you position the zipper top zipper tooth about 5/8 of an inch down from the top edge so that you're not going to sew through it you'll sew next to it when attaching the binding at the top attach the zipper by simply sewing down the center of the zipper tape pin of course the zipper to the fabric on the opposite side you'd of course do the same stitching on the left as on the right side the remaining collar is then sandwiched or sandwhiches the zipper into place and rather than sewing this right now I'm just going to pin along my first row of stitching so that you can see that with just some very simple guidelines you can have the zipper almost complete after this was stitching assuming this is stitching this collar would be flipped to the inside and the zipper would be almost complete and I'll show you a sample where it is but what speed that goes together this next sample is a shorter sample showing the zipper already in place and the final step would be to top stitch the zipper about 1/4 of an inch to a half of an inch away from the edge just one row stitching to hold it into place now granted this cus is a sample it would have normally a jacket attached to it but the next step is to finish the top of the collar you'll see soon on the finished Jack at the top of the collar is finished it would be sewn with binding in the same manner as the lower edge but with one addition since we have a raw edge at the top we need to wrap the binding to the underside and then sew the binding into place when you flip this forward flip the binding forward and wrap it to the underside and then do the stitching the ditch notice that that top edge is nice and neatly finished you can use the same binding technique to bind the sleeve hemline you detach the sleeve to the jacket using your favorite technique of sewing or surging the edges but with the basic knowledge of knowing how to seam with a straight stitch you can attach the zipper put on the collar and when the information on knowing how to bind the edges so the top of the collar the sleeve and the jacket him whether you're skiing or wish you were skiing this pullover top variation of our sew and go jacket offers another creative option the styling is similar to the jacket but the details have changed gone are the zipper and the applique new are the cropped length and pullover feature plus this so on go ski top is a terrific palette for embroidery as I mentioned the looks are quite different from the jacket to this pullover top you can be the judge how short or long you'd like to make the top we've certain this approximately six inches but the main changes occur at the center front rather than having a seam or zipper down the center front the fabric was cut on the fold a simple change simply on your front collar and jacket piece fold under the five eighths of an inch seam allowance and place the fabric on the foot or the pattern and the fold of the fabric the same happens on the collar that front seam allowance is pressed under and now one collar is needed placed on the fold of the fabric so you have one color that's all it's needed the sewing techniques are so comparable you're going to be placing stretch binding at the top of the neckline at the lower edge and at the sleeves and since we have a complete circle cut the stretch binding half of an inch longer than needed and seam it and then sew it in the same technique that I showed you earlier but the main detail or the accent is the embroidery and I'll show you that right now all the designs are embroideries that you're going to put on fleece have to be very simple and we've chosen some very elegant-looking snowflake patterns a grouping of three that are going to be stitched to the collar as - the loris leave the hint about working with fleece and embroidery is that you cannot put the fleece fabric into the hoop you have to usually hoop the fabric but it would leave an imprint in the fleece because you need such a tight mount the hint will be to use a stabilizer that has a paper covering and I've scored with a pinpoint us a square on the stabilizer and now it's simply going to remove that top section and here we have a sticky fabric the fleece itself then needs to be positioned on the fabric or on the stabilizer fabric and I'm going to I've already determined where I'd like the placement to be and I'm simply going to move the fleece and kind of Pat it down and it will stay in the hoop with this sticky stabilizer my machine is already set up to do the embroidery and I have transferred the design from a disk into the car to my machine and then I have embroidery thread ran thread in the top and then a pre wom bobbin or you could just use a lightweight thread in the bobbin and then use a machine embroidery needle follow your owners instruction book for working with embroidery and do a test run I usually like to try that testing out these sample of the thread the stabilizer and all that's needed but the key is is that so simple seen and this isn't really a seam this is so a simple design and I'm just going to let this stitch and while it's sewing you can see that even though that there is not the fabric in the hoop it's staying very still and that the embroidery is stitching on the top about any worry or concern earlier I showed you how to do the applique that was a simple stitch this is simple as well this particular design has three snowflake motifs that have been compiled together and when stitching the single layer of the collar we did first the right side the mirror image the design and did the left side and then just with one single motif of the applique just stitched one in this section the same three are the same trio of snowflakes we're also stitched in the lower edge of the sleeve pull let the machine stitch completing this trio of snowflakes and I'll be back and show you the completed collar [Music] off camera finished ditching the trio of snowflakes now simply peel it from the sticky back stabilizer reposition the collar to stitch another trio this great combination added a nice accent to the ski fleece top here's a hint from fothe on sine with Nancy you often see me use fast exclusive dual feed the dual feed helps feed the top and bottom fabric layers under the presser foot at the same rate I find this especially helpful during machine quilting the layers of the top backing and batting feed through smoothly my dual feed also simplifies matching plaids as well as stripes it prevents seems from puckering particularly on lightweight fabrics such as silk and rayon whether you're doing specialty sewing or everyday seaming phos dual feed offers a real advantage here's a hint from prim grits the manufacturers of Collins quilting products when hand quilting use the patented no slip hoop with the unique tongue and groove shaping system to keep your quilt layers perfectly taut and stable simply place the fabric over the inner hoop loosen the outer hoop slip the outer hoop over the fabric and tighten the screws the tongue and groove molding will lock the layers in place when quilting the perfect companion is a finger pin cushion keep extra threaded needles or pins in this convenient mini pin cushion the no-slip hoop and finger pin cushion our ideal quilting mates here's a hint from amazing designs by great notions when looking for a background for your embroidery consider iron-on transfers iron-on transfers from the amazing designs embroidery scape line eliminate the search for the perfect fabric the iron-on transfers act as a backdrop and lets you add the detail whether your embroidery i've congrat addthis garden scene with two iron-on transfers a tree and the cottage while the embroidery is from the memories of home embroidery cart the birdbath trellis and inviting garden chairs complete this garden scene I'm so glad that you could join me I'm Nancy seaman this program concludes my three part series on so and go separates so far I've shown you how to design various looks from an easy soap pattern next I'll show you how to convert the jacket pattern we worked with earlier into various vest styles they altered that Kate is wearing features a sew and go vest worn over a hooded dress the pattern pieces can be easily changed giving you great style freedom and fun discover the joy of sewing next time sewing with Nancy design and style changes on a pattern are extremely easy once you have the know-how the know-how of changing a jacket pattern like I'm wearing this pattern that we worked with in the second part of our series to a vest pattern takes a few little changes especially in the armhole area in addition to that we're also going to change or make a pattern change into the neckline and I'll show you how on the pattern piece rather than using the sleeve front and back you'll just use the front and back pattern pieces and on a jacket you need a much wider shoulder seam the sleeves are set in but on a vest it should be narrower there are templates that you can use that are about an inch and a half wide that can be placed over the pattern you can trim away the excess fabric from both the front and the back pattern piece simple change and then of course don't cut out the sleeve the collar on the jacket pattern as you can see is a stand-up collar but we're going to have a rib neckline kind of a v-shape to that neckline here are the pattern changes that you need purchase about 1/4 of a yard of ribbing and this ribbing is cut four inches wide by 24 inches long and you'll find those guidelines and the along with the pattern that accompanies the program so 2 4 by 24 and to do the markings on here we'll need some critical markings or important markings and that is to measure after folding the ribbing in half meeting the wrong sides measure 5/8 of an inch from each edge and you can see I have the little blue marking dot right in that position and pin fold the fabrics together the other marking treatment that I'd like you to mark in addition to mark the other dot at the other end is to mark the center back just fold that fabric in half and those pin marks are invaluable for later construction use so you have the markings at the front 5/8 of an inch from the corner on each collar and then the center back the ribbing also goes around the armhole and the armhole ribbing size is twelve two and a half inches wide to those two and a half inches wide by the circumference of the armhole and here we've cut the ribbing and sewn it with just 1/4 of it interesting actually this happens to be searched and so you'll Serge this together we're going to fold it in half later or we're going to double it later but right now leave it single and you can see we have pins marking the center and also the quarter marks to make positioning easier now I'll show you how to insert the zipper this is a simple pattern to work with we're going to put the zipper in and attach the rib collar in tandem almost using the same step same processes start by stays stitching giving the fabric extra stability in the corner where the collar will be attached that corner needs some stability stitching 5/8 of an inch from the cut edge about an inch on either side of the corner do this on both sides of the vest front to prepare to position the zipper rather than using pins try some double-sided basting tape we like this because sometimes pins leave dimples in the fabric and you get a ridge and also the zipper is a little bit heavier than a lightweight knit we're using a Lacoste knit which is a medium with knit the medium weight knit and we simply place the double sided tape on the right side of the zipper next to the finished edge then remove the paper covering from the tape so that you have a sticky surface and that's going to act as your pin or pins meeting right side of the zipper to the right side of the vest front I'm starting at the hem area placing the zipper edge the finished edge 5/8 of an inch from the hem we're at the hem line and then I can reposition this to get this just right position it down and I'm going to place this down on my table and align the zipper and the cut edge and we have it pinned this is a 24 inch separating zipper it's longer than needed but it's the closest length that you can purchase to work with this vest in a few minutes I'll show you how to shorten the zipper length of this outerwear zipper now an interesting part about working with the zipper especially oughta wear zippers is that there is a change in the weave and they did this to help us out so that we can stitch straight it's about 1/4 of an inch from the finished edge and it's very slight but it's right in here you can see that you can stitch right along that edge or you can use a presser foot that's 1/4 of an inch wide however you'd like to work with it if you did not we're not able to move the needle on your machine that put it on a zipper foot I'm just going to push a button so I get the needle all the way to the left then I can align it my needle right with that little change and you'll see that up close as you're stitching and this top stitch is it for a new place and so as I get to the zipper top or stop a zipper pull what you may find is that you will need to raise the presser foot and advance it out of the way so that it you can continue to have a straight seam and I'm just going to get these edges meeting a little bit better and continue sewing nice thing about the tape is that it works like pins you can remove it and then work with it again the next step is to fold the zipper out to the right side and then we're going to attach these shoulder seams the front and back shoulder seams together as well as so the ribbing onto the neckline now we're going to sew the ribbing on in a reverse order as we did earlier in this series rather than sewing the neckline first in this little lower section last we're going to sell the lower section last and then the neckline it will work out better for this particular pattern that four-inch ribbing was folded in half and we're going to meet the fold of the ribbing with the fold of the garment so that those two folds are aligning and I'm going to slip my pin from the underside because I'm going to be sewing from this underside and then the little dot that we made 5/8 of an inch from the cut edges is going to align with the corner of the stay stitching so these two marks are the most crucial and they're not hard to do we'll just align or stack those two marks one on top of the other and I'll just double-check but I'm getting them aligned if you mark properly it really makes this sewing so much easier I'll put the needle back in the straight position and so just that short little seam across that lure edge and I'm going to follow the stay stitching and as I get to the corner I'll try to stop with the needle I'll stop with the needle in the down position let me just reverse it and reinforce that little needle or that stitching then after clipping your threads then you simply cut to the corner cut not the ribbing just well see if I can get there there we go cut to the stitching and open this out let me show you this on a vest sample that has been stitched with the shoulder seen the whole portion of the vest has been positioned in place I stitched across the lower edge then clipped to that stay stitching mark then simply pinned the collar to meet the neckline and you can almost flatten out the jacket or the vest front so that you can start to sew at that stay stitching line and go all the way around when you sew it in this manner the corner ends up perfectly mitered the next step is to do the finishing details in the neckline you're going to be trimming the seam allowances down to 1/4 of an inch and surging or zigzagging and then later top stitching but you also have to shorten the zipper which we've already done on this sample I'd like to show you how to shorten the outer wear zipper now a traditional zipper you don't have to worry about shortening because you can simply sew through the zipper teeth and you don't have to worry about the bulk but the teeth on an auto word zipper are particularly heavy and and need to be trimmed away you can't cut through them and you can't sew through them using a buttonhole cutter and block I've started to cut it trim away some of the teeth and you would cut you wouldn't have to do the whole length just trim away a portion of it trimming off the top areas of the teeth as you can see we're have missing teeth here and then pry off the extra teeth you don't want to cut the zipper tape and you would do this technique all the way down into the seam allowance so I stays stitching line I would again cut off the extra plastic teeth and then pry this off after doing the prying then you can cut away the extra tape that's in this area so we'll just kind of work on this a little bit but it really works out well with the buttonhole cutter I never thought I'd use it to shorten a zipper so keep working on that that's pliable then you can so through this area next I'd like to show you how to attach the ribbing around the armhole area and then do some creative top stitching to finish the armhole you're going to be working with the ribbing that was cut 2 and 1/4 inches wide and sewn into a circle quarter mark the armhole of the vest meet those quarter marks together which has been done already on this piece and stitched together with a 5/8 of an inch seam allowance in a circle then finger press the seam allowances on the right side toward that armhole and wrap the excess ribbing to the underside so that you have a nice finish pin the ribbing so that it is even so that you have an even with going all the way around the area one of the ways to finish this would just be to stitch in the ditch that funny term we use to stitch in the well of the seam right in between the two fabrics to attach the ribbing from the underside another option would be to give it a sporty ER look with a cover stitch we've used cover stitches on many of the garments and the sew and go separate series I'll show you what that looks like around the neckline of the earlier vest you can see the double needle stitching actually this is not a double needle on a conventional machine or a seam stich twice but rather a surge seam two needles and on the flip side it's called a cover stitch because you can see all of that thread creating a covered look sometimes you may want to use the cover stitch as the right side of the fabric this time we would like that double needle stitching on the top so you can finish around the neckline as we have on round this vest or on the armhole hem the choice is yours wherever you'd like some top stitching to show my machine is set up according to my owners guide for a cover stitch I've chosen to use all-purpose thread in the needles and since I did not have two spools of this thread I wound a bobbin with the same color thread in the looper you'll need to use serger thread you don't have to have it matching your fabric exactly again I've set up my machine following the guide I've used a flatbed attachment disengaged the needle because I'm not going to trimming seam allowances unlike many of the stitches that we use for a serger so to do this stitching I'm simply going to place the armhole almost did the neckline place the armhole area underneath the presser foot area and align the needles right next to that stitching of the ribbing and I find it works a little bit better for this decorative stitch if you go and come it's lower but you don't have to go that slow and you get very even unique stitching and you can see you just kind of continue sewing all the way around the circumference of this when you finish get to your starting point then simply over stitch the area I'll drop my threads cut the threads and show you what the stitching looks like straight on one side and then on the other side you see the cover stitch and it's a great way of finishing and top stitching with a fabric change from Lacoste knit to fleece and just one pattern change the sewing go vest takes on a warmer look but with a touch of magic the magic was added by stitching a super-sized blanket stitch around the armhole hem and hood with fleece yarn yarn you make yourself from narrow strips of fleece here's how to add magic to your sewing as I mentioned this pattern has one change and that is for the hood we use the hood pattern that was used earlier in this series when adding a hood to the top pattern same thing but I'm going to show you a different technique of working in the collar and zipper area and then we'll do this super-sized blanket stitching which is really fun to do and it's relatively fast because the stitching is so far apart first of all the hood the hood pattern you'll be cutting two of these and because the hood is larger than the ribbing pattern you'll need a yarn three-eighths of the fleece fabric and then about an eighth of a yard of fleece for the accent the two hood patterns or fabric pieces were stitched right sides meeting around the outer edge of the hood and now I've started to put this around the neckline the first step is to put the hood at the neckline as if you were as we did with so many the other car treatments throughout this series the stay stitching was also a factor here we stay stitched in this v area or the corner of the collar section and clipped to that V that's been a kind of a common denominator throughout this program and then to get the finish around the zipper the zipper has been stitched 1-0 stitching in place we are lining these top two lines the cottage is I should say and then we wrap the fabric around I'm going to pin this and you would sew this you could but the pinning should just show you how neatly this finishes the zipper edge this would be a straight stitch through this area let's make it a straight stitch not a crooked stitch there we go and then I will just turn this right side out and even with pinning you can see how this finishes the edge making the zipper flush with the hood area whatever amount of the seam allowance was wrapped around to the underside you'd pin that same consistent amount around the hood and top stitch or cover stitch as we just finished sewing so that's the way of getting that hood on using kind of the same basis knowledge but adding a little different dimension now for the super-sized blanket stitching for the blanket stitching I mentioned an eighth of a yard of fabric is what you'll need a scrap of fabric and you're going to be cutting the crosswise the stretch the greatest amount of stretch of this fleece and narrow strips test this out your kids if you have kids or grandkids they love to help with this especially stretching it we're just going to cut a narrow strip a fourth of an inch as well my staff and I phone works well for this and then make yarn it doesn't take much to do it just pull on it and you have very interesting yarn and of course because it's released as well it really works well with it matches well coordinates same type of texture then you'll need to thread this into a very large I needle accrual needle hand sewing needle with a supersize die you might have admired in my assistant Donna did all the stitching of the blanket stitching around the edge how evenly it stitched well we have a way of showing this to you so that you can get equal stitching and that is the with a basting stitch to give you the guideline and this is with a blind hem stitch the length is 0.4 point 0 a very wide width turn under about a 5/8 of an inch hem line and then blanket stitch here you can see stitching with a mirrored image stitch around the edge this will come out a little bit later after doing the stitching then simply place your the well of the or the little valley of that stitch punch a hole with a buttonhole key hole cutter through that valley and this will give a little bit of room for that very large fleece yarn we started to do the blanket stitching around the lower edge of the sample later on you'll pull out this basting stitch but you place your needle through the slide opening and Stitch around the edge adjust it and then go to the next stitch and you'll have a great accent added to your vest [Music] one final tip for this series when finishing the super-sized blanket stitch remove the basting stitches I've already pulled out the bobbin thread and then when connecting the threads the yarns you'll have to sew them together with needle and thread I hope you've enjoyed this series 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 Bob simply the best European line of sewing machines gear incorporated a tradition of quality and scissors and shears Madeira because creativity is never black and white trimmed R it's the source for sewing and quilting notions amazing designs buy great notions your one source for home embroidery coil cabinets designed with maximum storage using minimum space and Nancy's notions catalog featuring specialty sewing books and notions [Music]

Channel: PFAFF Talk

Views: 8,714

Keywords: pfaff, creative 7570, coverlock 4872, sewing machine, serger, coverlock, nancy zieman, sewing with nancy, knit tops, jackets, pullover, fleece, ribbing, hooded, vest

Id: l2iMi5Fd13Q

Length: 61min 16sec (3676 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020