Lengthening a dressmaking pattern piece is an easy way to improve the fit of your handmade clothes. Here’s how…. Firstly decide how much you need to lengthen your pattern by Find the lengthen / shorten line on your pattern which is usually a double line If your pattern doesn’t have one, you can create your own by drawing a line which is perpendicular to the grainline in an area which doesn’t have any other style lines like darts or pleats Cut across the lengthen / shorten li

Make your own cute pincushion with some small pieces of felt, embroidery thread and some stuffing! You'll need some felt, embroidery thread, scissors, pencil, a needle and some wadding or toy stuffing. 1 - Cut out two rectangles - mine are about 4 inches by 2.5 inches. 2 - Draw two flowers on different colour felts - one small and one larger one. 3 - Cut them out. 4 - Cut a length of embroidery thread, separate out two strands and tie a knot in one end. 5 - Thread your needle

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PIPING TO ADD ONTO CLOTHING, HOME FURNISHINGS & ACCESSORY PROJECTS You’ll need: Fabric Piping cord Matching thread Scissors / or a rotary cutter and mat A ruler with a 45 degree line on A sewing machine Instructions: Take your fabric and cut out strips on the bias grain. That’s at 45 degrees to the selvedge. Mine are 1.5 inches wide Place the strips right sides together at right angles and then sew from the top left hand side to the bottom right Trim t

How To Shorten Your Dressmaking Patterns If you are starting to make your own clothes and finding that you need to shorten your patterns, here’s how in 6 easy steps! 1 - Decide how much you need to shorten the pattern by. 2 - Take your pattern piece and look for the double line. It might even have ' lengthen / shorten ' written on it. Most patterns will have at least one lengthen / shorten line but don’t worry if yours doesn’t - you can create your own by drawing a line whic

Learn How To Grade Your Seam Allowances For Dressmaking Once you have sewn a seam in dressmaking, or in most other sewing projects for that matter, your pattern instructions may ask you to grade the seam allowances. This means to trim each layer to a different level so they are tiered. The purpose of grading seam allowances is to reduce any bulkiness in that area and to help prevent the seam raw edges from leaving an imprint or ridge on the right side of the garment or sewin

Learn How To Sew A Hanging Heart In A Few Easy Steps! Here's what you'll need: Small fabric scraps Matching thread A ribbon (approximately 25cms long) Wadding / toy stuffing A sewing machine A hand sewing needle Paper and pen Here's how to do it: Draw yourself a heart onto a piece of paper and cut it out Use that template to draw around and cut out two heart shapes from your piece of fabric Cut a piece of ribbon that is approximately 9 to 10 inches long - about 25cms Place t

How To Sew A Scrunchie Scrunchies are a great way to use up long fabric scraps leftover from other sewing projects. Here’s how I make mine: Draw a rectangle onto your piece of fabric which is approximately 26 inches by 3 inches. Light to medium weight fabrics are best. Cut this out. Fold the length of fabric in half, right sides together, pin and sew the raw edges together. I’m using a three / eighths of an inch seam allowance. Start and stop about two inches from either

If you live with someone who insists on short sleeves all year round, you might relate to this. My partner happily wears short sleeves even in the middle of winter; he just finds them more comfortable under jumpers and overall just gets much more wear out of his shirts that way. So I have been shortening the sleeves on a few more of his shirts recently and thought I would share how I do it. I popped a short video on YouTube today demonstrating the process I follow and I wan

How To Sew A French Seam - Step By Step! Place your fabric WRONG sides together and sew your seam with a quarter of an inch seam allowance. Trim your seam allowances by an eighth of an inch. Press the seam flat to set the stitches. Press the seam open. Now fold the fabric around the seam right sides together. Press the fold making sure its completely on the edge. Pin along that fold. And sew again, this time using a three eighths of an inch seam allowance. Then finally press

A short and sweet tutorial on how to sew a flat fell seam! Follow along with the video or the step by step instructions below to sew...

Welcome to part six of my bias binding series - How to make bias tape user a bias tape making tool. You'll need an iron, a flat surface...

Welcome to part five of my bias binding series! This one is all about making up your bias fabric strips into actual binding using the...

Welcome to part four of my bias binding series! How to join fabric strips for bias binding. If you are following along with my bias...

Welcome to part two of my bias binding series! Here you will learn how wide to cut bias strips for different widths of binding. The easy...

Welcome to the final part of my button series: How to make a fabric covered button Take your piece of fabric and identify which area you...

Welcome to part 8 of my button series. Here I'm showing you how I use my Janome Atelier 7 sewing machine to sew on a button. Select the...

Welcome to part seven of my button series. This part is all about accurately marking your button and buttonhole placement using an...

Welcome to part three of my mini button series! I had a button come off one of my cardigans so I filmed a little tutorial about how to...

Welcome to my January mini series on all things buttons! This one is all about how to sew on a button with four holes. Hope it's...

In previous blogs I have written about how to set yourself up for sewing – how to thread your needle , how to wind your bobbin , how to...