Difficult Fabric Session 1: Overview and Supplies Needed

In this class, we're gonna learn how to tackle all of those fun, decorative-looking fabrics. We have fabrics that both look cool and feel really cool. I'm going to teach you how to handle faux fur and how to keep the mess down, as well as how to make professional-looking seams. I'm going to show you how to use leather and faux leather, how you actually can press and make nice seams. How to deal with sheer and sequined fabrics, other embellished fabrics. Tips for even working with felt which isn't necessarily always considered a difficult fabric, but can be. So any fabric that may seem daunting or tedious to work with, I'm gonna try and cover that today so I can open up a whole new section of the fabric store for you to start shopping in and utilizing those fabrics in your next projects. So because we're going to be working with some different kind of projects... I'm sorry, different kinds of fabrics, we're going to be needing some different tools that you may not either think of as sewing tools or normally use. There is your basics. You're going to need your sewing machine, and I'll talk about the different kinds of needles and feet you're gonna need in a little bit. But just your basic sewing machine is fine. We're also going to need our scissors, rotary cutters, and snips for thread. Certain fabric is easier to cut with a rotary cutter and some are easier to cut with scissors. And I will go over which one is which when we get to those different fabric sections. You're going to need a ruler. For this class, I'm demonstrating techniques on how to work with these fabrics. If you are going to incorporate any of these fabrics into maybe some clothing, you'll want your fiberglass measuring tape. But for today for just learning these techniques and how to work with these fabrics, a ruler like this is just fine. You're also going to need some marking pens and pencils. For the actual fabric that we're going to be doing marking on, we're doing it all on the wrong side and they do not need to be removable fabric markers. So I have simply a permanent marker and a pen. In the case when we're actually marking our fabric, a lot of those fabrics can't be washed like your actual cotton or something. So it's much easier to just mark on the back and not have to worry about any of those markings needing to be taken out. We're also going to be needing lots of different pins and needles. And I do have just my pin cushion here, but I have different pins in it. And I'll be using different pins according to what fabrics I'm working with. I have my standard pin here, a very long, thick, robust pin. And I'm gonna use that with a couple of different fabrics. But for a lot of them, I'll be using these silk pins. As you can see, they're much thinner, finer, and they're gonna work a lot better for a lot of the fabrics we're working with, and they're not going to potentially cause damage like this much larger pin could. So if you only go out and get one new kind of pin for this class, get you some silk pins. We need different kinds of needles. We're going to be working with faux fur, faux leather, as well as leather. Those are much thicker, heavier fabrics, and we need a heavier needle to deal with them. You can either go get specific leather needles which is what I recommend and what I will be using. If you don't have them and you just have a universal needle pack, you can get one that has either the purple or brown color. And those are the heaviest needles, and those should work for just the basic trying out of working with these fabrics. If you're gonna make a big leather jacket, it's a lot of leather, a lot of sewing, definitely get a leather needle. Also going to be needing some lighter weight needles. Again, you can just get your universal pack as long as it has a lightweight needle, or you can get a specific needle for lightweight fabrics which is what mine is over here on the side of my packet. I like to keep all my needles together. And I know that because this one is to the left of all these sizes, it's even lighter weight than this one. That's just how I like to keep mine. Also going to be needing a hand sewing needle. And this is gonna come in when we start talking about lace. And it's very important that you have this hand sewing needle 'cause we obviously are gonna be doing some hand sewing versus using the machine. I'll talk about this in just a second because we need to have our walking foot. And when I'm using a walking foot, yours may look different, might have a different opening on it. I'm not as used to using it as I am with my regular presser foot. On my regular presser foot, I know exactly where to line up fabric on it to get certain seam allowances. Not as familiar with this foot, so I am using a hem gauge so I can use that to easily measure my seam allowances and my hems, and make sure they're the size that I wanna. Want them to be, so that's a handy tool to have. Of course, if you're making any kind of changes to your foot, you may need the screwdriver to actually make those changes to your machine. So have all of those ready. And now we're gonna talk about some of the things you might need for this class that aren't necessarily considered sewing tools. Those would be tape. We're gonna use a lot of different types of tape in one of our sections, and you'll see why in a little bit. But it's a great alternative to pin sometimes, and I like to use it. You can either use just your regular plain tape like this, a scotch tape, something like that. Or if you're worried about being able to remove it without leaving any kind of adhesive behind, use a masking tape or a painter's tape as those easily come off the fabric that we're using them with today. Also in one of the sections, we will be using some fusible hem tape. It's just a little roll of some fusible tape that we're actually going to use to create hems. This does come in different widths. I'm going to show you how to use a variety of different widths depending on the size of hem you are making. So if you just go, you can actually find these in a pack at the store and they actually include many different widths in the same pack. So you'll want some fusible hem tape. We're also going to be utilizing some ribbon as a form of finishing edges on some of our fabrics as a fun little way to make it a little more decorative. Again, I have varying widths of my ribbon here. And when I demonstrate how to use them, you can then decide what width of ribbon you want to use if this is a technique you wanna try. So if you have just a little length of ribbon lying around your sewing room, grab that and we can utilize that. And we're also going to use it a couple things that you may definitely never see in your sewing room. This is more of a paper crafting tool. It's a adhesive, and it's usually used for if you're going to put pictures into a scrapbook. And I'm going to show you how you can use this when cutting out patterns that makes it really easy. So it's not something that's required. You could absolutely use tape in its place, but this makes it much quicker and easier. And of course I have my rolling pin, and this is a fun tool to use when you're working with leather and pleather. And I'll explain more when we get to that section. But you just need something that has a little bit of weight to it. Doesn't need to be a fancy rolling pin. Maybe you have one even smaller than this. Anything that will allow you to put some pressure on your fabric and roll. And we're gonna use this to create some creases, and it's gonna be really fun and easy. Once we get to the very end of learning how to work with all of these different fabrics, we're gonna make a fun little project. And I'm making that project out of pleather and velour. And I'll show you how you can change up the fabric you're gonna use for it. But when it comes to working with pleather and actually using it in my project, I don't use pins. So I instead use binder clips, and these are going to hold my leather and fabric for me while I stitch rather than using pins that can create a hole. So if you have some binder clips just laying around your office, grab some of those and we're going to use them in our project. And then we have a fun little embellishment we're going to add to our project that if you wanna grab these ahead of time and make it along with us when we get to there, you can. And these are fun, little decorative brads. So they come in all different colors. Some have rhinestones on them, they're really shiny. You're going to put them in, and I'll show you how to do this when we get to that section. But they have little pokey things on the back that you actually put through the fabric, fold them in like brads, and then they stay there. So that's our little embellishment we're going to be using on our project. So if you wanna grab those, you can. Also going to be needing just an iron and you're pressing mat, a cutting surface. Things that you normally have in your sewing room. So if you want to work along with me while I'm doing any of these techniques, grab these utensils, and notions, and things that I have here, and get ready to learn how to master working with all of these fun, different fabrics.