Laminates Session 1: Types of Laminates

Learning to sew with laminates can absolutely expand the number of projects that you can sew. Because they are virtually waterproof and they're wipeable, you can make all kinds of different things with laminates that you can't normally make with cotton. This class is going to be all about laminates. We're going to talk about three different laminates today. We're going to talk about oilcloth, vinyl and laminated cotton. So let's take a look at each one. The first one we're gonna talk about is oilcloth. Now, oilcloth has been around for a long long time, and it actually used to be made out of printed or canvas dark cloth and then it was treated with linseed oil. So, I don't know if any of you have ever seen the original thing but you could kinda scratch your fingernail on it. And some of the waxy stuff would come off. Well, of course we don't produce it that way anymore. This is now a printed vinyl and it's bonded over the top, but they still stick to the old reproductions because it has that nostalgic feel and we love to sew with it. So you'll notice that there's no waxiness on here. This is just a pure laminate. And it's a laminate on the back too. You can tell that there's no cotton in here. So that makes it a little tricky to sew with, but we'll talk about that in a bit. The next one we're gonna talk about is clear vinyl. So I'm just going to open this up here. Now you can see that this has a little bit of a shine to it, but the paper is still underneath. And we're going to talk about why that's important when you're cutting your pieces. But this clear vinyl is great because you can see right through it. So you can make bags with it. You can use it to line things anything that you need to see through. This is great for that. So we'll talk about how to, so with that as well the last one I want to talk about is laminated cotton. Now, most of the quilting weight cottons that you see on the market today from the most popular designers, they make the same version in a laminated cotton. So if I flip this on the back you can see there is a weave under here. There's actually cotton in this. What they do is they spread a laminate across the top so that you can have this nice water resistant top side. Now, you can tell when I move this around it is much less thick than the others. So this is really nice. If you're going to do the softer side of sewing, such as garments I have a rain coat made out of this, which is fantastic. You can use it to line the inside of a bag, and it acts a little bit more like a regular cotton fabric than either of the other two laminates do. So you would use that for more garments stuff. Now here's an example of where using vinyl is extremely helpful. I have several of these in my purse, different sizes. So that way I can see through and into the bag so that I can see what the content is inside of it. And this one is made with just clear vinyl. And my favorite one the one we're going to use today is a 12 gauge vinyl. And then of course there is oilcloth and this is a beach bag. I love these beach bags because I can get them wet. I can get them sandy. I can get them dirty. They're very easy to clean out which we'll talk about in a moment. But the other part is, if I flip this over you can see I have a raw edge here. So it makes the sewing just a little bit easier when you've got this raw edge. And we'll talk about tips and tricks for sewing with these as well. So today we're actually going to make a small wallet that you can use either to hold receipts or coupons. And we're doing a small project because I really want to get into the nitty-gritty of how to sew with these so that you have great success. We're going to make the same wallet twice. We're going to make it once out of oilcloth, and vinyl, and then we're going to make it out of laminated cotton with the vinyl because there are different ways of sewing with each. So we'll get into that in a moment, but next we're going to talk about tips for sewing with laminates.