Pattern Marking Techniques - Precision Fabric Marking Tips

In this lesson we're gonna cover marking. That'll include notches and circles and dots. We'll talk about setting pockets accurately and then alternate ways of marking. So let's get started here with the sleeve. Here I have a sleeve.

Now this is the same sleeve that you would put in a man's shirt or a woman's shirt, but right now I have like the tiniest little boy's shirt pattern just to make it easier here. But on a sleeve, there are several markings that you want to be particular about marking. And that is the front and back notches. The front notch on a sleeve is always a single notch and the back notch on a sleeve is a double notch. So that helps you keep on track and not get your sleeve in backwards.

You'll match up the double notches in the back of the arm side and you'll match up the single notch in the front of the arm side. There's also another marking. And then on many home sewing commercial patterns, you'll see a circle. And you can mark that circle with a tailor tack, if you desire. And I'm gonna show you how to do tailor tacks in just a few minutes.

But, for me, I just mark it at the seam allowance with a single slit. What this is meant to do is match up at the shoulder seam. So that's what that circle is for. So there's no reason why you can't transfer that directly to the seam allowance. So here's what we do.

Now, in previous generations of patterns, say 10 years ago, the notches were made to come outside the seam allowance and they were these little triangles. They're cut out and to stay accurate, and I'm glad they've eliminated them. But if you have a commercial pattern that's an older pattern or a vintage pattern, you're gonna see those notches coming out of the seam allowance. You can go ahead and trim them off and mark them just the same way as I'm doing. And that'll make them easier to cut out, particularly if you're using the rotary cutter because you're gonna have a heck of a time cutting out little triangles with the rotary cutter.

So here we go. This is our double notch. So I'm just gonna make a slit right into the center of that notch. And, the rule of thumb on using slits instead of marking the notch is one half the distance of the seam allowance. So if you've got a 5/8th inch seam allowance, you can make a full quarter of an inch slit.

If you're working with a 3/8th or a 1/4 of an inch seam allowance, you're gonna have to back off and make it a little bit shorter. Now I'm gonna transfer this out just by looking where those dots are, and I'm gonna come right out here. And now I have the mark that I know will match up right at the shoulder seam. And then again, over here I've got the single notch. Now one thing you never wanna do is cut those triangles out.

And I've seen some beginner sewers that think, oh, that must mean it's a cutting line. I must cut on that. Don't do that because it'll leave an empty spot in the seam allowance. And if it happens to be a seam allowance that you're gonna top stitch on, that empty spot is going to show real quickly when you top stitch on it, 'cause you won't have enough fabric to bite through to maintain your tension. And the stitching just all goes kind of wonky.

Plus when you press it, that empty spot's gonna show. So never cut out the the triangle, just make a little snip. Now look here and I'll show you how easy these are to identify. I can see it right here. And when you pull it back, you can see that's just a little slit.

And when I go to match that up to my arm side, the two notches will match up perfectly, which did not happen in the old fashioned triangles. It went to the outside of the seam allowance. Because they were difficult to cut out, they were never quite precision. So in this case, when we slit right through that center of that notch, we have a precision marking and we know we're gonna be spot on when we go to sew that sleeve into the arm side of the garment. And I'm using the term arm side, but let me explain that just merely means arm hole.

So in pattern drafting, the term is arm side. But most people refer to it as an armhole. Okay, so now let's talk about a couple of other ways to mark. Let's say that we have to mark in the center of the garment. So we wanna mark where the pocket's gonna go.

And so obviously we can't clip that. So there's several different ways to do it. And I'm gonna start out with assuming that the right sides of the fabric are together on the inside of this, there's two fronts here. So let's assume this is the right side, because when we're marking a pocket, we're gonna apply it to the right side of the garment. So we have to be able to see the marking from the right side.

So I've stuck a pin directly into the center of the circle that they've said needs to match up for my pocket. Then I'm just gonna carefully peel the fabric back, keeping that pin in place. Now, right where that pin has pierced the fabric, that's my registration mark for where to set my pocket. So I wanna make sure that it's clear to me later where that spot is. So I generally go out from the pin, and if I rope this tailor's chalk right on the pin, it'll make the nice line for me.

And then I'll come out to one side. And I'll do that over here as well. And this is very efficient way to do it 'cause I can mark 'em both at the exact same time and I know nothing has slipped out of place. So both my pockets will be at the same level when I'm done. If I mark 'em separately, you can get slightly off and then all of a sudden you have pockets that are uneven and that's really unsightly and obviously not desirable.

So now let me pull that pin out and I'll show you what it looks like. Okay, so now I have this kind of points right to the spot that I wanna indicate and connect my pocket to. All right? So that's one way to do it. You could use any type of chalk or marker that you're sure is going to disappear.

So be very careful if you're gonna use like a gel pen or any other alternative marker, test it on a scrap of the fabric before you go and put it on the front of your shirt and make sure that it isn't gonna leave any residue or a mark that won't be removed later, because then you've just pretty much ruined the front of your shirt. And nobody wants to do that. So now the next thing I'm gonna show you is the way to market the way they do in the industry. And in the industry, they mark it by putting a hole in the fabric. Now this hole just pierces the fabric and pushes the threads aside.

It does not cut any threads. So you don't have to worry about any fraying. But what you do have to be concerned about is, before you use this technique I'm about to show you, you have to be 100% certain that you're not gonna change your mind and wanna move that particular, say in this case the pocket. Now these marks for the top of the pocket are right exactly where that pocket's gonna set. And because I'm gonna put a hole in there I wanna recess it just slightly.

So I'm going to go down and inside of where that actual dot is. That's so that when I set the pocket on top of it, it completely covers the hole. So what I have here is just a basic sewing machine needle. Any size sewing machine needle will work, because it's the shaft at the end of the needle that's so wide, that's what causes the hole in the fabric. So I'm just gonna come down and inside from where that hole is, and I'm gonna push this all the way through the fabric and pull it through the other side.

And now you can see, I have a hole. And that hole will be obvious when you get to the sewing machine and you lay it down and you'll see it and you'll be able to set your pocket right on top of that hole. So that's another alternative way to marking. And this one, it wouldn't matter if we had the right sides together, the wrong sides together, because obviously the hole goes through the entire project. Okay, now let's talk about marking with what's called a tailor tack.

This is a very standard marking, particularly when you're working with delicate fabrics. If you were making, say, a blue clay wool jacket, which is really like a lofty fabric with lots of loops on it, you wouldn't be able to mark it with chalk. And you wouldn't be able to put a hole in it because you wouldn't be able to see it. So you have to have an alternative method. And the tailor tack has been around since the beginning of hand sewing.

So it's a very easy technique to do. And you can do it through two layers at the same time. So I'm just gonna pierce right at the very one side of the dot, and then I'm gonna come up on the other side of the dot and then pull the needle through the fabric and leave a nice long tail. Now I'm gonna go back down and up again through the same area, down and up. And then I'm going to leave a nice big loop here.

Long tail again. Now, we're gonna peel the two layers back. And in this case, it doesn't matter if it's right sides together or wrong sides together, we're gonna pull it back like that, and we're gonna clip right in the center of that. And you can either clip that, but I've got a little slit in my tissue, so my loop just falls right through there. But you could also cut that loop in half.

So now you wanna be careful not to pull on these threads because there's nothing holding them in place, they're just merely what they're called, tacks. It's just a quick tack inside. Let me put this one over here so you can see them both. And you can see this space right here. And that's the circle, the evidence of that circle where you're going to match it up on the shirt front or wherever this pocket might be going.

And that's the tailor tack. After you stitch the garment on, these will just pull out very easily. Okay, let's talk about marking with a tracing wheel. This is a tried and true longtime way of marking, and actually a lot of seamstress that do custom work use a tracing wheel religiously. So let me show you how that works and you'll decide where you might wanna employ this.

But what you want is a tracing wheel and carbon paper made for tracing wheels, not just any carbon paper. And you want it folded so that the carbon side is out on both sides. Because I'm gonna slide this in and I wanna be marking both pieces at the same time. And again, this is so we have a contiguous look. So we have a mirror image on right and left.

So marking both at the same time really helps facilitate that. So we're going to just leave our pattern pinned to the tissue, or pin the tissue down if you cut out with the rotary cutter so everything stays in place. And slide back one layer of the fabric and put the carbon paper in between the two layers. Now keep in mind when you're doing this, where do I want that marking to show? Is it for the right side or the wrong side of the fabric?

So you wanna make sure that that's the side that's inside here. So in other words, if I have the wrong sides inside and I wanna mark the right side, I'm totally doing the wrong thing. So you wanna flip those around if that's the case. And then, it's just a matter of putting some pressure on the wheel and following the line that you wanna mark. In this case, I'm marking a fold line for the front of a shirt.

And that's all there is to it. It will perforate the pattern. And if you were gonna use a pattern over and over again, it would eventually just tear it right off because it does have these tiny little points on here and they do perforate that fine tissue. So keep that in mind as well when you use this technique. So we're gonna pull our carbon paper out and I'll peel this back so you can see the nice little dotted line it has created for us.

It's really faint in this case, and sometimes it's much darker. My tracing paper happens to be very old and so it's a little bit weak, but I think you can see that we've delivered a really nice line to fold on, and now I'll be able to fold right on that dotted line and be very precise when making the pocket for the front of this shirt. So that's the tracing wheel and carbon paper. And you'll find these readily available at most any fabric store, any of the chain stores as well, and certainly online. Now let's talk about thread tracing.

Thread tracing, I use when I do, oh, let's say I'm making a wool suit and I wanna put bound buttonholes in it. I can't and don't want to put any markings on the right side of the wool. The wool has a really nice finish to it, and by putting any pressure and rubbing markings on it, it could disturb the surface of the wool and not look so nice. It could also cause some wear, and it could stain the wool. Wool kind of grabs a hold of a lot of things, including tailor's chalk sometimes.

So be careful when working with wool, and that's why I'm gonna use thread tracing. So what I've done, and in this case, because I'm gonna put a bound buttonhole in, I've already interfaced it. So now I could mark on the wrong side by using a gel pen and a ruler where that line is supposed to be. Now, maybe I've used tailor tacks in order to know where that intersection is, 'cause I've created a crossbar and it's kind of a ladder, two verticals, and one horizontal line is necessary for marking a bound buttonhole. So then I would mark the wrong side of the fabric right here on the interfacing with my gel pen.

Now this, let me just put it over here so you can see how the gel pen works, but it makes a really nice line. But it makes a fine enough line that you don't get lost on where to stitch. You can stitch right on top of that fine line. These are called FriXion gel pen, Erasable Gel Pens made by Pilot. They're available in a lot of fabric stores, but they're also available in Office Supply.

But you do have to be sure that you get the FriXion Erasable Gel Pen by Pilot. This will completely disappear when any heat is applied to it. Just the slightest brush of the iron and that will be gone. So keep that in mind too if you're gonna be pressing a piece that you're marking, between using the marking, it's gonna disappear every time. You'll have to keep remarking.

So I'll draw those lines on the wrong side of the fabric, then I'll put a contrasting thread into the sewing machine and dial my stitch length way up to a five or larger. And I'll stitch right on those lines. Now when I turn this over, you can see I have a very perfect positioning for my bound buttonhole, and I have no guesswork. Now when I'm done, I'm going to carefully just pull that basing thread out, maybe clip a couple of stitches on the other side and then that top will just slide right out. And there won't be any evidence of having marked it.

And yet I'll have a very precision bound buttonhole.