SEWING 101 - The basics

1. INTRO: Hi, everyone. Are you ready for the basics in sewing? for this class I would like to cater the needs of those who would like to start sewing but haven't because they don't know just yet. How to sew But not to worry. We've all been there. And before you get any, good you have to start somewhere, right? So for this class I would like to show you the basics of sewing with a regular straight stitch machine and We'll also learn a few other things for your basic knowledge. Such as a brief explanation of fabric, the basic supplies, understanding the sewing machine, the various stitches we can do with it, what kind of needles you can use for which project and what in the world, is a Seam allowance and how to work with it. And also how to sew A perfectly straight seem so you can accomplish many projects on your own. For our class project, we will create a very easy but always handy bin made out of fabric with two sides so you can switch things up when you want A little change. This class will give you the confidence you need to pursue more challenging and ambitious projects. in the future, so you can seew all this stuff of your dreams. Sewing is such a wide and fun place to create and have fun. And these basics will help you in developing your style and knowledge. So I'm very glad you're taking this step. Enjoy the ride. 2. Supplies: here are the basic supplies needed for a beginner Sewist basic kit. That's this sewing machine. Sewing machine needles, bobbins, thread, tape Measure, scissors - very important to always have one pair of scissors for fabric and another one for paper. Please Never use your gorgeous fabric. Scissors for paper. Dressmaker pins, seam ripper an iron, some tape, and of course, fabric. And for this particular project, we will be using fabric - two contrasting designs, one for each side of the bin. Matching thread, fusible interfacing, a printer for our pattern, tracing or tissue paper and a pencil. Some other useful tools I have in my stash are rotary cutter, cutting mat, Steam Iron Tailor's chalk, multiple bobbins for different thread colors and pattern weights. But that's not part of the beginner´s sewing kit I would say, if you fall in love with sewing, which you certainly will, I would recommend you buy these in another shopping trip 3. Understanding Fabric: I think, to understand the making of clothes, we have to be very familiar with textiles and fabric. We could do a whole glass on textile design, and if you're interested, let me know and we could work out. But for now, I want to just focus on two main fabric types, which is a woven, and knit. Woven fabric is created using two separate strands of yarn. One is called the Warp, which runs vertically through the fabric as long as needed, and the second strand is called the weft and goes side to side horizontally weaving the fabric. Let's take a look to these store-bought woven fabric. Remember, when you buy fabric, how on the fabric rolls at the top and bottom. They have these kind of hairy endings? That's the salvage / selvedge. And those tiny hairs are the threads used for the weft that runs horizontally, meaning that the salvage runs along the warp. This way, you can remember that the weft is how wide your fabric is - and the warp is how long Here, for example, since it's a black fabric, they have these white thread contrasting, so we know that's the weft. Also, we have these kind of heavier. weave here as you can see, not as see through. In the other hand, we have knit fabric which is created with just one strand of yard knitting itself just like you would knit a scarf. With just one ball of yarn and you're knitting the loops horizontally. These loops are what gives us. Stretch in fabric - now this where it gets a little bit complicated, but not to worry On knit we also have weft and warp types, I'll explain Weft knit is the horizontal one, and is commonly used for jersey knits and interlock, for the warp knit. The loop still knits itself, but also, while knitting the warp threads next to it vertically. This is for more advanced machines such as Tricot and Rachelle Lace. Here I am showing you a knit fabric. This would be the Jersey type. This is the front, and as You can see It has kind of ribs going along this direction and these would be the front and these would be the back. Let me just get closer. As you can see, it has like this. Horizontal purl stitch. This is how you can know what is a knit fabric and these example was the jersey. And now here we are, seeing a woven fabric on the left side. You can see the selvedge. and if I get a little bit closer, you can see the threads going from the warp and the others on the weft, vertical and horizontal, respectively. We can also find woven fabric that stretches thanks to technology that combines fabric and can add spandez to the weave so it can stretch. Now, most of our closet is regularly made of woven or knit fabric. So take a look at your closet and see which one you use the most. For me, for example, is knit - and we will be learning from our own clothes on the next bit. 4. Learn From Your Clothes: I selected a few garments from my closet to further explain what we just saw about fabric from our first example, which is these jacket We can learn two things First, it has no stretch In order to put it on I have to un zip it - and it has no give. So this is a woven fabric with no stretch at all. The second thing we can learn Is the stitching It has a straight stitch that has also no stretch, as you can see here and here - and here you can see it closer and these other stitch here is a top stitch which we will review later on. Check in your closet What are like this, And how you have to put them on, Is it with zippers? With buttons? How does the maker enables you to wear this piece without any stretch. Secondly, I have these stretch fabric dress that I can pull over my head to put it on. I can assure you most of your wardrobe is a knit or stretch public. And what I want to show you from this dress is this stitch The finishing of this skirt is a cover stitch machine, As you can see you from the back. It has these look and it can stretch, and from the side The front side. It has two rows of straight stitching. We can also create these kind of alternative with a straight stitch machine and a double needle, if you want more info on that, hit me up. And another important stitch we can see from here Is this, the overlock seam, this is perfect for a stretch or non-stretch fabric and it prevent the fabric from fraying, the overlock machine or serger works with three or more spools of thread and it cuts the edge while sewing. And here I have another dress that I made, it's similar to the previous one, since. They are both knit fabric, they can stretch, I pull it over my head. But what I want to show you from this one is that I didn't use a cover stitch or the overlocker and what I did instead was using my regular machine. I did this zig zag stitch which can also stretch, and I left the edges as they are because I knit fabric won't fray, And my third example is this regular jean shirt. It has no stretch. And, for example, I have to, un button it in order to put it on and what I want to show you from here is this. This is also the Overlock stitch, the darker one. And here we can see a straight straight stitch to the regular one. And even if this won't stretch, this stitch is perfect for the fabric, not to fray or unravel. And I want you to pay close attention to this darker and lighter stitch because we're gonna talk about it later. I'll see you in our next video where we will learn about our sewing machine. 5. Get to Know Your Machine: For this lesson, we will make best friends with our sewing machine and with our manual. I don't know what took me so long to become my dad and be completely obsessed with materials. But I recommend you do the same. Because most of the time we are trying, at least for me, I was trying to figure out things through YouTube videos that could have easily been accessed by the manual. So don't be afraid to use your manual and do good you didn't. I'll save blaze. Do go to eat every time you need more information about your specific machine. So I'm going to show you the basis of sewing machine wave might help yourself with your manual to, we'll start with the sewing machine, the foot controller, and the power outlet bow connected. On this side, we have the borrower on and off switch. Now for older top area, I'm going to start with how do thread everything. Here we have our third guy and the thread, Jacob. I'm going to show you how the machine up next. And here I want to show you how I spread my bobbing do startx to start sewing. No four oldest Thread Bar it here either vertical. Spool, beam. Here is a horizontal one. You can use the one you feel more comfortable way with. I use these kinds of schools, especially on the horizontal one because we the vertical, they have a hard time spinning on it. And here, let me walk you through all of these components. These 0s, if thread, the guy, these easy threat, Jacob, These little angle here, which goes all the way down here. I'm going to show you how to write it up next that feed the needle. So for our, in order to start sewing, we need to also thread are bugging. You seeing debugging, window shaft and the bobbing, stubborn. So let me show you how I thread the bombing. Most of the machines have these diagrams with numbers. So you can know how to thread for the bobbing or for the needle. I'll take an empty bottle. Which are these these round things. You're gonna either find them on metal or plastic and they have these holes for you to Bush through your thread of boards. So now that I have it like this, I'll push it in my window shaft and push it to the right. Now while holding my thread of words, I'm going to step on my food controller. So I'll start winning the bugging to feel it with my thread. And you'll see how it's tense and it starts rolling the bombing led me. Show you a close-up. Now here you can see that this stopper is making it hard for the bobbing to keep on spinning. So that's when, you know, when to stop and to release push to the left. Got your thread and you have perfectly failed bombing. And for the rest of the thread, we will just follow the diagrams to thread our Bobbi. I know it's with the thread guide, the threat day go all the way to here like a U shape. And these other takeoff down to my needle. I have these other thread Degas to guide myself towards the needle. I always thread it manually. I have these automatic threat there, but I will never use it because I I feel more comfortable this way. So you have to pass through the eye of your needle, your thread. And I always recommend you have them on the back. Do not get tangled in the front. So now for the BCS on these area, we have the needle and these screw, which frees the needle. And when you put it back on, you have to make sure it's super secure so the needle won't come out when sewing. Once you remove your needle with the screw. Here's an important thing to know. Has these side with the brand and the number of the needle and that should go backwards. That should look to the back of the machine and the rounded side to the front. These way, you will attach all of your needles and then with this crew, secure them so they are super firm. So you don't have any accidents while sewing that it detaches or something. Now what we have here is the needle bar, these b's right here. And this is what attaches the needle to the rest of the machine. And those, these up and down motion. Well, sewing right now I'm doing it with the manual. We hand wheel that I showed you earlier. And you have to be very careful not to. So with beans. Because I once knew a person who buy sewing with the beans on the needle. God, God, with the bean. Obviously the needle underpin broke, but also these god-like swayed a little bit to the back and it was an expensive thing to fix. So be very careful not to hurt your machine in all these area. And we have also these bar that secures the food, the presser foot right here, a switch to also free them, preserve food and you can attach it right by King, by the presser, foot lifter over here. Some habit way on the back, but I have it here on the site, but every machine has it. Now regarding presser foods, I have these which I believe is a quilting presser foot deep came with what my machine. But I find these kind of transparent windows super-useful. And here we have our bobbing cover plate where we will place our air. Boeing. I know it has to like roll counterclockwise. So I always like full EBIT of my thread. I see that it's rolling on the right direction. And then put it in. Every machine, I believe, has a different way of securing the bobbing, so you just have to get used to how your work. Lastly, we have let me remove. 6. What Is a Seam Allowance?: Now we're going to learn about seam allowances. These lines are guides for the seam allowances on my machine. A seam allowance is some extra space we leave from the seam, both in our pattern and in our fabric. Remember when I told you to be a close attention to these seam on our denim shirt? Here is the edge of the fabric that surely corresponds to the edge of the pattern. And here is the same that closes the garment. These lighter straight stitch one. These extra fabric here is the seam allowance, very much needed to be able to sew, otherwise would be sewing in the very edge of our clothing. Seam allowances are represented in my machine with fractions of an inch. And in my experience most pattern instructions, come in inches, although I've also encountered patterns in centimeters. So when placing the fabric edge aligned with any guide in your machine, you will be sewing exactly with that. Seam allowance. If I align here, I am leaving 1/5 of an inch seam allowance So if I put my presser down and my needle, my stitching from the needle to the edges, a 5/8 of an inch allowance. Make sure to always know what seam allowance is needed for each project. My advice is to write down in every pattern. What seam allowance is needed for it. This way You won't have to remember or look someplace else and avoid having an ill fitting garment due to wrong. Seam allowance sewing. Here we can see the rest of the seam allowances works both ways from here. From left to the right. Here we have 3/8 of an inch half of an inch. 5/8 of an inch, and 3/4 of an inch. And the 10 and the 16 corresponds to millimeters, so 10 millimeters and 16 millimeters. Familiarize yourself with your machine and which seam allowances are represented on your machine. Also, you can use the presser foot as a guide for seam allowances. For example, here you can see one of the pressers I use most, and when attached to the machine, and the needle is set automatically in the middle. I'm gonna put it down. I have from the needle to these edge 3/8 of an inch. And up to where the see through part ends I have 2/8 of an inch. So I use them accordingly, not just to always guide myself with the lines, but also with the presser foot. I find it easier. 7. Of Needles & Stitches: in order for the machine to complete its job. It needs a thread up from the spool, a thread down from the bobbin and something to help them interact with each other. That's where needles come in. Sewing machine needles are made up from the following parts. A shank, which is the upper part of the needle. And it has one flat side and one rounded side so you can identify how to put the needle in the machine. The shaft, refers to the length of the needle from the ending of the shank to the very pointy end, The thicker, the shaft, the bigger the needle number. That's why, for lightweight fabric, you need a lower needle number, so it punctures through with a slimmer shaft. Eye, the whole were you insert the thread. The scarf, This is a small notch on the back of the needle above the eye. The purpose of this is to get the needle as close to the bobbin as possible, so it catches the thread with a lot more precision. So we have a less amount of skip stitches. and the point, the end of the needle. The shape changes depending on the needle type and its purpose. We'll see more on that later. Now, for needle size, when purchasing or trying to figure out which needle size you have in your hands, you will see two different numbers, followed by letters. The numbers represent the thickness off the shaft. The larger numbers on the left come from the European sizing system. And the smaller numbers are from the North American system. Here is a little chart for you to understand. The smaller the number, the lighter the fabric it can sew and the larger the number, the heavier the fabric. It can pierce. And regarding the letters, here is a chart with the abbreviations of the letters. You'll see, what do they mean and with which fabric you can use them. There are a few more types of needles for more advanced projects and machines such as leather and embroidery needles, for example. But in order to not take forever, I will only cover the basic needles. You can find both needle size charts below for future references if needed, and we have these charts with basic stitches that you can also find available below on the class materials on this 3 stitches although we will only be using the straight stitch on the Back Tack or reverse stitch in this class, I would very much encourage you find the zig zag stitch on your machine because it's super useful for a lot of projects. And these 3 I would say, Are your basic stitches for almost every project, So find them in your machine and I'll see you on our next video. 8. Our Class Project: as our project for this class, we will be making this fabric bin to storage things in your workspace or home. You will find the sewing pattern ready to download below on the class material section. With this project, you will be able to apply the basics of sewing we just reviewed in a quick and useful project. So you start to familiarize even more with your sewing machine. We will practice, sewing, seam allowances, understanding of the pattern, top stitching, And pressing. Let's get to it. 9. Everything About The Pattern: we are going to get our pattern. And for that you have to go down here to your project section on these class and down here We've got a bunch of other resource is so click in the first one, the sewing 101 bin pattern, and you will get this preview. You can download your pattern or just print it, do not click scale, because it's going to result in a much smaller pattern. And to make sure to have this at the 100% - to make sure in real life, once you do, you're printing please. Measure with an actual ruler these 2 inches square or 4 centimeters square. So if it's that size in the real life, you're good to go. Once you have your pattern printed, you'll have something like this. First, I would like to ask you to make sure the square is actually 2 inches. Some patterns have these for you to make sure that you printed it without scale. So just make sure you're in the right track, and what I'm gonna do is cut my pattern down these line so I can pair, match these two circles and have the pattern complete. Okay, now that we have our pattern complete. I would like to explain a few very important things regarding general pattern making, for example, here you can see that I wrote seam allowance 3/8 of an inch. Which is The seam allowance needed for these particular pattern. Now my tip for you is to always write which seam allowance is needed for each pattern because it varies from company to company and sometimes in the same company. Different patterns have different seam allowances. So in order to like, save more time and don't have to review the instructions every time write which seam allowances is needed. So you exactly know what to use and don't end up with an ill fitting garment or Just a weird piece. Now Another thing are these little lines called notches, which will help you into knowing that you're matching everything correctly How this works is when we're cutting our fabric. We do a little cut and later on before sewing, When we are matching all our pieces, we know exactly that we are doing a good work in matching everything. I know it's not very difficult to match these short straight line, but it's just an introduction to notches. So when you encounter them on the future, you'll like be more familiar with them. And for these little arrows. And these XXX what They mean is that on this lines, the pattern has to be placed while folding the fabric for us to have, by just cutting once, in one pass, two identical and symmetrical pieces connected in that line. So we don't have to sew there and have this identical piece. And here, Please always wirte all the information about the pattern. I do so here. But if you're retracing always add that information, here we have the seam allowance that I explained, which pattern, and how much fabric we need to cut 2 pieces of fabric for this case, and 1 piece of fusible interfacing. Okay, so I'm going to retrace my pattern with tissue paper or you could use tracing paper. And while doing so, I'm going to talk to you about why I always choose to retrace my patterns. And that is because, for this example, I know our pattern is 2 pages long. But sometimes patterns are 40, 60 pages long and while you can print those and cut directly onto them. Let's call the bond paper version, - Um, you just have, like, one opportunity to cut one size. And sometimes friends and family are going to absolutely adore what you're wearing and what you made for yourself. So they're gonna ask for you to do versions to them. So this way, with one bond version by retracing the sizes as you need them, you don't have to print all over again to use different sizing, you know? So I would always retrace and that, by retracing it also makes modifications very easy, such as a shorter torso or, - wider legs in pants. So I always recommend retracing for that reason. Now, in your retraced version, the tissue paper version, always add the information from the original pattern. Such as name of the pattern. How how many pieces of which fabric you need, facing, interfacing, lining, the shell of the fabric, everything, which size and which seam allowance. As I explained before. And this way, you can cut the tissue paper and keep your bond version intact forever so you can do modifications or different sizes. Also for me at least its easier to work with tissue paper which is lighter. Than with bond paper, because if I'm going to pin the pattern to the fabric instead of using the pattern weights, it's easier to pin down the tissue paper than it is The bond paper And there we have it, our tissue paper version and our original bond paper version intact. 10. Cutting The Fabric: Here's my fabric of choice, these cute pirates and these sharks. What I want to show you here. is the salvage in the pirates fabric. As you can see, this salvage it has no threads like we talked about earlier. So there's another way to know. which side is the salvage so here, ok right here in this line. You can see the change in the density of the weaving near the, near the edge. It's, it's heavier. So that's one way of knowing which way the salvage is. Before we start cutting our fabric, I want to talk about a very important concept which is direction of the pattern. I chose these two fabric because I want to talk about how you have to work with patterns now, for example, here, the roll off the fabric would be placed these way. This would be the width, same with the sharks, and that's the length. Now we see here that the pirates are in the correct direction, looking like straight, and these would be upside down. Same with the sharks. So I'm going to work the rest of the class with a fold on my pattern, which he's going to create the exact same effect. I'm going to have one side of my bin these way. The correct direction, and the other side, upside down. I'm doing so. So you see what happens when you cut on the fold with a directional pattern / print. And so you always remember what it would look like. But if you chose these kind of pattern or want to work with direction, you can find at the end of our lessons a bonus class where I show you how to work with directional patterns. Okay, here we can see that I'm placing my pattern on the fold. That is the length exactly of the, of my pattern. I recommend you always do this because if you fold your fabric right down the middle and place your pattern right there, you will just have, like, a full canvas of fabric with a hole in the middle. So try to always minimize your use of fabric by doing everything like in the in the edges - and folding right in the edge. So you have a lot of fabric to work for. different and future projects. Once you have your pattern on top of your fabric, we're going to pin it Now, I'd like to pin in every corner and my method to pin is, like making sure the fabric and the pattern are straight by pulling them apart from eachother and then introducing the pin. Pushing my index towards the pin so it comes out naturally without wrinkling the fabric as shown Once we've pinned all of the pattern, we will be ready to cut. I already did mine. So here we have both sides of my fabric bin, the pirates and the sharks. Here We can also learn about the wrong and right sides of fabric. Here in the sharks, we can see the bright, white, defined sharks and on the other side, like just a ghost of it, So the right side will be the defined one, the same with the pirates. As you can see. with the fusible interfacing, it's the same. We have this side that it's like super shiny and these other one that it's more fabric-like. this is just like more plastic because of the paste for it to fuse into the fabric. So we're going to cut this fabric with the, with our pattern, and here it's a perfect example of the selvage with the threads we talked about earlier. As we learned from the pattern information we are just going to use one cut from the fusible interfacing. So place it on the fold as we've done before and pin it. Cut it and I'll meet you when we finish. - Now - here we have our 3 pieces of our puzzle. Now you can just choose which fabric you're going to paste the fusible interfacing to, and place it like this Here, I have my fusible interfacing underneath of my fabric. Now, the way to place them correctly is the right side of the fusible interfacing with the wrong side of the fabric you chose. here I can show you. You can see this is the right side of the fusible interfacing, the shiny plastic texture one. It has to be damped before ironing. You can do it with the classical spray bottle. Okay, so here I have my fabric and I'm going to place on top of it my fusible interfacing just a little bit damped. - It doesn't have to be completely wet, so I'm placing it on top of it Shiny plastic side with the wrong side. Here you can see the right site. Remember, we talked about how it's more defined. It's darker in color, has more tone and here it's, just like the ghost of it. So the ghost of it has to be touching the plastic shiny side that has the paste on it. So place it correctly and just start ironing. You can also use the fusible interfacing completely dry, but it's going to take a little big longer for you to accomplish the ironing. So when it's a little wet, it's easier and faster. Okay, here we have it. Our fabric completely pasted to the fusible interfacing. - Now they are just as one. And here I have our other piece, and that's it for our cutting. Before moving on to sewing, I want to make sure that I am being clear in the explanation of wrong sides together or right sides together. So here we have our fabric. And as you can remember, we pasted pur fusible interfacing to our pirates, and this is the right side of the pirates. And we did the, fusing to the wrong side. As you can see here, for example, we have our fabric of sharks. This is the right side and the wrong side. Is this one that it's not so clear, Not so defined and not so bright in the colors. So identify which is the right side of your fabric on when you read in pattern instructions, right sides together, it means this, as shown that we're going to place both right sides together. And if we were to make, um, stitch this line, for example, that I'm going to recreate right now with the pins, by matching right sides together when sewing, as we open or turn inside out our garments or product, we end up with a neat finish on the side that we want to show outside to the world And the seam That Is this fabric is on the inside That's what right sides together mean. So, for example, our pirates we did the wrong side of the pirate with right side of the fusible interfacing - So just be careful in that kind of instructions in your patterns and now you know what right sides together me 11. Let's Get Sewing! (Part 1): Are you ready to start sewing? So we're going to take this to the sewing machine, but we're going to sew them separately, right sides together, each of them these way. And we're going to find our little notches that we did earlier. See?, Okay, these are the little notches and just match them one on top of the other, like this and pin them together, pin just all this side together And in our sewing machine, we're going to sew a straight stitch through all this part, and this side too, and the other piece, I'm gonna walk you through it. Don't worry. Take them to your sewing machine like this, and I'll meet you there. If we take these as zero, which is the needle, The exact needle down in the middle. We can see these is the 3/8 of an inch mark. So make sure you our guiding yourself with the 3/8 of an inch guide and we will be ready to start sewing. I placed my fabric underneath the presser, and as you can see, I made little marks with pencil marking the 3/8 of an inch off the seam allowance. Now, I'm pretty familiar with my sewing machine. So I know where is the mark and how far from the presser foot my fabric should be to meet the 3/8 of an inc. But if you are not so familiar and want to feel more comfy, confident where are you sewing I would recommend you do this kind of, of guide with pencil, or tailors chalk. Now I am going to do a couple of stitches manually, so I like, make sure my thread is going through the fabric easily and pull those threads to the back this way. When sewing difficult fabrics such as lightweight or stretch fabric, you help the machine and the feeding dogs to pull it to the back. This is because I like to feel more control and domain over the fabric. Now I'm going to do, by pressing the foot controller, a couple of stitches, and then, by pressing the back tack button, it's going to go a little bit to the front and then to the back again to secure the seam allowance That's the back tack. See what I did there? That was the back tack. It's like three passes at the same place of the stitch. Now I'll continue to sew with the straight stitch along the pencil marks I did, - and we're going to back tack again at this point. Now remove your pin because there is no fun in needles meeting pins and here, Back Tack again. See, back then comes a little bit to the front again and then back again. I'm going to do the other side. Now Remember, Presser foot down, needle down, remove your pin and do the first couple of stitches manually. To secure the thread to the fabric, back tack and then, see? back and forth Continue the straight stitching. As you can see here, I made no pencil marks because I am familiar with the seam allowances. Now remove the pins and again, back tack - - back, forth, and back. Here we have our piece fresh out of the sewing machine. We did straight stitches . I'm gonna turn it inside out so I can show you how this seems Look from the outside. Here, Our neat seams. And from the inside I'm going to show you, seam allowances, stitches, back tack And we are going to press them open, so it's neat out here. As you can see, this is our direction of the fabric, and on the back we have it upside down. Remember when we talked about direction in patterns? So right now I will be pressing open Our seems So I'll meet you and our iron board up next. Okay, so we are turning it. inside out again. For us to press the seems open. And with the help of the tip of the iron, we're going to start opening them, and I ironing. These helps, well for me, it always leaves better and more good looking finishes. When the seams are open, pressed and open because it's less bulky, it looks more professional, and it's it has, like a cleaner finished. It's more neat, so open both of them. I always like to do it from the inside and then give it another go on the outside. So I'm turning it inside out again. - And press again from the outside to make sure it lays completely flat. Once we've pressed our piece We're going to turn it inside out yet again. A lot of flipping and turning in this part of the project, and we're going to the so, so we can finish the other openings. Now lay it flat and take these 2 corners, right side with right sides together, so we can finish our bucket. We're going to sew a straight stitch over here on both sides. 12. Let's Get Sewing! (Part 2): Let's sew our first part of the bottom, always remember pull your threads to the back. And I have mine pinned down. And I like this example because when we don't have, like, a completely nine, 90 degree angle, you want to start sewing right where the fabric starts. So right there, just put my needle down, do a couple of stitches manually, and when doing irregular corners, I always like to back tack a little further to the back. So I can catch all of the fabric - you'll see right there, see how back I went? and straight stitch. Remove your pin and the same in the front. Go a little bit further to the front. See? and back tack. I also like to remove all the threads, because it makes me feel like I'm working on something cleaner And the same with the other side. Needle down, back tack further to the back. Remove your pin and continue with your straight stitch. Here you can see how I open the seam. While stitching it remove my other pin and back tack to the end. Remember 3/8 of an inch for the seam allowance and remove all of your threads. Let's sew now our other side of the bin, remember right sides together, Mine is the shark. Pull your threads to the back, and remember place your fabric into 3/8 inch seam allowance. But your presser down, remove the pin,needle down. Do the first couple of stitches manually, pull the threads to the back if you need a little bit of extra help and back tack, always starting and ending your stitches. As you can see here, I have both my buckets ready. I finished my shark bucket with the opening, opening the seams, and sewing the bottom. Now place the bucket with the interfacing outside facing you and the right side, meaning the pirate side in the inside. Now, What we're going to do is Flip these other side, right side out, and put it inside of this bucket. Make sure to match the seam allowances and put it inside and see how the seems match one on top of the other, just like this and pin them together here, As you can see, we're leaving an opening for us to flip the bucket inside out. As you can see, we are doing here right sides together, see? and we're going to turn it inside out, later on. So, pin these, I'm using a yellow and blue pin to know where to leave my opening. So this is going to be open marked by these yellow and blue. Let's get sewing. We're about to So the edge. So here we have our blue and yellow pins for our opening. So we're starting to sew from the second pin, meaning the yellow one. So we leave the opening, because the opening is already behind the presser foot. See? Okay, so needle down, remove your pin, do a couple of stitches manually. And here is super important to back tack because when we are turning our bucket inside out we will need extra secure in the seams, So it won't rip open when we are flipping it, so back tack and continue to sew with a straight stitch always remember to remove your pins And here, for example, my machine is having, it's gonna have a little bit of trouble because of the 2 seems one on top of the other. It's like a bunch of fabric, So I'm gonna pull a little bit from behind with my left hand to help it flow and arriving to the blue pin. Remember to back tack again. So we have extra secure seams. - Okay! Here we have our bucket with the top sewn. Here our back tack, You can see it like darker And just put your hand inside, between the two right sides and pull everything out. Everything has to come out from the other side. Now, With one of the sides inside the other one, and we're going to iron this edge and topstitch A topstitch Is an additional stitch near the edge that helps the seem to lay flat. So we're doing that up next. But first, ironing, and then we're going to sew the opening it's almost done, Guys! I'm excited. Are you? okay, So here, with the help of your fingers, try to push the fabric to the to the bottom. So it lays flat. And now for the opening, just help the fabric go side and iron it like that. So it stays, and we are ready to do our final stitch and complete our sewing 101 basic project Our cute fabric bin I can't wait. Okay, so right now we're about to topstitch our fabric bin, And in these case were going, it's going to help us do the closure of the bin, but also, make the edge lay flatter and more neat. So I'm going to place mine over here, which is 1/8 of an inch. I know that because of experience and also because I've measured the distance between the needle and where the screen in my foot presser ends. so if you don't have these kind of presser, you can also draw a line or maybe put tape under your machine to create the 1/8 of an inch mark. Make it as close as possible as you can to the needle. And don't forget to back tack, - put my needle down, pull it a little bit towards you, so it lays flat, and then we're almost at the starting of the seam, so don't forget to back tack. Always remember to cut the excess of the thread just like here. So you have a neat finish and seam, and here we have it! Our beautiful fabric bin. Here's the topstich on this side with the pirates and on this side with the sharks super close to the edge. Here's the side seam, and now you can enjoy your fabric bin. Let's see how it looks folded. And here you can see both sides. And if you ever get bored by one side, you can always have the other be more of a protagonist, and also do this little fold, So there you have it! 13. BONUS Lesson - Directional Prints: here we have our fabric. That would be the width of the fabric, And this is how long, this is a salvage. So what I did on my other bin, was place it like this, like this, right on the edge and with the fabric fold right here, and that created pur bin with one side with the right direction of the faces and the other upside down. So in order for you to work with direction, there are two ways, the 1st one would be to do the fold of the fabric So we have both our pieces in just one cut. But instead of going in these way, we will do it these way by folding it this way and placing our pattern in the same way. We're not doing these any fold, and we will have two separate pieces like this in the right direction. So if this is the top of the binand this is the bottom seam, as you can see, both sides will have the correct direction of the faces. The other way would be to just lay your fabric flat and do 2 separate cuts. So you, in each one, see how it's gonna look, for example, this obviously the direction is correc,t and you would only have to cut this piece, then move it and cut another, - which ever method t you choose. The is the most important part to know, you have to add a seam allowance to the bottom because we have to do a seem right there. It's not like the other where we did the folding and it was already together both sides. - We have two add 3/8 of an inch here Okay, so where we have our arrows for a folding at 3/8 of an inch, This way, when we place right sides together, and do our straight stitch here, on the 3/8 of an inch seam allowance we will be able to sew the rest of the of the pattern. So don't forget your seam allowances. And, here is how to work with direction in pattern and how to cut the fabric. The same example would be applied to the sharks so you can work your sewing exactly the same 14. That's a Wrap!: congratulations to you for finishing your beautiful fabric bin. I hope you enjoyed this quick project. And hopefully you feel more confident to pursue different projects next Maybe it's a dress, or maybe it's a zipper pouch, whatever you feel comfortable doing, Kudos to you! And I hope you continue your journey in sewing because I sincerely think that you will find a lot of joy in it. So congratulations! And let's sew some more!