Basic Sewing Techniques

1. April Jackson Introduction: Are you looking for a career opportunity where you will be in high demand, where you can learn at your own pace and earn while you learn than trying to become an alteration specialist. I have people saying to me all the time, this is a dying trade and it is definitely not dying due to lack of work or a need of finding qualified individuals to perform these tasks, to become an alteration specialists is difficult these days, primarily because there was a lack of training, but nothing has been available that teachers clothing alterations and repairs as a trade until now, my name is April Jackson and I have created an extensive customizable video how-to series on how to become an alteration specialist. With the skills, you will find employment in the retail sector in stores such as men's wear stores, ladies, or you may choose to be self-employed. Depending on where you live, you will be able to demand a wage of anywhere from 18 to twenty-five dollars an hour. And when you're self-employed, you will be able to make more money. To give you an example, I charge $10 for each pan him and I can do five to six times per hour. This is what I'm going to teach you in this course. You can choose to learn everything you would need to know to work in this trade and your own business. Or you can just choose the skills necessary to work in a specific area. Within this teaching, I will not only be showing you every step that you will need to know to perform the alteration. I'm gonna be teaching you all the tips and tricks that I have learned over my 30 years of sewing that will help make every job quick, but also very professional. You will learn things like how to complete those Pat hams in under five minutes. How do you take out a coat zipper in a minute or two? How to put that code super backend within half an hour. How to do men suit sleeves and do those within an hour. You will learn every step of the process from properly fitting your client to marking the garment all the way through to the finished alteration. If you're struggling with a particular technique, feel free to contact me and together we will work through it. You may have never even considered sewing as a career option, or you may be inexperienced. So are looking to upgrade your skills. 2. Hand Sew a Button: We're going to so on a button, I'm going to show you two buttons styles. The first is just the basic button application where the button is flat to the material and the other one will be a shank button. It's where the button is slightly raised. You'll see that more on outerwear and coats. I always like to hide my knot. So even though this is the good side of the material, if I can hide my knot underneath the button, then it's not even going to show as much on the reverse side. So you can see how with my needle I've just picked a little bit of the material. My not now will be underneath my button. When we solo button on, we I've seen people so buttons on where they put the needle through the material and then they're pulling it on this side than they gotta put it back through the material. Lats much too time-consuming as well as it's just a lot of guesswork trying to get back up to the other side. We will have our strings crisscross on our button holes. You could easily have them go from side to side. That's an, a perfectly acceptable button style. Also, I'm gonna do the crisscross. So now that I've put the button and my needle through, I've got my needle back down through the opposite hall, gonna pick some of that material again, pull it off to the side. And you can see how with the six plie, we already have like six layers of thread up through the empty hall, down through the opposite side, just ***** some of your material. You can see how we're just taking a little bit. Even on this side, the work is still looking nice and neat. If the button that is decorative, you could be done right now. This is a used buttons, so we want to add just a little bit more security. So we're gonna go over both those once again. One up through this, down through here, just ***** the material. So now to end, I always take my threads, wind it around the button a couple of times, three times. And it gives a nice clean work, gives a little bit more reinforcing. And then to tie a knot because I don't want to not on the other side. I'm going to take my needle and thread and we're going to pick a little bit of the material or the thread and do a one. 233 tight little back stitches. That's going to secure my button and the thread TRIMP. And now the button is done. We're going to show you that same technique, but with a shank button, the only difference is the button will be raised above the surface. Like I said, you'll use this when you have outerwear. We start the same. One of the holes are going to drop it down back into the material pickup some of the material. Now where this is flushed with the shank button, we want to release that a little so that there's a small space, usually about not quite even half an inch, just a little shy of half an inch. Make sure we don't pull that tight. Up through the top, down through in the same spot. We can actually keep our fingers underneath at this point. That will keep that spacing that we need. Since this is a shank button, it will get somewhere on the outerwear. So we are going to double that. Makes sure we have our spacing. Now for sure we're going to wrap the shank. You can see how we have this nice tight dropped pen. We just not off this button the same as the other one. A couple of stitching into back stitches too. Three, trim. And you can see the difference how this is a raised button, the shank, compared to our flat. Another closure that we apply quite frequently and is your basic snap. So I'm gonna show you how we're going to solve that on that's quickly but also neat, nice and neat. I'm using the four ply with the snap just because it doesn't take as much pressure. Also, you have less threading that's going to get into a knot. Well, same concept with the button we're going to hide or not. So put the needle thread so we just have a ***** on that side. Shake our little tiny, tiny snap up through one of the holes. And we're actually going to drop down through the material and come across to the other side of the snap at this point. Let's see if we can get this held into place so you can see what I'm doing. See that little red mark, that's where our first stitches. Now we are going to come up the opposite hall, dropped down into the material rate by that and come up to the other. The side, side holders forth holes here. Sometimes finding that is the hardest part. Dropped down rate by the whole. Come up to the opposite side. You can see now how we have that nice neat application. I'm going to finish this snap off doing the same three back stitches in the same spot to secure my thread, 23, we have 1.5 over snap-on, and it's nice and neat on this side. Let's join our other half of the snap. It's gonna be done the same way. If when we have a not, we have a long tail. Let's trim that off. That way doesn't pick out underneath our work. Brick the material it's about an eighth of an inch of material pricked up through one of the holes, lying flat rate down into by the hole we came in, go to the opposite side, aim towards one of the empty holes on the side, down and underneath the final hole. And now we do our three little tight back stitches. To secure the thread. You can see how I'm using my thimble to push my needle through. Now we had both sides of the snap applied. And we're going to move on to hook and I. We use a lot of hooking eyes on dresses. Once again, we just want a nice neat application. The hook and I is not heaven does not have enough surface, surface space for us to hide the not generally when we do a hook and I, we will hide or not underneath the nearest seem or fold. So I'm actually just going to come up from the bottom for the hook and I, and we're going to apply the hook first. Same thing. We want to keep it nice and neat. We're going to tack the backends first. And you may even want to do this with a six plie thread. One too. I've done a couple. Going to come up to the second side. We're going to do a nice little tack to the second side. Now if we were just the finished the hook and I that way, you know, it's going to lift up. So we're actually going to tack down the hook by sliding your needle underneath your material. Coming up by the hook. Wrapping your thread around the hook. Dropped down into the material, pick up that little bit of thread material there. And this is actually where we're going to do R3 back stitches to and this to tie the nodes. 23. You can see how nice and neat that would be, especially when it's done in the matching thread color. And the final part we're going to do is sewing on the hook and we do that similarly. We're going to bring up towards the top. We would hide or not. A couple of stitches the tag down to back loops. So now we want to also tack down the I part so that it doesn't lift up. I like to do that with a couple dropped down to the back, come up to the top of where this little loop meet. We're going to do one little security stitch here. And once I pull that through, you'll see where that is. See how that stitches right at the top here. We're going to do another one on the other side. And you can see now how that holds that down, so it's not lifting up. That's about all we need to do to secure that. And we do our little back stitches to not and finish off this application to three. 3. Pinning Tapering Pant Leg: Our client has these pans said he loves, but the legs are a little wider now. So he's asked if we could pin them to make the give them a little bit more of a stylish appeal. So whenever we have that, I usually have my client facing the mirror. Make sure you stay in and look straight ahead. Of course, when they bend down and look at their pants, it distorts the bottom. So this is why I always want them to look in the mirror and I'm going to have them turned sideways after I'm dead pinning that so they can see the finished taper rate. Now, our main objective is to get our, we're always going to pin on the outsides team and we just want to make sure that we have it folded rate on the siem itself. And we just pin the ankle. And once again, we're just going to continue painting up the leg, simulating the same as it's being. So I have chosen to just pin this amount. It probably brings this ankle to about a seven inch ankle that originally it was probably nine inches. And that's when the material is laid flat. Just can learn that over time. This is a point where it'd be worth it for you to learn what styles are in, what the growing width of pants are in. So this way, when your client come to some that's out-of-date, you have an idea as to where to pin it? It's a little full in the hip still. So I'm going to continue to this point. And we're going to blend it to nothing at his hip. Sometimes we don't even have to go this high. But this jack, this pant was cut a little fuller in the first place. So now I'm going to have my client turns sideways so that when he's looking in the mirror, he can see the difference now with this excess panned out. And then you always ask your client what they think. If they're happy with the look, then that's fine. Sometimes they may hesitate and that's always my cue that they're not happy with something. Ask them, do you want to take it in a little bit more or a little bit less? Sometimes they may want a little bit more tapered out of the hip or the ankle, you just adjust your pins accordingly. Ask them again if they're happy and at that point, if they are, then you're pinning is complete. 4. Fast Wind Boobin: When changing your threads constantly, we also have to change our Bob and color. And I want to show you a quick way for us to do this. I've raised the presser foot so that it stays up on its own. We're going to pull our color that we are going to use from here. This way. We want to take it out of this part here, which is our first moving part. When we're wanting our Bob and if we left it in there, the thread is going to go flying all over the place and we don't want that. Take our bobbin, put it onto the wind or attachment, push that the Winder release button in and take our thread and wind it on a couple of times just to secure it. Give it just a little gas to secure. But you don't want to keep your hand here. If you were to keep winding this way, the thread will cut your hand. So you want to use something metal, not plastic to pivot. Hold the thread for you. And now I'm going to let the machine why back-and-forth and make sure you get an even application to the bobbin. You can stop whenever you need. And your bow bobbing is now wind and ready to use. The industrial machine does have a separate bobbin winding attachment at the back. If you're using a particular color and you're using a lot of it, you can join up a second spool of thread, put it through the bulb and attachment back over to where we did our first fast wine. And this way, as you're sowing, the bobbin will constantly wine and then it will stop winding as soon as it's full. You will always have a bobbin ready with that color if you're using the same color. 5. Fast Change Thread Industrial Straight Stitch: We do change our threads very frequently. So we want to be able to do so with our industrial machine. Take our thread. Here, we're going to tie the same, not that we did with the surgery. Same concern. Make sure are not as nice and secure. Now we're going to pull this through the machine. Lifting up the foot pedal to release the tension on the top thread and has pulled the new color through. If you're using the same thickness of thread, it should pull through your needle. And here we're ready to sew with a new color. 6. Fast Change Serger and Cover Stitch: When working with alterations, we tend to hop from one job to another. Because of this, we have to change your threads quite frequently. This is a common practice that we're going to do. But the technique we use is very important, especially when using a searcher or a cover stitch machine. The reason this is, is because there are multiple threads and it's very complicated to thread should they come apart. So we're going to demonstrate how we're going to do this. So we can pull all our threads through quickly. You can use this technique, whether you have a domestic machine or an industrial machine. The most important part of this is tying or not. There's no right or wrong way to tie or not. I just take my two threads here and I'm going to wrap them around my two fingers, pull it through, and then I have a not whether you tie or not that way or have a different technique. The main thing I want to always do is check to make sure the NADH is secured. When you're pulling your threads through the machine. If a naught comes undone, you may end up having to read thread your machine, and that can set you back in a day anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour. Okay. So now I'm going to take my next thread. You can see how it can get complicated with a surgery because you have multiple threads, tie or not. Make sure they're not secure. Now for this demonstration, of course, I'm using three different colors so you can see more clearly, this is actually my needle thread now what and tie it in. Once I'm happy with my knots, we're going to lift up the presser foot. I usually turn my wheel one complete rotation just to kind of loosen the strings, take the tensions, knobs, and loosen those up. That allows us to freely pull the strings through. And you can see the strings being pulled through. If you have any resistance, do not yank on the strings. Take a second to determine where there might be resistance, might be twisted at some point. Release that you do not want to have those stitches broken. Then your wreath reading your machine once again, for the needle, I just take my needle thread. Most of the times than not, will not pull through the the original needle hole. Once that is all pulled through. We can read threat our needle. With the needle threaded. Talk, you're going to tuck our threads underneath the presser foot. Put all our tensions back to where they were. Presser foot back down. And now we're ready to. So with the new threads, keep in mind that whether like I said, whether it's a cover stitch, whether it's industrial or domestic, we're going to use the same technique to pull threads through so that when we change colors, we don't have to necessarily read thread the entire machine. 7. Razor Open Hems: Sometimes when we're doing a ham on a pant, this is our new ham. It's actually going to run into the old ham, so we need to take the old handout. This is a one-inch top stitch. This is where we're going to use our razor blade. Always make sure you have a good sharp blade. Aim the blade slightly up toward the the hem inside this way, if you do nick anything, you're not going to nick the good material. With a sharp blade. All you have to do is just run it along the stitching. And the stitching comes out easily. This does take practice and part of it is not being afraid of the razor. When you get to a seam, if it happens to be a little thicker, sometimes they have their overlap stitching which makes it a little harder just to slide it through. Do it manually. One hemisphere. And we begin on the other. I am slightly aiming up. And sometimes too, I'll actually put tension on the material with my two fingers. This keeps a nice straight edge and allows the blade to slide through. Practice, practice. This is what you're going to need to do. Some second nature after awhile. And the old hammers out at this point, you're just going to take your time and make sure you clean up all the old threads and then you can begin finishing the ham as needed. I want to also show you the same razor-blade technique, but with a pair of jeans. When we do hams like Euro hems or mock euros, lot of times we do have to take out the old gene ham. Same routine. Take a razor blade and just slide it through. Always keep in mind that if you do happen to make a little nick, you can always take a couple of seconds to do a repair or at sometimes if the NIC doesn't even show. If you find that it's not sliding through easily, your blade could be dull. Always just switch it out. You're more apt to Nick the material and make a mistake with a dull blade. More so than with a nice sharp late. And there we have that hammer would also find some more pants and practice. 8. Removing Socket Snaps: Sometimes when we're doing a coat zipper replacement, primarily, we may have snaps that are on the coat that will need to be removed. These ones aren't too bad because they are a little bit further away from the zipper. But because I can't get everything opened to finish my application, I'm going to want to remove these snaps. Sometimes these snaps are much closer to the zipper. We have to take them out before we even take out our zipper. I wanted to show you how easy it is to remove. These are our socket snaps. We only need the takeout, the side that's interfering with our zipper replacement. Take my tool I wire cutters. Just on the good side. Given a bit of a pinch, especially if the code is fairly all, the snaps will come off. Our main objective is to not cut the code, of course, with our wire cutters. And then once we take that little nib off, snap comes off. So now you can see that we can actually release the two materials. When putting our zipper bag. Show you that again. Just pinch the top of our snap. It doesn't come off first, just give it a bit of a wiggle. Sometimes you got to put in some elbow grease, take off the back. And we have another snap removed after a zipper is all in, we're actually going to be putting those snaps back. 9. Socket Snap Application: We're at my snap applicator and I wanted to show you how I replace it and apply socket snaps. So I just wanted to show you a couple of the pieces. We have the actual applicator itself. This is a heavy-duty one. We have the dyes which needs to be switched out to secure the different parts of the snaps. Here I have the tops of the snaps, these are size 24 and size 20. These are the ones I generally use. The majority of. These are the coordinating pieces that go with the tops. And this is the actual socket, size 24 and the smaller ones are size 20. When you're using going from a size 2224, you do need to switch out your dies. It's very simple application. If you're doing a lot of snaps, it's worth it investing in one of these because you're not on the floor pounding with a hammer and the applicator on the floor. So let's begin. We're actually going to work today with the size 20. So I'm going to take out actually the 24, which is the larger. I'm going to take, remove the smaller snaps out of her weight. And I do have the dyes already out and ready to go. And it's fairly simple. This is our base and the good side actually fits nicely into there of the snap. It's a rubberized to help protect. It goes in the bottom and the top part of our dy, which will fit into this portion, just get screwed into the top of the applicator. And the top portion just gets screwed on to the top. This will ensure that everything is lined up. We only have to put the top portion on just lightly. Don't tighten it. There's no need to tighten it and you'll find we're going to be taken out in a second anyways, I've already created some holes in this fabric. This is going to be, let's consider this the wrong side of the fabric. When I put my two snaps, I wanted to show you how we can snap them together. So what we're going to need is to put the good side of the snap which is at the top and to help get it through the hole, I always like using an all anything sharp like this that will help guide that through my material once it was a really clear hole. But that will help to guide that through. So we've got the top portion of the snap through our material guided through by the all. What I'm going to do is take my snap, place it into the bottom die. And I'm going to get the coordinating socket. It goes right on there like that. And all we need to do is pull the handle and everything is lined up. Pull down. The snap is on. Everything lines up perfectly. Now we need to apply the other half, which is the sockets so that it'll snap together. Once again, we just need to guide through the post using your all. If the hole is large enough, you don't have to use this. So we have the bottom of the socket through. Before we do the next set, we have to switch out our dies. Of course, if you're doing a lot of snaps, you're going to want to work assembly line version and use all of this dye and then come to the second. Don't want to be changing these every snap. This post will fit in the center of the snap. Then the socket, those on and everything is lined up, pull down. And your snap is in place. Always give it a good sample snap, make sure it's working. And there you go. We have a socket snap. Generally with coats. The majority of time we are replacing just the socket side. So always make sure that the sockets you are replacing do work with the coat that you're putting the snaps in and replacing. And that's it. 10. Identify & Remove a Blind Hem Stitch: When you have to take out a seam, It's very important to check the stitching. The reason we're going to do that is if you're seeing has interlocking stitching, whether you're using a razor blade or a sharp point, it's going to take you forever to take it out. Thus the term interlocking, each stitch is locked is a security stitch, but there is a very quick way to get it out. The reason I say to check it, even if it's a regular straight stitch or you think it is, you can use a razor blade but with the interlocking it. So quick, the takeout with this technique, you're just going to take too much time. So whenever you have a scene, check the scene. If it's an interlocking stitch. This is how we're going to take it out. I want to show you what an interlocking stitch looks like on the inside of this pan. You can see we have our surging and the stitching here. It looks like regular top stitching. But when we turn it over, we can see that the stitching, it looks like it's a chain, it's thicker, definitely thicker. You can feed them, feel it with your hand, but it's definitely thicker and does not look alike. Individual stitching. To take the stitching out, we always hold with the top raw edge here. Take something sharp. We're going to be aiming the blade towards the right. And then all we need to do is really just kinda pop that to the right. Then you can see how easily the stitching comes out. Because this pants a little older and the fibers are melding together. You can see how easy that comes out. We're going to show you that again. See this is the the backside. This is the interlocking side. Take our sharp object. Usually I use snips, aim it towards the right, even a bit of a pop. Sometimes it starts running right away, sometimes you just need to catch that. If we have two, we'll pull the back thread along with it. This wave. And our stitching comes out, saves us a lot of time, but also it saves us a lot of cleanup. You can see how the threads came out right away. Now we have no small threads the cleanup. So always check your seams. Can save you a lot of time. When you know you're working with an interlocking scene. 11. Sharpering & Marking with Wax Chalk: At some point during your work day, the wax chalk you're working with is going to get dull. So we want to always make sure that we have a nice sharp edge. And this is a very easy technique, just takes a couple of seconds to practice. We're going to take the edge of your scissors and we're going to drag it across the edge of the chalk. But you're only dragging it on the back. Pull, then it's going to come forward. During the chalk around. Of course, we normally do this over a garbage pail. Do both sides. And we've got a nice sharp edge to do our marketing. When marking with your wax chalk, you do not have to apply a lot of pressure. Keep the chalk flat. Draw it across your material and there you have your line. 12. Identify & Remove Interlocking Straight Stitch Seams: When you have to take out a seam, It's very important to check the stitching. The reason we're going to do that is if you're seeing has interlocking stitching, whether you're using a razor blade or a sharp point, it's going to take you forever to take it out. Thus the term interlocking, each stitch is locked is a security stitch, but there is a very quick way to get it out. The reason I say to check it, even if it's a regular straight stitch or you think it is, you can use a razor blade but with the interlocking it. So quick, the takeout with this technique, you're just going to take too much time. So whenever you have a scene, check the scene. If it's an interlocking stitch. This is how we're going to take it out. I want to show you what an interlocking stitch looks like on the inside of this pan. You can see we have our surging and the stitching here. It looks like regular top stitching. But when we turn it over, we can see that the stitching, it looks like it's a chain, it's thicker, definitely thicker. You can feed them, feel it with your hand, but it's definitely thicker and does not look alike. Individual stitching. To take the stitching out, we always hold with the top raw edge here. Take something sharp. We're going to be aiming the blade towards the right. And then all we need to do is really just kinda pop that to the right. Then you can see how easily the stitching comes out. Because this pants a little older and the fibers are melding together. You can see how easy that comes out. We're going to show you that again. See this is the the backside. This is the interlocking side. Take our sharp object. Usually I use snips, aim it towards the right, even a bit of a pop. Sometimes it starts running right away, sometimes you just need to catch that. If we have two, we'll pull the back thread along with it. This wave. And our stitching comes out, saves us a lot of time, but also it saves us a lot of cleanup. You can see how the threads came out right away. Now we have no small threads the cleanup. So always check your seams. Can save you a lot of time. When you know you're working with an interlocking scene. 13. Taper Sided T Shirt: Our client has brought in this simple t-shirt. Their main requests, they loved it. It's just that it's too wide all through the side seams and on through the underarm. So we've pinned it on them. And I'm going to walk you through the steps of how we're going to perform that alteration. So let's look at the t-shirt. Here we see we have our pinning through the underarm and in through the sleeve. Once again, I'm gonna do some measuring. We can see that at this leaf itself we're not taking any and it's fairly narrow. But we just want to draw this curve. So I'm going to put a mark at the underarm scene that's inch and a half in the body we're at inch and a half again. And at the very bottom, inch and a half. That makes everything easy for us. I want to remove our pins from the other side. I know that the same because I pinned it on my client. We're going to move this out of the way and turn the garment inside-out. I can see they did their work on the inside with white thread. Sometimes I'm concerned about matching threads and we can see that some, in some manufacturers, they're just not. Okay. Now, one thing I want to point out to you, this particular t-shirt does not have an actual seam here. In the body along this side. This was made out of one continuous tube of material. We have already pressed on that like we can see that's where the scene would be. We're going to create a scene just like they have here with the sleeve. And we're going to continue on that down. But it's not uncommon to find a t-shirt material that actually doesn't have a seam on the side seam. But that's not a problem for us because we're just going to create one that lies nice and smooth. If you need, you can use your iron. Here we go. Also because this has been a stitch down at the bottom and the top hem using the cover stitch, we're not going to remove that him in this area to do the work and then put it back. We're just going to sew straight through and top stitch it to the back. Let's look at our points of interest right now. The very bottom, we want an inch and a half. This particular shirt anyways, everything was inch and a half at the under arm, inch and a half. And where it joins up here, we knew that basically it was just a straight line or you could always do that with a slight curve if you'll want. Not a big deal, but just that we want it to keep the original width of the sleeve. I'm going to use my ruler to connect these. And a little bit up here. But remember we want a nice smooth curve. We kinda want to mimic this. We don't want a sharp angle at the underarm, just a nice smooth curve. Before I move that, I'm going to put my pin to make sure that stays lined up at the bottom. And I don't have to do the same on the sleeve because we're just blending into their original stitching. Let's go to the other side, makes sure this is lying nice and flat on to their side seam or the sightseeing, that's not really their remarks. Inch and a half inch and a half inch and a half. And blend that did nothing. And in a smooth curve. At this point, we're going to, we're actually going to go directly to the surgery. I want to show you this one. We're going to do this surging first, then go to the straight stitch machine to do are securing of the threads. So let's switch up our routine and show you how we're going to do it if we were to do that first. So let's go to the surgery. Now. We're at this. Surgery are one of our main objectives is to make sure that when we search this seam here, that this doesn't get off kilter. We want them to be perfectly even. At one project we did, we actually went and based it that with a straight stitch first, then came to the surgery, then went back to the straight stitch to tack the seams back. I normally wouldn't do it in that order. I would just come and surge it, then go to the straight stitch machine. So in order to ensure that if I were to just push this underneath and let the feed dogs take it, the pressure from the foot will pull this out and automatically. It will look like that. It'll get off kilter. I'm going to lift up my foot. This is still perfectly straight. Get that underneath as far as I can without puckering. And I'm running my needle. I want my stitching to go right through my line. So I would want the needle to go through it, which means this particular point on my machine has to be lined up with this line. And let's see how that turned out. And you can see now how that turned out. Nice, how that is, right even. That's what we wanted. Just making sure everything's flat underneath slowly around our curve. And we have finished that off. Let's go to do the other side. Took that under. I'm not overly concerned about this getting off kilter because it's already based it was there from the original stitching. Slow around the curve. So when I get closer to this, I wanna make sure I loved a pin in this one. I'm going to make sure that stays in place. But I got to take that out because I don't want the pin getting hitting the knife. And I just wanna make sure those stay on top of each other. And it's less apt to shift because we're coming this way as opposed to when we were starting. And you can see how that lined up nicely there too. So we're going to go to the straight stitch at this point, all we have to do is secure, are surging because of course it doesn't lock. And then push it to the back and do a little bit of top stitching, just the clean that up. So let's go to the straight stitch. At the straight stitch, we're going to secure where are surging is at the bottom and on the sleeve. This way, it doesn't open up with aware. So this is the bottom of the ham. To the other side. Remember when we're doing any kind of tacking stitching like this, we just use a smaller I usually have my machine set at two at the underarm saying I used black for buy-in as you could see, as opposed to the white. Even if this wasn't for a demonstration purpose, I would have used black. Just because the white, if it peaks out, is too bright. I would not have been my choice for constructing this garment. And then my next last thing I want to do is I like pressing my seam allowance to the back and doing a little bit of stitching. So I'm just assessing now, this is the back of my garment. So I'm going to press my seam allowance so it's facing the back from the good side. Just do a little row edge stitching. See how that just makes it look nice and clean and keeps everything in place for me. Depending on how fancy this t-shirt was. If somebody was just wearing it, like a t-shirt underneath another shirt, you almost wouldn't have to do this step. I don't know exactly how they're wearing this, so I'm just going to assume they want the best finish. Press it. This one's going this side, which is the back in there. It's trim. And now we're going to do the same but with the bottom hem is the front. So I know that this is the back piece. I want to push my seam allowance. So it's going towards the back. Go and slip it over to the other side. Finish that off. Let's turn this t-shirt right side out. And I'll show you what the finished product looks like. We don't necessarily have to press because it is a knit material. If you want, you can go and give it a little bit of a press on the seams. Because this type of seam anyways, even without pressing, is going to look nice. It doesn't fold in. Or bow wow, like a straight stitch machine would. Well, let's take a look. Fluff and layered down. And you can see nicely tapered. We added our own siem so nobody will even know that they weren't there in the first place. And at this point, your job is complete. 14. Waist In Elastic Band: Once in a while, you'll have a client bring in a pair of pants to have the waste taken in. And it may have an elastic waist band, may even be a yoga type pant. Sometimes I have customers bringing in their children's pants with elastic waist. They want the waste taken in. And we do a slightly different technique for that, primarily because a lot of times the last six are all top stitch down. We're not going to take out the elastic and make it tighter because then we'd have to take out sometimes three to five rows of top stitching. So I'm going to show you a simplified way to take in waste with this type of pen and where it is a little simplified. And some might think the Finnish isn't as professional as let's say a dress pant. Typically in elastic waist pant or yoga pant there more casual anyway, you're not going to have that high-end finished in the first place because you're wearing it to the gym or it's your child's pan. So it's still always a clean finish, but it's just a slightly different way to do this. So let's look at what we're going to be working with this patient. This is just the ladies everyday pants sometimes too. This might actually be someone's scrubs. Scrubs are constructed similarly. And like I said, this has 12345 rows of top stitching through the waist band. Even though yes, this is the interlock stitching, we could pop all those out. It's still much more labor-intensive to take that all out and will never get it back in the same stitch pattern perfectly because that's probably done with a machine with actually five needles in it in the first place. And that's how they get those perfect parallel rows. And typically if someone's bringing into pant of this style, chances are they probably paid anywhere from maybe 20. And once it's a higher-end scrub, which I can't comprehend, $50 for the pair of pants that most of the time pants constructed this way are generally not. They don't cost a lot, so they're not going to want to put a lot of money into the alteration. So here we have the waist band pinned. I'm going to measure how much we're taking in overall inch and a quarter on the fold. So it's 2.5. And then I can see also that we're taking a bit for the seed on here, about inch and a quarter, and then it's tapering off about ten inches down. Next. To prepare this, Let's take out or pins. And we're still on the vaccine. Let's turn our pants inside-out. It's easier to see on her back seat. And we can see where grabbed chalk. This is the center seam here. You can see where the central theme is also of the pant itself. That's where we're going to want to make sure we fooled directly in half. Is radon that center C. And we want to make sure the pin goes through the top so that it stays in place when we do our sewing, as well as at the waist band. One of our last rows of stitching. Let's put a pin through there. We know we're going to be taking in on the fold inch and a quarter. So let's put a chalk mark on the waist band. And then to mark down through the seat, I'm gonna put this on my board. Use an extra pin to hold that in place so it doesn't fall. Smooth that out. And I know I do have to take down the seat because of the gatherers is this is trying to, I'm trying to get this nice and flat for you down. And then of course we're going to blend that in to the bottom scene right there. So at this point we're going to go to your straight stitch machine and we're going to solve that. We're at the straight stitch. We're going to begin at the very top. Go slowly over your pins. Just want to keep it in there long enough to make sure the waist band stays even at the top down. And now we're going to on our line, just make sure the two layers are nice and flat, overlapping onto their original statue. Before I double stitch and just wanted to make sure I like what it looks like up here. Everything's lined up beautifully. And because this is a backseat to see, we're going to double this. Trimmer threads. We're actually going to go to the search bar and search this clean. But before we do, because this can be a pretty thick area, I like to cut that manually with my scissors. And we're gonna do a trimming technique to, so I'm going to cut through the waist band. The rest of this will get cut when I use the surgery. But also one of our final steps is we're going to press the seam to the one side at the waist band and top stitch so it holds it in place, but still it can be a little thick. So what I'd like to do is take now the waist band because we've cut it opens out. I'm going to take and of course we saw we were going to surge top to bottom. Just makes it easier. With that in mind, the bottom layer, I'm actually going to trim that. This way. It doesn't get caught in my surgeon. But also when we do our final stitching, it'll be a cleaner search. As well as when we stitch this down, there's not as much bulk at the back. So let's go to the searcher. We're ready to search our vaccine because we're starting at the top. You can see now that that area that I trimmed is underneath. Get this started and it's going over this seem much easier because I did that trimming. There we go. See how clean that is. Continue this down once again, I'm running the edge of my surgery along my stitching line. That's all we need to do at the surgery now we're gonna go back to the straight stitch to finish off with our top stitching. Back at the straight stitch, going to make sure my vaccine is pressed in the proper direction because I want to make sure that the area that I cut is underneath. I've put my pants right side out. And now I'm just going to do probably but a quarter-inch top stitching. My main objective is just to make sure this seam stitch securely. And I'm only going to do it on the waist band. If you want. You always could do a narrower one and continue it all the way down, but we only really need to do it at the waist band just keeps this seam line flat so there's no bulk and it's not rubbing on your client's back. Number threads. At this point you're alteration is done because this is also typically done on a knit pant or one with like this. You don't have to do a lot of pressing, like I've said before with knits. But you always could take it up to the machine, up to the press table if you want. But as you can see, that's still a nice clean alteration. And of course we can see our top stitching because it's black, but even if that's done in the proper color, then it still looks like an alteration has not been done to the pant and your customer will be satisfied. 15. Thread a Hand Sew Needle : Now we're going to show you something very simple. But you'd be surprised at how many people are going to come in and ask you to. So want a simple button for them. You think anyone can do this. Laid out. The first part of this we're going to do is I want to show you my thimble. I always hand so with a thimble and I've learned to handle with a thimble. If it's something you are just learning on your own now, get used to having a thimble. Find a thimble that fits your middle finger if comfortably. And this is what you're going to use to always push your needle. It just saves a lot of pain in the future once you get used to it, it's second nature. Some people find it uncomfortable. I can't so without it now, we're going to take some thread. Now I'm using just some red because when we so on some other buttons later, I just want you to pay to see a contrast so that you can better visualize what I'm doing. We're going to do a four plie needle first. All that means is that when you're sewing, you've already got four strands of thread on your needle. This way it saves you going in and out of the material a lot of times. So I just take my thread about this far ruler. We're not going to, it's going to pull out a ruler. You don't want to have too much because then your threads just going to get all knotted. So I've got two length of thread. We're going to cut that. Take your needle. This can be the hardest part of the whole process threading the needle. Okay. Once that's through, take the ends, smooth out your threads. Now I have four strands to not your thread forehand sewing. I'm, I'm right handed, so this is how I'm going to do it. Take hold my thread into my left finger around my left index finger. See I've criss cross it just like that. Kind of role that off your finger into a naught. And by some magic, it makes an OT. I can show you that one more time. Wrap it around your index finger just a little bit, roll that off. And then we have a naught. And that one is ready for sewing. More often than not, I will actually use a sixth strand. It's a little bit more stability. All that means then is instead of four, we're going to do three layers of thread. This one takes a bit more patients. Pull through, smooth out your fibers. Do not. And now you're ready to so.