Folk Sewing - Hand Sew a Gathered Skirt

1. Introduction: In this class you are going to learn how to hand so this beautiful gathered skirt. And when I say Hansen, I mean truly hand sewn just your two hands, a needle and some thread. You will learn how to measure yourself, how to choose, prepare, and cut your fabric, and all the hand sewing techniques needed to complete this garment. It's simple to make because you only need to cut out rectangles and it's all hands sown. So no need for any heavy, complicated, or hard to use machinery. Just a needle, thread and cozy corner. My name is Laura lamb and I am a folk singer and seamstress. I started sewing when I was pregnant with my baby boy. It became a absolutely huge passion of mine, sewing toys and sewing clothing. This class is suitable for total beginners or those with a bit of sewing experience who'd like to try out more hand sewing and folks sewing techniques, learning how to sew connect you to your ancestors and how we used to make clothing it slow and meditative. Having a daily sewing practice can infuse your life with a slower pace and a mindful and intentional approach. This course is the perfect antidote to fast fashion, which encourages you too. Bye, bye, bye, and always leaves you wanting more. When you spend hours making a comment, you really appreciate it and it becomes really special and meaningful, which is what we're really looking for. We're looking for meaning. Once you've learned the techniques to solve this guy, you can make it for any size from a baby to a child to an adult with PaaS sizes included, if you are looking to bring more stillness, satisfaction patients man intention in your life through the magic of sewing than this class is for you. I'll see you in class. 2. What Will You Need?: Welcome to this class. In this lesson, we are going to go over everything that you need to complete this class, how to approach learning the skill of sewing, five top tips, and how to make the most of this class. Let's get stuck in. First, let's talk about everything that we need to complete this class, you will need fabric. I recommend watching the lesson on measuring and choosing fabric before buying your fabric. In that lesson, I'll go into the specifics of what you need and help you choose the right fabric for the project. Needles, I use a small one like this for hand sewing and a slightly bigger one for gathering. You can get sets of needles like this, which will have lots of different sizes. Thread, a good quality thread and cotton makes your work much smoother. One in matching color of the fabric and other in a contrasting color for gathering, It's also recommended that you're gathering thread is a bit thicker and stronger, so it doesn't snap when you gather. Tape measure for measuring yourself and your fabric. Fabric marker, Taylor's chalk or iron off pen. I personally love a heat erasable pen that you can iron your marks off when you're finished sewing. Scissors. Fabric scissors needs to be sharp. And the golden rule is to only usual fabric scissors to cut fabric. Calculator to do some basic maths for working out your Rectangle sizes. A thimble to protect your fingers whilst you're sewing beeswax, you can use beeswax to coat your thread so it doesn't get tangled, are stuck and it makes your thread a bit stronger, but it's not necessary. Traditionally used with linen thread. So if you find that you're struggling with your thread and it's getting tingly or snapping, it could be worth getting some a notebook to handwrite your measurements and draw your cutting plan. I like handwriting and drawing in a physical notebook, but you can also use a notebook app on your device. One more thing that you might like to get is one of these on pickers. However practiced we are in sewing, however much we check and double-check. We still sometimes make mistakes. And these unpick is make it much less painful to unpick your work. It's very easy to unpick. So you might like to get one of them working bag. You might like to put all your sewing things together in a little working bag. I have this small canvas bag which holds all my sewing equipment. And then I put the garment I'm working on in this bag so I can easily pick up and put down my projects. Now, a little bit about approach, you will need time, space and a good attitude. First of all, we need to set aside time to work on our project. This is crucial without spending any time on it. It's not going to get anywhere. You want to find the right time that's appropriate for the right part of the project. So at the beginning when we are measuring ourselves and doing our calculations, it requires a bit more concentration. You want to pick a time of day when you find that your fresher. So for me, that's first thing in the morning. After I've had my breakfast, I had a coffee, feel zingy, unable to concentrate. Then other parts of the project That's sowing. That's a more relaxing, restorative activity that you might like to schedule in the evenings. It's something I like to do. Instead of watching Netflix. I will listen to a podcast or an audio book whilst I hand. So we need space. We don't need loads of space because we're hand sewing. We don't need a desk or loads of equipment, but it's nice to make the space nice for yourself. So it could be lighting a candle, it could be making yourself a nice herbal tea, making yourself cozy for your sewing. And finally, but very importantly, we need a good attitude learning a new skill that can be frustrating at times, we need to maintain a friendly and kind attitude as we work through this project. How you do anything is how you do everything. So make your motto, elegant efficiency. Approach a project with a growth mindset that you're going to learn something learning town so is a totally different approach to working because it takes a really long time. So I normally work on my garments little and often. So it will take around a month to make something about 30 days as opposed to the 30 seconds it takes to impulse buy a garment, it's inevitable that it will transform your approach to clothing and to consumption. This class is retraining yourself to be slow and to be patient when you dedicate and devote yourself to a garment like this, it will bring you so much joy when you wear it. When you wear something you've made, it just makes you shine and it feels amazing. I made this top and when I wear it, I feel so happy and so myself, five top tips. Number one, the kind and patient. When you learn a new skill, it's fiddly, especially the gathering, trying to get your hands or holding it right in it feeling right, It's fiddly. So just be really patient. And if you find yourself getting really frustrated, just put your project down for a night and come back to it the following day when you're feeling fresh. Number two, don't cut your thread too long. So we're gonna be working with a cotton and thread like this. And you don't want to work with the two long piece of thread. It can be tempting because then you don't have to keep rejoining. But the recommended amount is if you hold just wind that back up. If you hold your thread, your chest, reach your arm out to the full length once. And then half. So one arm and a half, that is the longest you want it to be because otherwise when you pull your thread, you go pull it. So that's a very good tip. Don't be tempted because you think, Oh, if I just cut it really long and I won't have to keep rejoining it, but it is just part of it with hand sewing, find your own way. So when you first start handling the fabric, and especially in the gathering part might feel awkward. You just need to take your time to find a way that it feels good to hold it for you. It might be that you want to use pins to pin your garment together as you work. I personally don't use pins because I have a baby in the house and I just know I will drop one. It gives me too much stress. So I just hold my garment as I work, I occasionally use the other needle I'm not using. So if I'm I've got my small needle and my big needle or sometimes use my gathering needle almost as a pin just to hold a section of it because I don't want to put loads of pins and lose track of how many there are and just find one on the carpet and be extremely stressed out by that. But you might like to use pins. You might prefer to do basting, which is when you, so your two pieces of fabric together with a very loose and long running stitch so that the fabric is loosely held together whilst you work on your more neat stitches to actually fix the garment together. So we can do pins, we can do basting. And then the third one is just finding a grip so you might want to rotate the way you hold the garment so that it feels unnatural way to hold it. And this will take time and every time you change the direction of what you're working, you might want to change the way you're holding the garment. Just take your time with this and you'll figure out a way that feels good to you. Number four, think big and think small at the same time. I think this is a great metaphor for life because when we're sewing a big project like this is quite a big vision to hold all these different steps. And then what you can do is set really small goals as you go along so that you slowly make progress. So you might say tomorrow, I'm just going to measure myself and write down my measurements tomorrow. I'm just going to slow down the side seams. And when we keep making these teeny tiny goals, and then a month later you have a beautiful government. Number five, this one is very important measure twice and cut once. This is a famous saying for a reason. Once you've cut the fabric, it's too late. So just take your time before you cut to measure. Measure again, check it so that you don't make mistakes that are very, very hard to fix. A few more final notes before we get stuck in, I'm a folk seamstress and this is folks sewing. The techniques I use are self-taught or made up. So the terms I use may sometimes be made up or incorrect from the more official technical world of sewing a rose by any other name still smells sweet. Yeah, so just don't get stressed out if I'm calling a stitch something different to what you've heard it before. Who cares? Just do the thing that I'm doing on the video. Hand sewing is a great activity to approach with mindfulness and intention. You can do this to take a moment before you get sowing to think about how do I want to be in the world? Find an ankle word that you ponder as you. So for example, my word is elegant. If I'm going to so elegantly, how am I going to sit? How am I going to approach any problems or frustration or something where it doesn't go quite my way. How can I be elegant in my sewing? And then I can carry that through and forward into my life. I've made two documents for you to use to help you with this class. We've got the cheat sheet and tips, which just runs through all the steps that you need to make the garment. And you can use that for your goals setting because it explains each little micro step to get your garment finished. There's also the tips typed up in there. And then we've also got the measuring and calculations document, which has all the calculations written in it. And it also walks you through step-by-step how I measured and calculated for the small skirt I made for willow and the red skirt I made for myself. So if you're really lucky and you are a one-year-old, or you're making your skirt for a one-year-old, or you are exactly the same size as me, then you don't even need to do the calculations. You can just skip forward and use the measurements and calculations that I did. Now we've got everything that we need. Let's head into the next lesson where we will start measuring. 3. Measuring: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to learn how to measure ourselves so we can make a garment that fits us perfectly. A few notes, four, we get stuck in, in this lesson, we're going to decide how long we would like our belt to be. In my opinion, the longer the better. If you have a look at my red skirt and my blue skirt, I made the red 1 first and then I realized it could do with a long the belt. The belt is longer than the blue one. I'd recommend you make your belt longer rather than shorter. If you go to the measuring and calculations document, you will see the exact measurements I used for my red belt and for my blue belt. And you could go even longer than that if you want. We're also going to decide how long we want our skirt. I recommend to be a bit generous with this. So add a few centimeters on if you're not sure because you can always roll the hem up more, that you can't add more on later. Also, when we make the hen, when I made my skirts, I made a very neat rolled hem. So it's only about a centimeter extra fabric that you can make a bit more of a statement hen, take about five centimeters of fabrics. You might like to watch through to the video on hens to see what kind of haem you want to meet and then you can decide how much extra fabric you need to add for that. Don't worry about your measurements being perfect. When I first started, I got a bit stressed and paranoid about this. The thing is we are making a garment that is gathered and with a Thai waste. So you don't have to be really precise a centimeter here or there can be easily forgiven saying that I will stick to what I said in my five top tips. Measure twice, cut once. When you do this measuring, measure twice as well. Take the measurement once, take it again. Check that you're getting the same measurements because you might have your tape measures or wrong way round. I have done that before. So be mindful, be careful as you approach this lesson, it's a great idea to make a note of your measurements somewhere where it's easy to access. I like to have them handwritten in my notebook and then also typed up in the notes app on my phone or my laptop so they're easy to access when I go to make something else. Let's get stuck into this lesson. I've written out here the five measurements that I'm going to need to get a waist, be the length of the skirt, how long I'd like it to be. C, the desired belt width, how wide I'd like my belt to be, the desired bot length, how long I'd like my bot to be. And finally the widest hip, so the widest part of my body so that I can get the skirt on and off. So let's start this measuring. First of all, starting with the waste to standing up straight, finding the smallest part of my waist and holding the tape measure around my waist. You see that you don't want your garment to be so tight? Well, that's a personal choice for me. So I like to make sure I'm my belly is fully relaxed when I measure myself so that I get an accurate measurement of what I will be like every day. Can also do this by double-checking the measurements, sitting down and just seeing is my waist the same when I relax and I sit down so that you make a skirt That's really comfortable and that you can wear it to move in. Now we take the smallest number on the tape measure, so that's 0 at the end and I'm running it down to the length I'd like the skirt to be. So for this example, we're just imagining I wanted the length of the trousers. Then I find the small of my waist and take that number there. Then the width of the belt. So this is the red belt showing you the width. That one is seven centimeters as a guide. And then this is a smaller belt that I made for another garment. And this one is five centimeters. So you might want to use those as a guide for the width of your belt. Now on to the bot length. So it's a good time now to decide how you're gonna do your belt up. Or if you'd like both options of whether you're gonna do a bow at the back, or if you're going to wrap it back around yourself and tie it at the front. So my blue skirt and my red skirt actually both work either way because I made the made the belt really long. So have a little think about that before you decide on your bot length. So there's a couple of ways we can do this. One, we can tie in imaginary bow with a tape measure in the size we'd like it, and then work out how long that is. So for example, a smallish bow like this is about 83 centimeters. And then trying it again, I'm making a much bigger bow. If we want a really big statement bot showing that with our tape measure, and you can hold it up to yourself if you like. But for this case I'm just getting it on the floor so you can see so this is already bigger bow that comes to about 111 centimeters. If you want your belt to wrap back around yourself, you might want to double-check your waist measurement and see that your bot length is at least your waist measurement. Plus 20 or plus 30, so that you can tie at the front as well. So an extra thing to think about there. Then, last but certainly not least is our hips are widest point. So the widest point of your hips getting that measurement so that you know, you'll be able to get your skirt on and off. So now you've finished, you will have filled in your measurement sheet and it should look something like this. This is mine. My waist is 82 centimeters. The length I'd like my skirt to be as 98 centimeters. I liked the belt width to be seven centimeters, like the red skirt. I'd like the bow length to be a 110. You'll notice there. So if the bot is a 110, my waist is 82. That means that I have 28 centimeters extra to tie it all the way around my waist again and tie at the front. Then my widest hip is 96. So we'll need that to work out so that we can make us get Oscar on an off. Now we've got our measurements, it's time to do some calculations so we can work out all the pieces of fabric will need to cut. See you in the next lesson. 4. Calculations : Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to do our calculations. So this is the lesson that requires the most brainpower. So if you're watching this now and you felt a bit tired, just turn it off, do something else. This needs to be something you watch when you're feeling fresh, when you're feeling zingy and you're able to concentrate. So we just need to do a few calculations too. Work out what size rectangles we need to cut to make our garment. To go alongside with this lesson, we do have the measuring and calculations document, which you'll find in the Resources section. And that will show you all the calculations step-by-step. And it will also show you how I did the calculations for my red skirt and for willows yellow skirts, you can follow along there as well. If you were wondering the red skirt and the blue check skirt and made exactly the same measurements. The only difference is that the belt is a bit longer. So let's have a coffee, take a deep breath and get stuck in with making our calculations. First of all, starting with the belt width. And we work out the piece of fabric we need to cut by that, by timesing the desired belt width by two and adding two centimeters seam allowance. So in my case, I like the belt to be seven centimeters. So I multiply that by two, giving us 14, and then I add the two centimeters seam allowance, and that comes to 16 centimeters. And then now thinking about the belt length, what we need to do for that is a waste plus d, the desired belt length plus two centimeters seam allowance. For my case, that's 82 centimeters for my waist plus the 110 centimeters I like my belt to be plus the two centimeters seam allowance. And that will all add up 294 centimeters. So that means that is the piece of fabric we're going to cut out. It's going to be a long strip like this. It's going to be a 194 centimeters long and it's going to be 16 centimeters wide. So that's the first piece we're going to need. Then onto the front and back pieces of our skirt. First of all, calculating the width, which will be a, which is our waste, multiply by two or three depending on how heavily gathered we'd like our skirt. Then we divide that by two and add two centimeters seam allowance. So in my case, I'd like this skirt to be really gathered. So I'm going to multiply it by three. So 80 to my waist, multiply by three and then divide that number by two, add two centimeters. And that final figure, once we calculate all of that up, comes to a 125 centimeters. So that's how wide I need my two skirt pieces to be. Then the length. This is the simplest one. We just choose the desired length. We'd like our skirt to me and then add the two centimeters seam allowance for the top and the bottom. So I like mine to be 98, so add the two centimeters. Nice simple calculation comes to a 100 centimeters. So that is what we will need is these two squares of fabric, which will both be a 125 centimeters wide by a 100 centimeters tall. So then the three final pieces that we're going to need, we need these two big rectangles of fabric. And then all along belt piece. Pretty simple. And we know the measurements. We want our belt to be a 194 by 16 and we want, or to skirt pieces to be a 125 by a 100. Let's have a go laying that out on our fabric. So this piece of fabric I have is 140 centimeters wide by 200 centimeters long. So let's work out how we're going to fit that on there. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to cut the belt off the end, which will be a nice long, 200 centimeter long belt. And then that will leave me with a 124 centimeters width. And then if I cut that in half, both of those pieces will be a 100 centimeters tall. So you will notice that I've lost a centimeter from the width of my skirts. I initially wanted it to be a 125 centimeters, but I've lost a centimeter so that the belt fits. It's much it's much better to lose a bit of width on a heavily gathered skirt than to lose a centimeter on the belt because that will really make a difference to how wide your belt is. To give you another idea about laying it out. Let's get the measurements for willows yellow skirt. You can see how I calculate them in the measurements and calculations document. Willows, skirt belt needs to be a 150 by 14, and then the front and back pieces need to be 68 centimeters wide and 37 centimeters long. My piece of fabric is a 150 centimeters wide and 50 centimeters long. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to cut the belt off the top. Then if you imagine I cut those to front, front and back skirt pieces at 68 centimeters, then I've done some calculations and I kept these really weird small rectangle left at the end. I've got nothing to do with it. So what I decided to do is just make my skirt extra, even more width, is it's a bridesmaids skirt. Make it really puffy, so they will be 75 centimeters wide. Then finally, I know that I've made her skirt definitely long enough. I don't need to add any extra, so I will be left with a little strip of fabric there at the end that I don't need that I might like to use for another project in the future. So that is how we do our calculations. Breathe, relax. Take your time with this step. It's the trickiest bit in the whole process. And you've got the measuring and calculations document in the resources section so that you can use that as a guide to follow along. Have fun making your calculations. Make yourself a nice cup of tea, cup of coffee, opened the window. And then once we've got our calculations done, we can start preparing and cutting off fabric and then sowing. See you in the next lesson. 5. Choose Fabric: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to choose our fabric. We will need a woven fabric because we're working with straight lines. It's much easier to work with a woven fabric. You can tell if a fabric is woven, if you look at it really close up, it will look like a grid. Here's some screenshots of some fabrics that I've looked at online where you can see the grid. And then I'm also going to hold up a few of the fabrics I used for the project and see how you can close up, see that it's a woven fabric. When you are choosing your fabric in a, in a physical shop or online, if you aren't sure if it's woven or not, just go and speak to somebody, go and ask for some help. You can make sure you get the right fabric. So that's one definitely, definitely need woven. And then there's five other things that we need to consider and pay attention to. And they are the composition, the width, the weight, the ethics, and the color. Composition. When you buy your fabric, just make sure you read the small print because some fabrics look like they unnatural. But then when you read them made of polyester or a polyester blend, which personally, I really don't like these. I think they feel squeaky and plasticky and dry. So it's nice to use a cotton or linen or a viscose fabric. They are all natural plant fibers and they will let your skin breathe properly and feel lovely to where you may also find a blend of those are cotton linen blend, a linen viscous blend. And they will feel lovely as well. Onto the width. Fabrics come at different widths. And it's just good to pay attention when you buy your fabric, what the width is. When we did our cutting plan in the previous lesson, we looked at the width of the fabric and we made some decisions around that. So it might be good to research, in general what the width of the fabric, where from the shops that you're buying from to give you an idea, the blue check fabric was a 140 centimeters wide and the red linen was a 150 centimeters wide. When you buy fabric, the wider the better, obviously because you have more fabric to work with. But it's not always necessarily like that. It's just good to go back to your measuring, go back to your cutting plan. When you decide on the width of the fabric that you're going to buy. The next thing to consider is the weight. Do you want a heavy skirt that is suitable for the warmer months? Like my red skirt or do you want a light and floaty skirt like my blue check skirt? Pay attention to the weight when you buy the fabric. As a guide, the red linen skirt I'm wearing is 210 grams per meter squared, and the blue is a 120 grams per meter squared. You can check all these details in the measuring and cutting document. When you go to a fabric shop, you can feel the weights or contact the online shop and ask them some more questions. Ethics is good to have a moment to think about the ethics of the fabric you're buying. How was it made? Who was it made by? Any implications of those things? One simple way that I choose ethical fabric is to buy dead stock or x designer fabric. It's like buying from, it's like buying something second-hand because it's fabric that they've bought for a brand, for a High Street or a designer brand. And then they've overboard the fabric so they pass it on to these dead stock suppliers and you can buy fabric that would be otherwise thrown away. So that's a really good ethical decision to find dead stock or x designer fabric. Just searched those terms on Google. That's dark fabric. For my case, England x designer fabric UK. Search that to help find the fabric. If you can't find any dead stock wax designer fabric, just take a bit more of a moment to research what you're buying. It can be really good to look for ICO texts, which is a certification to prove that the dyes that we use for the fabric are not harmful to humans or to the environment. So have a look for the ICA texts stamp if you want to choose a more ethically dyed fabric. And same with the how to find your desktop fabric. If you just Google E cortex fabric UK, you will be able to find some fabric that has been produced in that way. And the last one we're going to talk about is color. Choosing a color which you love. You might like to go on Pinterest and look at some other skirts or dresses and the colors and what inspires you. You might like to think about other things in your wardrobe. What are you going to wear your skirt with? I personally, where it with a white shirt or a black. That means I can go for any color. If you have other color tops, you might like to think what skirt you'd like to make to match your top. You might even like to make a matching top in the same color and also how the color makes you feel I'm wearing this lovely orange, and this orange makes me feel so bright and radiant. So choose a color that makes you feel good and that you're inspired to work with. Okay, so now we know everything we need to consider when it comes to buying or fabric. So it's time to go shopping. And then I'll see you in the next lesson where we are going to prepare and cut off fabric. 6. Prepare and Cut Fabric: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will prepare our fabric to start cutting. It's a slightly different technique we use for cutting, that we use for linen and that we use for cotton. So I will show you both examples. So depending on what kind of fabric you have, you will know how to prepare your fabric. The main thing we need to pay attention here is that when you buy fabric, often they will not cut it straight. The piece of fabric you have will have a slightly jagged edge and you need to correct that first so that you have a straight line to work from that's been cut and then the straight line of the salvage so that you are able to make perfect rectangles. By the end of the session, you will have your fabric cut and ready to. So let's get stuck in. The first step is to wash and dry your fabric as you would. If you're going to tumble dry it, you want to tumble dryer. If you're not going to tumble dry it, don't. And if you're going to hand wash your hands, wash it, but just use the washing technique that you're going to use on the final garment. And then once we've washed it, we would like to iron or fabric so it's smoother and easier to work with. You'll see here this scratchy edge that the seller has left on the fabric. We don't want that because we need that nice straight edge to start off our rectangles with the linen. What we do is called something, something called drawing a thread, or sometimes called pulling a thread as well. And what we do is we find the right length that we want to cut. And then we pull a thread from the fabric and use that to create a guideline for cutting our fabric. So we get a really nice straight line. I recommend doing this part and really good light because it can be hard to see the thread that you've pulled unless you're working in really bright light. So we keep working the whole way along until eventually we have a line running along the whole width of the fabric. You see me just pulling it through here. So we get to see this nice line. Then if the, if the thread snaps, we just start again. So I've found where we want to carry on. I get my needle under there. I pull out another thread and start again, pulling that all the way along. So eventually we reach the end. We have a line running, running along the whole length of the fabric. Look like this. And then we follow that with our scissors and cut all the way along. So we have a lovely straight edge. To start cutting. This is very satisfying. You can keep those n bits for stuffing for toys. Don't throw them away if you have any plans to do that. Now onto a lighter fabric because we work with that slightly differently. We don't need to draw a thread. We do something a bit more radical. So first of all, just getting that straight edge. So just take a tiny bit of the end like this and then we rip it. Because when we rip it, it just rips along the green. And then we get a lovely straight edge to work with. So there we have it, and now it's time to start cutting using, using our cutting plan. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut the belt off first. Then that will leave me with that strip and then cut that in half. So starting with the belt, which I want to be 14 centimeters, drawing a mark. And then doing or slightly surprising Radical ripping to rip our belt off. I'm showing you this because it's it's good to work out the order. You're going to cut things before you start cutting. So I always have a look at my guide like this and think, Okay, right, so I'm going to cut the belt off first. Then with the remaining fabric, I'm then going to cut my two skirt pieces. Festival cutting the length which I know my skirt. I wanted to be 37 centimeters long. So cutting and tearing that. And then we'll be left with a wide strip like this, which we need to cut in half for the front and the back of our skirt. You can measure it. Well, you can. I quite like doing this. Just fold the fabric in half using my little marker pen and slip it in the crease. And then I get the exact halfway point and use that as a guide for cutting that piece in half. So this is our last cut, cutting the front and back into two pieces. Have at the end our belt piece and all front and back. Now onto my red skirt where I will first of all cut the belt off the same. I'm showing you how we do it differently. So I've measured the 16 centimeters and rather than ripping off fabric because we can't do that with this heavy fabric. We need to carry on with the method of drawing the thread. So I'm drawing thread all the way along. At 16 centimeters for our belt. This can be a little bit fiddly and it's likely the thread will snap. And then we'll need to keep working our way along to get the whole width of the fabric. You'll see now I can see that line running along. Need that bright light to be able to see. My thread snapped. Then I find where it roughly ended and I scoop up another thread. It might be the thread just next to it. As long as it's very close by. So you can use that thread or the one next to it. Now I've got the line running all the way along with my lovely sharp cutting scissors, cutting that piece off. Once I've cut all my red skirt pieces, I will be left with a very long belt piece like this. And then I'll be left with my front piece and my back piece. So now we have all our pieces cut out and ready. It's time to start sewing, which we will be doing in the next lesson. See you in the next lesson. 7. Sew Side Seams: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're finally going to get to the sewing. This is where we are going to, so our side seams using the very beautiful and simple running stitch. It's a good idea now to take a moment to think about your intention again, your ankle word, elegance, so that when you are sewing, you can hold that in your mind and in your body as you carry it forward into your life. Even they're running stitch is really simple. It can take a little bit of practice to get the tension right. So be patient with yourself and be willing to unpick. It doesn't go your way. Make sure you don't make your running stitches too long. So you want really nice, neat little stitches. I recommend one to two millimeters long each stitch. And just reminding you again about cutting your thread that we pull one arm and a half. Don't be tempted to use long length of thread, just one arm and a half, and that's the perfect amount of thread you need to get working. Let's go. And so some theme here, we have our front and back skirt pieces and we want to sew down each side. I like to be precise with this. So I I'm marking the one centimeter seam allowance. If you've got a lot of confidence with sewing and feel like you can naturally do this by eye. You don't need to do it. But I find it's nice to follow the line. It makes it nice and simple to follow along. I'm drawing a one centimeter line down each side of the skirt. Now getting my thread, measuring the length of this guy I need plus a bit extra for tying knots. Either end, threading my needle, leaving a bit of overhang with thread there, and starting with a fastening, not which means just looping under once, pulling the thread through till nearly the end, just leaving a few centimeters, looping through again. And then when there's a small loop left, we talk our needle, just making that loop pretty clear for you. We loop our needle through that loop and that forms one naught. I'm gonna do another one now to show you again and often when I start, I do do two knots just so it's really secure. So scooping under it through, leave that little loop, put the needle through that and pull, and there you go. Your thread is fastened. Now for this, we're going to do running stitch along this line, which involves just up, down, up, down, up, down with the needle. You might be able to get a few stitches on before you pull your thread. So you'll see here, I'm getting 345 stitches on. I think about three here. Before I pull through when you first start, you might just want to do one stitch after time. There they are nice and neat and even each stitch about a millimeter or two millimeters long. Carrying on the same up-down, up-down. You'll find your own rhythm with this and find your own way of handling the fabric and holding it. This is how I like to do it. And I'm using my thimble there to push the needle through at the end to save my fingers. There we are lovely, neat even stitches carrying along the length of the fabric. So you can see there I've gone all the way along. And then when we approach the end, we will be thinking about another fastening, not here we go. Few more stitches. Get us going to the end. If it's got too tight, the tension, you just need to loosen off like this because you don't want it all bunched up. So I often run my fingers along like this to loosen off the tension, looping through once. We get that loop. And then pulling through the loop. And again, I'm doing too, because Let's be safe here. So there we go, two knots and then we just cut our thread. And then we need to carry on and do the other side. So we have two matching sides. Once we finished, we'll have this side all sewn together. The two pieces. The other side, just the same. Ready to fill our seams down in the next lesson. See you in the next lesson. 8. Felled Seams: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to use a finishing technique which will make your garment look as beautiful from the inside as from the outside. Modern garments use an oval locker, which to me create such an ugly inside seam. And it can also be a bit itchy because it's, it's not smooth. So what we're going to do is flat felled seam. So the scene as felled found to the garment, which looks beautiful and feels cozy. Let's go and fill some themes. As with the last lesson, let's breathe, relax, and focus on our intention as we. So we've got our same here on the side. And what we're going to do is we're going to cut nought 0.5 centimeters, half a centimeter from the length of one side of the fabric. So you have to be careful with your scissors to leave the other side because we want one side to remain one centimeter and the other side to be nought 0.5 centimeters. And we're going to repeat that mirror image on the other side. So pulling back the back fabric and just cutting the top one, naught 0.5 centimeters. My scissors have got a nice rounded edge which prevents me from cutting the fabric underneath. You have to be really careful with this. So you can see there nought 0.5, the top on centimeters at the bottom. And the two sides are mirroring each other. What we're going to do is we're going to fold that one centimeter around the naught, 0.5 centimeters, which makes a really neat, flat felled seam. It's my favorite thing. I think it makes your garment look beautiful from the inside, from the outside in comparison to modern day garments. So what we need to do now we've done one fastening, not on the lower piece of fabric. And now I'm going to do another fastening not here to secure this folded felled seam. Down. Here we go doing one nice neat fastening, not pulling through the loop. And then we go and now we're going to start off fell stitch. We want to fold that one centimeter around. So be left with this lovely nought, 0.5 centimeter folded ridge. And the way we do this stitch, we're going to get a nice close-up is we tuck on needle in just under a couple of threads. This is a really delicate, neat stitch. And then pull it through about two to three millimeters along and come out the top down under a couple of threads along about 23 millimeters. I'm poll again, going down where we came out a couple of millimeters coming in at an angle. And pulling through this stitch, like all the stitches tastes best practice to get it really neat and even but once you do, it's really, really satisfying. You can see here how lovely and neat that looks. We've got the little thread attaching each one and we just want to be careful with our tension, pulling it nice and tight, but not too tight. Now I'm going to show you if you want to switch threads, if your thread is not gonna make it all the way to the end of filling your garment. You need to do a fastening, not like so where you go under the lower piece and then the top piece, all in one place. Pull the knot through. And then you want to hide that tail of thread underneath your felled seam. Then we will get some new thread and cut it to length. Ready to join in noticing the distance between the stitches we want our next not to follow in the patterns. So about two to three millimeters along from the last naught. We're going to do another fascinating. So tucking under in the same place and in the felled seam on top, I'm pulling through that loop and there we have another naught. Then we can carry on with our felled seam stitch. Time to get to the end and finish with fastening, not pull three. There we go. There. We have it. Fell seem all finished. This is how it looks from the inside of your garment. And then this is how it looks from the outside of your garment. Now you need to repeat the same down the other side. So you will have two matching felled seams ready to prepare to gather in the next lesson. See you in the next lesson. 9. Prepare for Gathering: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to prepare to gather. It is worth taking your time to prepare so that we get nice even gathers. When I first started, I just tried winging it. And I'll just show you this example of the skirt where the gardeners are not even at all. And then when I got to the end, there was just a huge portion of fabric where I'd run out of width to be able to gather. So it's just a non gathered portion of the skirt, which doesn't really look very professional. Because we want to create a really lovely, beautifully finished gut. We want to take the time to prepare. And we're going to do that by gathering in sections. So what we will do is we will mark notches on our belt and mark notches on her skirt, and then gather in small sections so that we know if we keep each small section even than the whole skirt will look even this class a bit like the calculations class is a little bit more concentrated. So you might want to take this in the morning when you're feeling fresh, so they're able to concentrate on getting this correct. First up, we need a quick calculation, so go and get your notebook and the measuring and calculations document. I've got here my measurements that I need to on this garment. And actually for this calculation, all we need is the a measurement, the width. What we're going to do is we're going to add two or three centimeters to that. I recommend three for an adult and two for a child baby. So for me it's quite simple calculation. We take my waist eight to two centimeters and we add three centimeters so that we have 85 centimeters to create this length that goes all the way around the skirt from one edge of the belt to the other. You might be wondering why we add three centimeters to our waist measurement. It's so that we have some 0s in the waste of the belt. Whether you are going to tie it in a bow at the back or wrap it back around the front. It's nice to have a little bit of give from your waist measurement so that you have space to do the belt up. Saying that I personally don't like my clothes to be really tight fitting. So if you want your skirt to be really tight on your waist and you want to tie it up really tight. You might want to leave this measurement as the exact measurement of your waist and not add the three centimeters. But just so you know, the red skirt I made the blue skirt and aid. And this one for Willow. I for all of them, I did add well, for willows, I added two centimeters and for mine I added three centimeters. And it just gave the garment that little bit of give so it fits nicely. Going to do the notches, like I said at the beginning. And we do that by making nine marks along the belt and nine marks around the skirts. And then we match those nine marks up to each other so that each section is gathered perfectly. So this is how I mark the skirt piece, imagining this is the skirt and those are the two scenes there. I do it by folding. So rather than all the fiddling with a tape measure, I just fold this in half and then I fold the half into half. So then one side of the skirt is now split in four, then the same on the other side. So fold it in half, fold the ends into the halfway point. So now that is those eight sections. And then here's me doing it on the actual fabric. So I've drawn the halfway point. Then I've taken the end into the halfway point and use my thumb to crease it and create a line and mark that. Repeated it all the way around and on both sides. So looking at our skirt now, we have 123 lines and then plus the two scenes at the end that makes five and then same on the other side. And then we repeat this with our belt. We draw two marks on our belt. First of all, which needs to be the waste. We do the same thing. So folding, folding, folding. So we can create those eight sections or nine notches for the gathering on the belt. So that is what it will look like. But here we are on the actual belt now. So first of all, folding the belt in half to get that exact halfway point. And once that's marked, then we can measure from the center point. So from that center point, I need to measure out 23 centimeters in this case because we are working on a baby willows skirt doing our foldy moldy now so that we get these eight sections marked on. Knowing notches. See me just solely working through that. So fold in half in half again, and then half into half so that we get these marks. You might prefer to use a tape measure and work out divided by eight. But I find that's more complicated and this makes it a bit easier. So then once I've drawn all these notches on them now numbering them from one to nine. There we have it, the belt with all the marks on. Ready to get that lovely even gathering. So what I like to do is I like to have both sides matched up as well because these two sides of the belt are going to be like the bread in a sandwich. And the gathered skirt is going to be the lunch, meat or cheese and pickle or whatever you like to put in the sandwich. So we want them to be even on both sides of the belt. During these marks all the way along, mirroring. And then I'm just making sure the lines are really bold so that I can see them clearly for when it comes to the gathering. Okay. So now for the numbering, I've already made the opening in the skirt, but you will do that in the next video. So don't worry that you haven't done that yet, but you'll see it from that gap. The middle back is number one. So the center back of your skirt is number one. And then number nine is where your skirt ends the same hole. What I'm doing now, same as what I did with the side seams, is marking that one centimeter seam allowance. So I get nice straight lines. For me. It makes the sewing much more relaxing if I can just follow the line and not be constantly checking if I'm going straight because it's very easy to start waving around if you haven't got aligned to follow. So that is the seam allowance line all or all the way around the top of the skirt. And then I also repeat that on the belt. So this is what it's going to be like. They're going to fold under. And that's going to make the two pieces of sandwich. The gathering. Going along here with the one centimeters on the belt and drawing a straight line so that we have a line to follow on the belt as well as the skirts. We match those two lines up using a piece of code to draw a nice straight line. So there's the belt with a lovely seam allowance running all the way through. And you already saw that I've done the skirt with the seam allowance. So that means we are now ready for the next lesson where we are going to cut and create the role opening. See you in the next lesson. 10. Rolled Opening: In this lesson, we are going to create the opening for our skirt. We're going to work out how long the slit needs to be at the back so that the skirt opens up to fit over our hips and then we close it to tie it up for this. For this, we're going to need to make another quick calculation. Go and get your notebook and you're measuring and calculations document. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at our waist measurement, look at our hip measurement and work out what the difference is to make that slit. In my calculation, I decided that was a good idea to add four centimeters. That is because some of our fabric is taken into the gathering portion. And then we just want to be a bit generous with this measurement because if we make it too small, then we won't be able to pull it up over our hips. Or if we have to strain, It's pullover our hips, It's going to put tension on the garment. And that is why I added four centimeters. So we've got plenty of wiggle room for getting our garment on and off. I'm going to leap in now to the measurements and the calculations. You might want to pause the video as you go along and make yours or refer back to the measuring and calculations documents so you can work it out for your measurements. For this calculation, we need our measurements. Again. This time we need to, we need e, which is the white, the widest hit, and we need a, which is the waste. And we're going to do this calculation, E minus a plus four centimeters and divide by two. So for me, E is 96 minus 82, which gives us 14, add four centimeters equals 18. And then we divide that by two, which leaves us with nine centimeters. Go and check the measurements and calculations document if you need more help with this. Now we've worked out how long our slit is going to be. We can go and cut it and make are rolled opening. My slit was nine centimeters, but the skirt we are working on today is for willow, so it will be different measurements recapping where we're at. We've got our paper version of our skirt here. And this is where we're going to want to cut our role opening in the center back of our skirt. So it looks something like this so that we can get the skirt on and off. Here's our front and back of our skirt with our marks on. So we're going for that center one. That's what we're going to be cutting. Measuring the length of our cut, and drawing a line down that we can follow. We have it cut open. Now it's time to roll. We need to make sure that the garments the right way around. This is what the outside of the garment looks like. This is what the inside of the felled seams. And we want to roll towards the inside. So currently the fabric is now wrong side facing us. So I'm rolling the fabric but only by a couple of millimeters each role because want to keep this really tight and neat. As always, starting with a fastening, not looping through the whole of the role. And then drawing that not. There we go. And now we work down this role with the same stitch, the filling stitch that we used when we flat felled our seams. So we scoop under and then we scooped through the role. The thing to note here is when we felt the same way, we're just taking the very few threads at the end. Whereas here I want to go through the whole layers of the role. You'll see I'm going through almost through the middle of it. So there's definitely secure, dined on and just get the edge. You want to go right in the middle of it. So it's really secure. Carry on, working our way down until we get to the bottom of the cut. And this is where we switch to button stitch. So I go down and then I pull through the loop. It's almost like a fastening, not the way it's different is that you pull towards the opening so that all the knots will line up and create the button look. So pulling through, leaving that loop. And then I pulled down towards, so I get a nice not coming at the end. Carrying on the same all the way down. So I'm doing it about the last centimeter of this role. And then I will go around the edge of it as well. So now we've got to the very bottom. I'm forming a curve with the with the buttonhole stitches always pulling towards the opening. You can actually go up like you see I just did in this one. Or down when you do your buttons stitches. It's better just for your own technique that you stick to one. But I seem to be. Switching between up and down shows it doesn't really matter. But often it's just choose one up or down. So here I am coming up, going through the loop, pulling it towards a lovely neat not carrying on around that buttonhole. You'll see I'm working about two millimeters away from the edge of the fabric so you want it to be secure. Once I've done that, switching back to the role the other side. So rolling in decent amount and making sure that I pull through the whole role. Now we get to the end, we do our fastening. Not it looks a bit like this. From both sides. I found out from a historical sewing video that to make that even more secure, you can so the bottom of it together. First of all, I've just noticed a stray thread is good, right? The end of the Garmin, we're going to check these things. But as you go, if you notice any strays, give them a little clip. And we are now going to just seal that button closed. You'll see what I mean here. So because we just want, we want to reinforce this because this is the weakest part of the garment where we take it on and off and we don't want this to rip. So doing a fascinating not in here. Then what I'm going to do is just join the bottom of this slit together by a few stitches just to make it a little bit more secure. So going round, pull through and carrying on like this, just doing a few loops so that this button hole is really secure at the end and it's not going to come open or tear. When we put our garment on. Doing a few stitches and a few knots, there's another naught so that it looks really secure there. Once that's finished, we make the thread disappear. Oh, look another bonus not, why not? Why not do another naught? And then we make it disappear. So we just put the needle in the role, thread it through and then cut our thread. Now we are ready to gather or skirt. So I will see you in our next lesson where we will start gathering. 11. Gathering Part 1: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to do the gathering. This is the longest lesson in this class because it demonstrates the friendliest process of the whole Scott feudal extra notes. Before we get stuck in make sure that you're gathering thread that we're going to use is strong. So you want to pull it like this and see that it doesn't snap because when you gather your, your, your fabric along the piece of thread, it will be under some tension. So if you have a weak thread, it could snap and it will cost you all your work of your lovely gathering. Also to note, when we gather the fabric, we will leave our gathering thread running through as we saw. We really want to make sure we don't catch it. That's why we use a contrasting color. We want to stay. As part of the way the technique we use. We will always be half a centimeter away, but just always paying attention that you're not catching it in your hand sewing because then it will make it hard to pull the gathering thread out at the end. We want to take it out so that it doesn't show because this is the villi as process. This lesson requires extra kindness, extra patients. So take a deep breath, focus on your intention and let's get gathering. We've got our skirt and our belt ready to go. Now time to thread with our gathering thread. So I'm using a very contrasting dark thread, which I recommend. So you can really see it. This slightly thicker black thread. Cut it to the length of one side of the skirt plus a bit. And now we're going to make a big hairy not. We do this by twisting, twisting, twisting, twisting, let go, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist. And then we pull. We get this really big hairy naught. Which will mean that when we gather, there's no chance if it's slipping through the fabric. Here we are just showing you another big hairy not so twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist. And get the end. Pull through. They carry not starting at number one. And we're going to work all the way to number five with gathering stitches. So each stitch is like running stitch, but just a bit bigger. So each stitch has about two or three millimeters long. Working like this. I'm also using a slightly longer needle. My gathering needle is slightly longer. Just makes it easier as we work our way along with these gatherings stitches. Working all the way to number five here. And then you'll see I'll just slightly overshoot the mark. So that number five is definitely in the gathers. And once we get to the end, taking your phone needle and forming another big hairy naught so that it doesn't pull out this end either. So that we go to be carrying knots. And that is our stitch that runs through that makes it easy to gather. Now we've got the belt here. I'm preparing it, checking everything's lined up. Okay. He's good. Check check, double-check. Just folding it in half, ready to sandwich the gathering in. So as I neatly checked it, I noticed that my number one Mark was not the same on both sides. I'm just correcting that now. So this is the time to notice if you've made any errors. If anything looks off. Now we're going to fold on one side the fabric along the seam allowance line. I'm going to fix that to one side of the gathering. So number one, I'll ask it matching up to number one on our belt. So it will be like this. We'd line up to squish the number two in. I'm just now during the numbers on the other side of my belt because I noticed that it's it makes it easier if we can just see them on both sides. So you might like to do that as well. Not necessarily, but if we can make our lives easier, why not? So I normally work sideways now you see I've turned the belt sideways and I've got the skirt sideways. And I often want something sticky so that the gathering has something to land on. And I find a bare leg is quite good because it's a bit sticky. We might like to use a rubber mat or something like that so that when you gather you have something to put it on. But for now I'm attaching my fastening not on. I'm on the skirt right now at number one. Where that red seam allowance line is fixing number one. Then matching that up to the number one with the folded seam allowance of the belt. So one meets one. Looking at those notches, matching them up and doing a fastening, not that secure now ready to go? Just making sure I can definitely see my notches, making sure they come over the seam allowance. So if your lines aren't long enough, make sure that they go over because when we gather, we want to make sure we can see that line to match the two to the two, which is what I'm doing now. So this is the Vitellius bit. I did warn you. But once you've done it, once, once you've done one section, I find it. It goes much more smoothly because you get used to it. So I'm using my thumb to hold the two and the two together. I came up with this hack as I worked on the checkered skirt, that actually the best way is when you match up your notches is use your gathering needle, you're longer needle to hold it together. So as you gather, you know that those two notches are not going to move. So there we go. But in this case I'm just using my thumb. I'm just checking now the evenness. So using my leg as a mat that secures the gathers in place. So they're not slipping too much. Then just checking, does this look even does this look even moving them along? And then what I do is I take the very top of the first gather and then I attach the top of that first gather to the belt in a similar stitch to the Fell stitch. Looking along to the next gather, take the top of it. I'm scooping under the belt. This is a bit like knitting or crocheting where you get a feel for what the tension is like. And then you can work with that tension. So the first time you do this, it might feel really strange. And the end result might look really bunched or, or a bit screwed up or something. So just really be patient with yourself in this step. And you might want to work from one to two. And then you might end up unpicking the whole thing because you think, Oh no, this doesn't look right. But be patient with yourself and you will get it and it will look beautiful. So just baby steps here. So I keep taking the top, the next gather and then attaching that gather to the belt. So now we've reached number 21 section done. And it does definitely get easier from here because we've already Salsa to get a feel now for the tension of this, for how, how regular the gaba czar and a bit more of a feel for the way we're going to hold the fabric and the way we're going to work through. So now I'm heading onto number three. So I find the three on the belt and I find the three on the skirt. And I matched them up. And just fiddle around till I get the gathers looking right. And carry on working in the same way. Where I scoop the next gather at the red line and then join that to the belt. Now we here at number four, getting close to the finish line on this side of the skirt. Well done. This is how we change thread if we have run out, so I'm tying and not here at fastening, not on that gather. And then to be double secure, I peel the belt away. I do an extra not just behind. So I'm doing another not here. So we've got two fastening notes. And I'll do the same when I joined the next not so I first of all peel back and I go underneath and I do a not on the belt because this is going to be hidden inside our garment. So doing a little knot here, going through the loop as we do. And then pulling on the next gather, finding that scoop through the gather, skip through the belt. And then we do one naught. So I'm just going to go through just the belt, pull through the belt and form a naught. So we've got two knots to join this new piece of thread because this gathering is going to take a lot of weight. Don't want to risk it slipping. Carrying on the same scooping and gather going along. Now it's starting to look very pretty. And we've done all the way from number one to number five. So we've done one side. So we now need to repeat from five to nine. 12. Gathering Part 2: Repeating the same process, measuring the thread from number five to number nine. Running around the garment like that. It's easy ways to measure. And then just add a bit for our big hairy knots. Doing a big hurry not on one end. And then finding number five where we just finished attaching the gathering. And we're just going to undershoot the line. So just go just behind it and start gathering with this black thread from number five to number nine, working our way around. The reason I don't gather the whole length from one to nine is don't wanna risk it snapping. So it's plenty far enough for it to travel along one side of the skirt. Don't want to do the whole amount of Snap. Extra note that you do want a strong thread for the gathering, their extra side note. There we go. We have it now running from number five to number nine. And then we can slide our fabric along the gathers to bunch it up into the sections. So working now from number five to number six in the same fashion that we have scooping under the top of the gather, under the Belt, and on and on and on till we get to number nine where we will do our fastening, not like so. And once that's false and we can cut that off. So now this is what it will look like. All of one side will be gathered. So now we need to fold the belt and match it up the same. So we do this by turning the garment inside-out. Now we're matching the number one from that side of the belt, from this other side to the other side of the skirt, say folding that checking or notches match the notch to the notch. And working our way around. We are going to pull out our gathering thread. At the end. We don't leave this in the garment. So for now let's cut our knots so that it will be easy slip through. And now we are doing two fastening knots. At the beginning. I'm working in reverse this way because I like to hold my belt on my left and my skirt on the right. So I'm now working from number nine to number one. So going down the numbers down my fastening not and making sure I've cut all the big hairy notes from all ends. So there will be four big hairy knots to remove. So just make sure you've done that so there'll be easy to slide out. And now, making sure that gathering thread is out of the way because we do want to slide it out. So it's kind of a bit tangled around here. There we go. I've worked all the way to the end now. So I've done number 9987654321. We're now at number one. And making sure we are avoiding sewing around the black thread because we want to be able to slide it out easily. So I've got to number one, right to the end, checked that my notches are matched up. And then I am doing my two fastening notes to make sure that that is really secure at the end. So there we have it, it's all gathered up. Now onto the next lesson where we are going to close the belt. 13. Sew Belt: Welcome back. In this lesson we are going to so the two ends of our belt shot before you close your belt up, do make sure you've pulled out your gathering thread. So in the previous lesson, we cut off the knots. Just make sure you've pulled it all out before we saw the belts shot. Let's get stuck in and get this belt finished. This is where we're at now. We have our skirt gathered beautifully and then we have our two ends of our belt still open like this. Now, you this is the option again, if you'd like to personally, how I like to do it is to mark the one centimeter seam allowance on the outside of the belt on what will be the right side of the fabric. Drawing that one centimeter all the way around. Or the three sides of the belt. Then using something straight to draw along those lines. So you have what looks like this. All three sides marked out with the seam allowance. And then what we're going to do is we're going to fold it like this. So both of these seam allowances fold in. And then we join them together. This falls like this, join it to like this, and it will look like that. Lovely, neat edge. And then when we get to the end of the belt, we can fold it like this. So we fold the end of the belt down, fold it in half, and then fold the sides down. We get a slightly bulky but at the end there, but it's so mildly bulky, that's not a problem. This belt can slip and it's very easy to get wonky. So what you can do, I'm showing you here on my check skirt, you can run a basting stitch along to join your belt so that you know that it's even the whole way along. Once you're confident that it looks good, the other thing you could do is iron it or use pins. I'm not into pins, but you could pin it to make sure it all lined up. Okay. And then we're doing a similar version again to the Fell stitch to join these two pieces together. So we scoop under. We go up two or three mill, and then we come out down where we came in at an angle two to three millimeters and round. And this forms a really lovely, neat stitches, almost invisible when you use a thread that's the same color as the fabric, you won't be able to see it and it will just look perfectly joined together. In this case, I'm just rolling the fabric and joining it as I go. I wouldn't really advise this because when I have done it in the past, they have slipped and then I get to the end of the belt and it's very wonky. And that's very hard to correct. And often you have to go back and undo a lot of your work. And that is why it's a good idea to do that base sting or ironing or pinning to make sure your belt is nice and even all the way to the end. So working along with my Fell stitch along the belt, we nearly at the end. Now. You can fold it as I did before or like this where you fold the end down that way. So either way there's gonna be a slightly more bumpy bit, but you can hide it with your stitches, so that's okay. So I've done it on the side here now rather than at the end. Just making sure it's nice and secure and then tucking it in nice and neat. And then going through all, first of all, just the top two layers in a sort of way to hide it. And then we will need to go through all four just to make sure it's really secure and that that is not going to come loose. When we wash and wear our garment. Attaching that, I also like to to make sure that this bit is secure is that when I get right to the corner, which we are just approaching now. So one more stitch to get to the corner. And that corner stitch for me I do as a not just so I'm confident that that is all really secure there. So there's that fastening not then we've got lovely straight line at the top, working along exactly the same with the Fell stitch. Pressing and squeezing as we go, looking so neat. Now we're right at the end doing a fastening. Not. Then we will make that thread disappear into the belt by pushing it back in. Then the needle will peek back out somewhere else. And that is where we will cut our thread so that all thread has disappeared. There we go. Look how nice that is. I have been practicing awhile, so mine is particularly neat, uneven. But you will get to this level the more you practice. And at the end. So we now need to repeat that on the other end of the belt so that both the belt ends are finished. And then I will see you in the next lesson. 14. Felled Hem: Welcome back. In this lesson we are going to finish our hem. This to me is very satisfying step because we're right at the end and it just gives our garment that extra sparkle. You might decide to have a really narrow him like I did on my skirts, or a small rolled hem, which is about a centimeter long. Or you might want a bit more of a statement Hen like I used on willows skirt, which is about five centimeters. So now you've decided if you're going to have a small hand or a bit of a wider him. Let's get stuck into this lesson where we are going to help us get. Here. We have our skirt with a little mark to indicate what length we would like our skirt to be at the end. I tried the skirt on Willow and mark that dot on there. So I knew you might prefer a smaller him with my skirts. I just did something like this. I just rolled a very small amount up and then treat it like a felled seam. But in this case we're doing a bit of a wider one. I want to fold it like so. So we've got nice big structured him. I measure how much I'm taking off and it is six centimeters so that I can keep my hen even all the way around. I'm drawing dots at six centimeters all the way around the skirt. I would recommend joining these dots up with a ruler so you have a straight line to follow. I didn't do it in this case, but I think it would make your life much easier if you had the line to follow. Because then what we do when we fold it, I'm folding it once on the lovely neat dots to make straight line. And then I'm going to talk about other bit under. You can use your fingers to press this. Might even want to use an iron ore, as discussed at the beginning of this class, you might like to use pins, whatever suits you best to hold this in place neatly as you work. Also normalized based it as I did with the belt. So securing that in place, checking the line is straight. These final touches do make all the difference. So I'm using my fingers to press it is an example of basting on the belt again, if that's what you might like to do with the hem based all the way along it so that, you know, it's held even. Starting at one of the scenes. We're going to fasten off thread on there. And we do that by pulling a good old fastening not so we're gonna do one underneath in the seam, underneath one naught. So that's secure. And then once we've got that, then we're going to just double-check. This seems all lined up straight. And then we're going to attach the scene with another not. So there we go. We've got two fastening, not Swiss definitely secure. Want to make sure that hymn stays up. And then we start working around with all fell stitch, which means we scoop a couple of threads and then come through and angle about 22 to three millimeters away. Here it is again close up. So pulling a couple of threads through, going in at a time, in at an angle. And working like this the whole way around the hem. Scoop a little bit, come in at an angle. There we go. Like lots of this project. The more you do it, the better you get and the more even you get. I'm just making sure as I go along that the dots are still at the end and that it's nice and straight because I didn't in this case based it will use pins, but I would recommend that working all the way around, eventually getting to the end and tying a knot. Let's do two knots again to be extra secure. If your thread doesn't make it all the way around, go back to the felled seam video and watch that and that will show you how to rejoin when you're failing. In this case, my one thread made it all the way around. So I'm now pulling it out and cutting it. So that is all our sewing done, well done us now onto the next lesson where we're going to do a few more final touches and finish our garment. See you in the next lesson. 15. Finishing and Well Done: Before we say big, well-done for finishing, there's a few final touches that we can do. The first one is just checking for loose threads. So as we worked on this, we cut the threads off, but you might have missed one or two. Just going around and noticing if there's any threads or any other fabric remnants. I was working on that red skirt as well, so ended up with a few flecks of that. Then we press it when we INR garment, it really finishes it off and makes it pop because I use the ion off markings. I now go round and just make sure all the markings are removed. You see there than just disappearing with the heat. And then making sure our Hen is nice and crisp and ironing the whole skirt. Once you've tidied up your garment and ironed it, then you are finished, so well done for finishing your skirt, that is a real achievement. It's now time to celebrate yourself and reflect on the process. How can you celebrate yourself? You might like to wear your skirt to a party or to a picnic to show it off. Or you might even like to arrange a friend or family member to take some photos of you so that you can show your skirt off. And it's also really useful to reflect on the process. What bits did you find hard? What bits did you find easy? What would you change next time? What did you learn? Would you make any adjustments which you make the skirts shorter, longer? Would you make the belt narrower or wider, longer, shorter. All these decisions that we made the first time we made the skirt, we might make it different next time. So for example, with me, I, after I made the Red Scare, I decided I wanted to make the bell even longer. So I did that for the blue sky. I made a much longer belt. The other thing I did was I adjusted the techniques. I mentioned during the belt class that the, the two fabrics can easily slide and then your belt can go wonky. So when I did the blue skirt, I made sure that I pasted along the length of the belt, so I definitely got that straight rather than a twisted twisted belt. I also made sure that I noted down my measurements and my calculations. And then when I got to the end, any adjustments that I made during the process. So maybe I decided I was going to cut it that long, but then actually ended up getting quite a bit longer, just making a note of that so that when you go back to remake the skirt, you've got everything easy to look at and easy to understand for making it next time. Because previously I was in the habit of making these half scribbled notes all a big messy piece of paper and I go back, I don't know what it says. So make neat notes. So when you go back, I want to make a future Garmin. It's nice and simple and easy, elegant efficiency. So now we've celebrated ourselves, celebrated our lovely skirt that we've made, and we've reflected on the process. It's time to say goodbye. Thank you so much for taking part in this class with me. Skillshare is all about community. So let's make sure that we connect. If you have any questions, you can head to the discussion tab and ask me any questions that you like. And there'll be answered by me or other students. I would love to see what you've made. So share a photo of your skirt in the project section and if you're going to upload it to social media as well, do make sure you tag me so that I can see what you've made. Tag me at lower lamb or hashtag folk sewing with Laura. It also really helped me if you write a review, if you've enjoyed this class, do pop a review. In the review section, you can visit my teacher page where you'll find out about other classes I have on offer and be first to hear about new classes that I'm making on my teacher page that also links to my social media, my website and my email list. I send out a friendly e-mail about once or twice a month with all the projects I'm working on and what's inspiring me. That'd be a lovely way to stay in touch ME. The magical of sewing bring more peace, patients, intention, and beauty into your life. Thank you so much for watching.