Learn to sew your own Lingerie - Materials (Class 1 of 4)

1. Learn to sew your own Lingerie Class 1 intro: Imagine this morning going into your laundry drawer. You're not feeling disappointed, you're not feeling drained of what you're going to pick to wear because you've actually created your own laundrie and you know you feel so comfortable in it. You feel yourself in it, and you don't have to worry about going to the shops, trying on 1 million different sets just to find that perfect one. Well, I have very exciting needs because you can learn to sew your own lingerie very easily. And you can start doing that right now with this class. Hi. I'm Elena. I'm a professional lingerie designer, and I have helped loads of home sewers to create their better than the shop's lingerie. I've worked with luxury lingerie brands. I worked with startup lingerie brands, niche size ranges. I even have a degree in to fashion, which we call the mica making degree. But of course, it's a lot more than that. So now I'm giving my skills to help. So it is just like you to create a perfect lingerie. So in this class, we are going to be learning the foundations. We are going to be learning the materials and the tools that you need to make your own ingre. Lingerie is a very specific niche, and it requires specific skills to be able to create linger that lasts and linger that looks professional. By the end of this class, you'll know exactly what fabrics you need for your ingre projects. You'll know how to calculate your stretched percentage, which is very important with sewing laundry, and you'll know exactly what tools and equipment you'll need, and you would have even practiced the five most common stitches in lingerie so that you feel fully confident to get started making your garments. Lingerie sewing is one of my passions. But do you know what makes you really happy is when someone messages me on Instagram and not only do they tell me with excitement that they've actually been able to make a garment, a linger garment for themselves, but that they actually can't believe how good it makes them feel, how comfortable it is. Honestly, those type of messages make me so happy, and that's exactly what I want for you, as well. So this class is perfect for beginners and hobbyists who want to start doing their own lingerie. I always say, I think anyone can make their own linger but you've got to start somewhere, right? And this is the class to do that. Now, you may be thinking, Oh, I don't know if I can do that or no, I don't have any sewing experience. Well, in this class, we're going to learn a lot about fabrics, tools, and stitches. So you're really going to be able to practice those, and I really, really encourage that before going on to making your own garments. If you feel like you don't have the space, then you may notice that my surrounding is a little bit different to most. I live on a very small narrow boat, and I have been able to create so many things on this boat. It's a very, very small space, but I have managed it, so I can promise you that you'll be able to make your own lingerie in almost any space you have. All I ask is you come to this class from an open mind and to not give up with the first hurdle. Because, honestly, being able to sew you on a lingre can actually be life changing has for me and has done many other people that I have taught as well. Throughout the course, I provided many resources for you to look through. There's lots of other knowledge that you can have a look as well to really get that foundation in. So yeah, I am super excited to have you in this class, and I can't wait for you to be as shocked and happy as other people that I have taught. 2. Tools and Equipment: So here are all the tools and equipment that you need to sew your own laundry. All of these tools and equipment I regularly use when sewing my own laundry. Firstly, we'll start off the beginning. So when you're preparing your patterns or when you're taking your measurements on your body, then you will need a tape measure. So make sure you get yourself a nice thick, long one because you don't want to measure the parts of your body and then tape measure not too long. Now there's another trick with the tape measure. These tape measures can actually stretch out. Now, I measured this one the other day and mine has actually stretched out. What you need to do to make sure that it's not stretched out, get yourself a straight ruler or you can do it on the cutting map. Do that on the cutting map and you need to measure the tape measure along the cutting mat. As you can see, this beginning bit is really wavy, that's a sign that is stretched out. Take this out of the way. And also the metal bit on the end has come off. So definitely time for me to get a new tape measure. But this is the one that you'll need. Yeah, mine is definitely about a mill and a half out. As you can see, it's all stretched on this side as well. So that's one tip for going a good tape measure that isn't stretched out. So either get a new one or just make sure the one that you have got isn't stretched out. Because when we use tape measure, especially for lingerie, we want the measurements to be precise. So when you prepare any patterns, you'll need things like possibly the glue stick or brown tape. I always find that the masking tape or the brown tape is a lot better than something like clear tape, ella tape or anything because you can actually draw over this if you need to if you're writing notes or if you're just making little adjustments or whatever you're doing on the pattern, I always find brown paper or masking tape is best to use. Then with that, you will need a pen or a pencil if you want to make any adjustments on your pattern. Then when cutting out your pattern, of course, you will need then some scissors. Make sure you get some scissors that are specifically for paper cutting because if you use your fabric scissors for the paper cutting, you are going to blunt your nice sharp fabric scissors. Definitely use the cheaper pair for the paper cutting. And I've also added in the rulers. These are mainly used for pattern cutting, but there may be times where you need to measure your pattern pieces. You can obviously do that with the tape measure if it's curve, or you can use rulers. A rulers, absolutely fine. I've just got these two because they're the ones I use. Next on to the cutting. When you're cutting out lingro patterns, the best way that I advise would be to use a rotary cutter. I advise this because it is actually a very fast way of cutting out fiddly bits. If you try and cut out, say, a bra pattern and you're using scissors and pins, it can take probably double the time than using rotary cutter and weights. For me, the cutting out is probably the part of the process that I dislike the most. I want to get that done quick and also I want to do well. Another thing with using the rotary cutter, is that usually a lot more precise because you're not having to pin the paper to the fabric, maybe perhaps stretching it differently. If you imagine pinning the paper to the fabric, it's just going to it could perhaps change it and with lingerie pattern pieces, they do need to be precise. So if you can and you are thinking of sewing lingerie on more of a long term basis, then definitely do invest in a cutting mat, something like this. This is a two size, and I find this is perfect for lingerie sewing and the rotary cutters. We've got the 28 mill here and the 45. I used to use the 45 all the time and it was fine. But then I found the 28 mill, and it was a lot easier to use. Eva is fine. If you cut other things out with the 45 mil, then just use that for laundry patterns as well. But if you do want to invest in it for laundry sewing, then the 28 mill is what I would be advised for you to get, and then you'll also need replacement blades as well. Because you do need to use rotary cutters when they're sharp because if they're not sharp, they can be well, it can be quite hard to cut your fabrics out. Before you know it, you'll be doing a workout. But obviously, it can then not cut your fabrics as clean, so if you're using some really nice delicate fabrics and it hasn't cut it clean, it could potentially pull on your fabric. And then with that, you'll need some pattern weights. These are just prim pattern weights. They're quite fun ones, and then you've got some more flat ones here. The flat ones are easier to use because you can put your hand quite flat. If you've got these in the way, you have to try and miss them as you're cutting out with the rotary cutter. These are quite good ones as well, the flat ones. But of course, if you don't want to invest in that yet, that's absolutely fine and you can definitely cut out your fabrics with pins or a marker, and fabric scissors. So so get yourself some nice fabric scissors, sharp and don't use them for anything else apart from fabric because otherwise you will blunt them and you don't want to do that if they are expensive as well. These ones are some nice sharp ones. I've never needed to sharpen these. I've had these for I don't know, at least three or four years now. These ones work really well. So nice fabric scissors. With lingerie, you don't want to big scissors because you are cutting out quite small pieces. I wouldn't actually go any bigger than this size. Um, all of the sizes, I will put in a list. Everything you need, I'll put in a list, so you don't have to re watch this video. You can just go down the list. Then with that, you'll need pins. So with the pins, I always use glass headed pins for lingerie. I don't use anything else. I find these the best pins for laundry because they are sharper. Glass headed pins are sharper. So if you are using the finer fabrics, you know that it's not going to pucker, unless they're blunt, of course, unless they're broken or blunt. Also, if you do need to iron them, you can iron over the glass, which you can't do that with the plastic ones. I always advise the glass headed pins for sewing lingerie. Then there's another way where you can actually use a marker pen. You can actually mark around your patterns with a pen. You might want some pattern weights to hold it down and you could use an erasable marker for that. It's a purple pen and over time, the pen mark disappears. But I will say, it would be okay if we cutting out your fabrics, but if you are using it for marking, on the actual fabric where you might see it. Definitely test whether that's okay to use on your fabric because sometimes it doesn't actually come out, whereas other times it disappears too quickly. Definitely just test your fabrics before you start marking them with this type of pen. Then you could also use a dressmakers pencil, but they are a little bit harder to use on jersey fabrics. When you haven't got a flat fabric, then it does tend to pull. I wouldn't advise that, but it's possible to do it that way as well. So that's three different ways you can cut out your ingre fabrics with the rotary cutter and then two with the scissors. But I of course would advise the rotary cutter method. I've just realized I forgot to talk about the notcher. When you are preparing your patterns, you might have to put notches in your patterns. This is just a little hole punch really, and it just cuts into the paper. That's where your notches. You can just use scissors if you don't have one of these. It's not essential. Okay, so next on to the sewing. As well as needing a sewing machine with the sewing machine, you will need a machine that has straight and zigzag stitch at least for sewing andre. The zigzag stitch you'll need for the elastic, so that's vital, you have to have zigzag stitches. But it doesn't really matter too much what machine you have. The more expensive machines, they are going to feel nicer to sew with and they've obviously got more functions and make things a bit more easier. But when I started off sewing my own lingerie, I had a very basic machine and I was making them to sell and they are absolutely fine. You don't need anything expensive. I have got recommendations, so I will put them on the list as well. So with the sewing machine, of course, will need all the needles. I've got my little display here of all the needles that I use. Firstly, I would say probably one of the most important one for lingerie is the stretch needles. It's not often that you make lingerie that is completely rigid or woven. The stretch needles you will definitely need. I prefer to get an assorted pack, so this one is 75 and this one's 90. The 75 is more thinner, so that's more fine fabrics like silks or lace, whereas the 90 is better for maybe doing the elastics around the leg holes or maybe slightly thicker jerseys. I prefer to get the assorted ones. Okay. Next, we have the universal 80/12. If you've been sewing before, you'll know that these are just the regular sewing machine needles, and they are obviously always handy to have. They'll just be sewing normal cottons, um, you rigid fabrics that aren't too fine and anything like that, really. Then we also have the 70/10. Which are the fine needles. For lingerie, you may well be sewing fine fabrics. If you don't use the fine needles, then you'll find that the needles do sometimes pull and you do get runs on the fabric. A 70 is definitely advisable on fine fabrics. Then I've just got this is an assortment pack here, which I quite like to use because then you've got all the different ones, the 70, 80, and the 90 all in one. Then last but not least, we've got the microtex. The microtex is a very good needle for if you are having problems, if you are finding the stretch needle isn't working or you're getting skip stitches, it basically is a very sharp needle, so it more cuts through the fabric as opposed to moving the yarns out of the way. So if you are using maybe a very dense elastic, the microtex is perfect for that. It also says it's good for microfiber, which would make sense given the name and synthetic levers, that kind of thing. It's a very sharp needle that cuts through things, but often it can solve a lot of problems. So that's just on hand that needle. And then to the Fred. Of course, you can choose your own color Fred and you can have to match, we can have to contrast. But my favorite Fred and my favorite sewing machine, Fred, is the Gutterman. My sewing machine does not sew very well if I don't use the Gutman make of sewing thread. I don't know why. It's just a fussy machine. I've always had to buy this one. So it's the polyester read that we often use in linger sewing. Because it is stronger than the cotton threads. When you're using the elastics are going to be stretching. They're going to be moving. You want something strong that's not going to break. This is the polyester Gutamen fred. Again, going back to the pins, you'll need pins or some people have clips. I don't actually use them sewa seams up, so the glass headed pins again for your seams, or you can use little clips. A few other extras. Here I've got a few more marking tools, Taylor's chalk and dressmakers pencils. I do find the tailor's chalk handy for marking notches, especially if the erasable pen doesn't work on that particular fabric, so I use the tailor's chalk to mark my notches. And then any other things you might want to have in your toolset for linger sewing, perhaps maybe smaller, some little small scissors for maybe cutting the threads because if you get a bit too scissor friendly, sometimes you can cut into your fabric, and that is very frustrating. I have actually done that before, so if your fabrics are quite large, then maybe just get some small ones to cut the threads and that kind of thing for the more of the tidying up things. So not only do we use the glue stick for the pattern pieces, but we actually use this when we are making our laundry. As we go through modules, I'll be talking about that. But yes, you can either use the glue stick or you can use 505 temporary spray glue, which is basically a can and you spray it. You can temporarily stick your material together, that would be things for cutting out linings, and obviously, I will explain that as we get onto it. You might want to get the glut some really handy things you can do with the glue stick that's going to help you in the linger sewing. The other thing you might want to use is an iron. Now, we don't actually use irons too much in linger sewing. You just don't find that you need to iron the type of fabrics that we use. But sometimes they are definitely handy to have. If you've got an iron on hand, that's also a good idea as well. But it's not an essential thing for sewing laundry. 3. Fabrics and Elastics Analysis Skill Share: So when you start to make your own laundrie, the best thing you can do is to get really familiar with all the fabrics so you're going to use. You don't want to buy the fabrics and then just start sewing. Because you're not familiar with the fabric, you might find the sewing stressful because you don't have experience with sewing that type of fabric. The best thing you can do is to know your fabrics really well. Because once you know them, you know how they're going to react. You know in certain ways you might have to sew them slightly differently. This is what I always say is know your fabrics, get really familiar with them. I have created a fabrics dictionary and an elastics dictionary. You can print these out, and I've put some examples at the beginning to show you the kind fabric qualities that we need to be aware of when we're assessing the fabric. So so here you can put your own one in. There's also blank sheets as well, so you can fill in your own. Let's start with the fabrics for. Firstly, let's look at the fabric. If you know where you got it from, and usually it has a lot of the specifications on it as well. Usually say the fiber. Obviously, it'll say what type of fabric it is. It won't say everything on it, but it'll say a few things and then also you can also write down in the notes area that I've put on the fabric dictionary about where you got it from, what price you paid for it and all of that just so that you can refer to it if you need any more or if you just want to know how much it was to work out costs, et cetera. So the things we are going to be looking at. Firstly, fabric and fiber. This is a woven cotton. So it's woven. So we've got a weft and a warp yarn, which then creates the woven material. And then also this is a cotton material. So if the supplier should always say what it is made out of, sometimes it doesn't because it's either dead stock or you've got it from the charity shop or something like that. But you can actually do a burn test to see whether it is natural. Usually with natural fibers, it burns and with synthetic fibers, it melts and it also smells really bad. That's one test that you can do, but you only need to do that if you don't know what the fiber is. So so that's that. We've got stretch or rigid. Obviously this is rigid, doesn't stretch in any way, apart from the bias, but that is usual for woven cotton fabrics. Then we've got the stretch percentage, so that's not applicable, stretch retention, not applicable. With those two, I actually go a lot more in depth on another tutorial, I won't go into those on this one, but you can find those on the other one in this module as well. And then we've also got weight. Sometimes they do actually say what weight they are. Usually with jersey, it specifies, especially if you're buying it offline because you need to know if it's kind of the weight of it. Sometimes you think you buy a jersey offline and you realize it's really thick. So they do often put it on jerseys online. So here, obviously don't I don't know the weight of this one. So um I've put a light to medium weight because this is a light medium weight. So some of these, you have to make your own judgment. And when you compound a lot of fabrics, you can then make that judgment as well because you can make the comparison. Then also, another thing that you want to write down is what is it best used for? For instance, for this one, but panels and stretch knickers, main fabric and rigid neckers, cups and underband and bras or bralets. This wouldn't work for the back band of bras because the backbnd needs to stretch and this does not unless you specifically had a pattern where you don't use a stretch back band, but they are quite uncommon these days. That's more of a vintage style br. So let's go through another one. Here we go. Let's go to the jersey. Here we have a knitted organic cotton with elastin. I know this is an organic cotton because the supplier that I brought it off has stated that it is organic cotton. I can see that it's knitted. I can just make a visual evaluation of that. Obviously, it has stretched to it because it has the elastine in and I can see that by stretch out. Then the stretch percentage. I said 50% on main stretch and 20% least stretch. In the other tutorial, I'll go through all of that and how you work that out. And then the stretch retention, I've put medium to good because it's not the best stretch retention, but it's fairly good because it has the elastin in and it's certainly fine for lingerie garments. Then we've got a medium weight. This isn't super fine jersey. I do have a bamboo jersey that I would say that would be a light weight jersey, but this has a little bit of thickness to it, so medium weight for this one. So some of them, you know, they're factual and some of them you have to make your own decision comparing to other fabrics. When you start comparing to other fabrics, you really get to understand the fabrics and the way way they feel and all the characteristics to them as well. If there's a particularly tricky one or I don't know if it's particularly slippery or something, you can put in the notes, particularly slippery to sew with. I need to be really careful when sewing this or something like that. That's why I put the notes section in. Drape This is just an average drape. It doesn't drape really floaty. The drape is when you hold it up how nicely does it fall. So this don't think I went through that I missed the Drake one on this one by accident. That really holds its shape. It's really crispy and that can be a good thing if you want to make more three D designs, but also it can be a bad thing because it wouldn't look very nice for instance, say a circle skirt or something where you need it really floaty. It would puff out everywhere, if that's what you want, but at least if you write it down, then you know. So yeah, this is just an average drape, what I would expect for a jersey, really. Then best used for this is best used for knickers, or round in braleNs lining for bras, it needs lining in bras because bras usually have rigid fronts. So the cups and the underband use rigid fabrics. So that would need lining or if you're using a pattern specifically made. For stretch fabrics, but it would be more suitable for bralets because they are more soft fitting and have more flexibility, which this then creates as well. If we go on to next one. We've got a wide lace trim here. You can also measure this and put in the width of it as well. That's really useful to know because on certain pans, you'll need specific widths of wide lace trim. If you put that in the notes or wherever you want to put it. Nine on elastin, I know this is nine on elastine because that's what it said on the supplier website and I can tell by experience, that's also that stretch and then we've got 30% direction of gross stretch, so so with the lace trim, I don't put the stretch on that because it doesn't really stretch. It's a give, which means it's more of a mechanical stretch, but it doesn't actually stretch where this one actually rebounds back. So, the light weight is a really nice weight. It a nice soft drape. This is a really nice drape. Um, so this falls really nicely, slinky. Best use for Kickers brats, needs lining for bras. Because it's quite a soft lace and obviously it has stretch as well. It will need a lining for bras. With bras, you need more support in the cups, especially and usually the front band as well because it's quite light and it's quite stretchy, then you're not going to get that support, so that would need to be lined for bra. I've just put where I bought it from, how much it was, and I've also work really well for dream knickers because I was just thinking, these would be absolutely lovely for some really nice dream knickers. Then very similar on the power mesh as well. Knitted power mesh, Nylastin stretch. I've also put the main stretch and the lease stretch. With the stretch retention, I've said that it's good to excellence. Power mesh and power net. Usually, if it's made for laundre purposes, if it's a good one made for laundre purposes, it has a very good stretch retention. That's why it just works so well for andre because it grabs to the contours of the body. So I've put light to medium weight. This isn't the lightest power mesh you can get. You can get thinner ones than this, but it's a light to medium, the drape is really nice. Drape this falls really nicely. That would definitely for a circle skirt that would fall really nicely and then can be used for knickers or round umbrellas, backbands in bras. I've also put where I've brought it from and how much it was as well. So a similar thing for the elastics dictionary. There's a few different things, different things are more important for the elastics. Again, we've got fabric and fiber. We've got how much it stretches by obviously, there'll only be one way it's stretches. We've got stretch retention, something like the Brass strap elastic, what we've got here. The stretch retention is usually really good on them and you can see it it comes in straightaway this one is just a little bit looser. Because of that, we know that this elastic here is suitable for brass straps because elastics that have good stretch retention need to be used in areas with a lot of pressure. So Areas we have a lot of pressure on is the shoulder straps and also the underband of bras as well. Then if you put down the width as well, and I always write down the width of the so part of the elastic, you can write down the width of the decorative edge as well. Visual quality is soft with decorative edge. With elastic, she'll get a plush elastic, which means it's slightly brushed. Then also you'll either get a plain side or you'll get a shiny side. This one's got shininess to it and this one's got a plush side, whereas this one is completely plush or it's plain. It's plush on the decorative edge and then plain on the so part. Then this one here is plain on this side and shiny on this side. All of these things we really good to write down. Then we've got the same, best used for. For instance, this one here is best used for kicker leg holes and waist, Bolets and neck lines because this is a knitted elastic. It's not as stable as something like the woven elastic. This one is the woven elastic. You can see it's a lot more denser and doesn't stretch as far. So I won't go through all of that again. I can get the general gist of it. Here that's how we analyze our different fabrics. If you create a elastics and fabrics dictionary, before you know it, you're going to get to know your elastics and fabrics really well and you're going to know what they're suitable for, but also why they're suitable for it and if there are any nuances in the fabric. For instance, is if it is a fabric, say a brass strap fabric, for instance, and usually it would work well for brass straps. But because it has a particular type of perhaps decoration, it isn't as strong or something like that, then you can write that down in a dictionary. Then you know actually that elastic isn't quite as strong as what the other ones would be, I need to make allowances for that. Then that's the same goes with the fabric as well. So yeah, if you start printing these off and start building up your dictionaries, then by the time you come to sew your actual garments, you'll be a whiz on lingerie, fabrics, and elastics. 4. Stretch Percentage Skill share: So with lingrsewing, you will be working with a variety of different types of fabrics. You'll be working with rigid or woven fabrics and you'll be working with stretch fabrics. Stretch fabrics are used for knickers, brats, usually the back bands of wired bras and also in a lot of other garments as well. So you have to really get familiar with the stretch percentage of your fabric that you're using. For instance, if you're using a pattern, so if you're using a Nia pattern, and it says she used stretch fabrics and it says to use 50% stretch fabric. Then you have to use a 50% stretch fabric for that pattern, otherwise, the fit will be off. If you are using 100% stretch fabric for that pattern and it needs 50%, then the garment is going to be too big. If you use 20% stretch fabric, and again, it needs to be 50%, then it's going to be too tight. You have to use the right stretch percentage for the pattern that you are using. So to work that out is actually really simple. If you get yourself a ruler, then have the stretch fabric that you've got. Here, this is a power mesh fabric. You don't have to cut anything out because you can simply hold it with your hand. If you hold one at zero, and then if you hold your other hand, your other thumb, at ten. Then also if you make sure that you hold the fabric down with your fingers as well. Basically, what you want is a ten centimeter square piece of fabric that you are stretching out. Don't just hold it from the top bit because that cannot be as precise. Make sure you hold it all the way down with your fingers and your thumb your thumb at zero, your thumb at ten. Then what you need to do is pull this hand out to probably the most stretch that your fabric will stretch to. Overstretch it, don't stretch it too far, but just the point where it's like, that's not really going to go much further than that. Mine is coming to 15 centimeters. So it's stretched from 10 centimeters to 15 centimeters. How we then work out what that stretch percentage is? Every mill above 10 centimeters will be 1% stretch. If we stretch it to 11 centimeters, that's ten mils, so that's 10% stretch. If we stretch it to 12 centimeters, that's 20 mils, that's 20% stretch. Then like this one, we've just stretch it 215. So that's 50 mil, so that's 50% stretch. When you're measuring the stretch of a fabric, you also need to measure it in both directions. This would actually be the main stretch that we've just measured. The main stretch is the most or the direction of greater stretch on this fabric. Then the other way does also have some stretches, we can see as well, but it's not going to be as much. When you're working out what fabrics to use for your project, you need to know the quality of whether it stretches in both ways and whether one way is less than the other, and then obviously how much it stretches by as well. So if the pattern that you're using advises you to use a fabric that stretches in both ways, that would mean that this way would stretch and then also this way would stretch. However, some fabrics don't stretch in both ways. Sometimes they only stretch in one way. You need to bear that in mind with your pattern and whether that's going to affect your fit as well. So to measure the other way, you do it in the exact same way that we've just done it. Hold at zero and then hold at ten. And then pull it out. Stretching to 14 centimeters that would be stretch. This way of the fabric stretches 40% and then this way stretches 50%. We know that this way is the main stretch or the direction of greater stretch. I do actually have some fabric that only stretches one way, it stretches this way. But it doesn't stretch that way. Usually, the main stretch will be going around the body, and then the other way will be going on the length of the body. If these were, for instance, highway snickers or something, you might find that they fit really well around the circumference of the body, but you might find that they don't come up quite as high as they should do because it's not a four way stretch fabric. I also want to mention another term, it's called stretch retention. The stretch is when you pull out. But the retention is how it rebounds. I've stretched it out and then it really feels like it wants to come back in. That is the stretch retention. Most stretch fabrics that you will use in lingerie need to have a good stretch retention. If I'm using a fabric, I've stretched it out and it stays out or doesn't rebound very quickly, then it's probably not going to be a very good fabric for lingerie purposes. So also with lingerie, you'll be using a lot of elastics. Now usually on the pattern, sometimes this isn't specified, but there are industry standards to the different types of elastic used for different purposes in lingerie. We'll be talking about that throughout the course, don't worry about that yet, but the same principle applies to working out your stretch. Percentage with the elastic, you hold it zero, you hold it ten stretch out as far as it can go. That's about 17.5 centimeters. That would be 75 stretch percentage. Then you can also assess the stretch retention as well. This one's got really good stretch retention. That's just a really simple method of working out your stretch percentages so you make sure you're using the right fabrics for the pattern you're using. 5. Choosing the right needles Skills share: So I've spoken about in the tools and equipment video about all the different needles for the sewing machine that you'll need when sewing lingerie. I'm just going to go in a bit more detail of how to choose the correct needles. So the first thing you want to analyze is what is the fabric you are using? If you are using a woven fabric or if you are using a stretch fabric, then you're going to need two different types of needles for them. For the woven and rigid fabrics, you'll need the universal style needle. But if you're using Stretch fabrics, you'll need the stretch needles. Then after that, you need to analyze the fabric. There's another tutorial on this where we go through and properly analyze the fabrics. But you can quite easily see this fabric here, the stretch lace is very thin. It has lots of holes in it as opposed to this stretch fabric here, which is the jersey, which doesn't have any holes in it, and it's a bit thicker. So firstly, you've identified that it will need a stretch needle. These are the stretch needles. Then I've also got an assorted stretch needles. The 75 is a finer needle for fine to medium weight fabrics, and the 90 is a thicker needle for thicker weight fabrics. Okay. Firstly, we've identified that this is a fine holy fabric. So the first four is a stretch 75 would be perfect for this fabric. Then the stretch 75 would also be perfect for the more medium weight fabric because it's not a thick jersey or it's not very dense either. So the 75 stretch would be perfect for these two fabrics. If we go onto the rigid and woven fabrics. If we go onto the universal needles, here we have a woven fabric that has no stretch in it, and it's light to medium weight. It's not a very fine fabric. Something like this would be very fine. This is a tue, so it is very fine. And obviously has a lot of transparency. You would need the universal need for the woven and rigid fabrics, but you would the two different sizes. For the woven, you would use the 80/12 needle and for the fine tule here, you would use the 70/10 needle here. The 70/10 is a finer needle for fine fabrics and the 80 is a needle for medium weight, rigid and woven fabrics. But assessing the fabric isn't the only thing that we need to look at. We also need to look at the application that we're doing. There's different applications in linger sewing, there's seam sewing, there's elastic application, and then there's also things such as putting hook hook and eye fasteners like this onto the bra backs, strap application. The straps of bras and also doing the underwire casing. Let's just take that a bit further. I've got an example of a wired bra here. For the seam in the center here, you would use either fine universal needle or an 80 medium weight needle. Because of the two layers, you might find that the 80 is okay, or you might find that it seems to be dragging the fabric under the machine bed too much, in which case you would then use the 70 needle. That would be on the seams. For the elastic application, you would need the stretch needle. So the 75 stretch would be absolutely fine for the top and the bottom would be fine. If you find that the stitches are skipping, then you might want to go up to the 90 something on the underband on this particular type of underband elastic. But then if we turn it around, we can see we've got the underwire casing and we've also got the hook and eyes. For the hook and eyes and the underwire casing, we need to use the universal needles. But not only do we need to use the universal needles, we also need to use a thicker density needle. We would need to use the 90, there is a 90 in here. I've got an assortment collection here. The 90 is a thicker needle. Because the underwire casing can be quite thick and quite dense to get through, you find that if you don't use thick enough needle, you will get skip stitches, which is one of the most common problems people have when stitching underwire casing. For the underwire casing application and the hook and eyes, where we do a zigzag stitch here, you would use the 90 universal needle because again, the hook and eyes are quite dense. You've got a lot of layers of fabric going through that. At the top, we have the strap. The strap can be a very thick piece of fabric to get your needle through. Again, that's when I would advise the 90. You could either use the 90 universal. If that's what you've got in your machine, we could use the 90 stretch. Because of how it's sewn, we're not actually utilizing the stretch of the elastic, it's all becoming rigid anyway. There's no movement. Sometimes if you've already got a needle on your machine, you don't want to keep changing needles all the time, then you can get away with using a slightly different needle that isn't quite perfect for it and it will work just fine, but sometimes it won't. Those are the two questions we need to ask ourselves before we sew a lingerie garment. What's the fabric and what's the application? 6. 5 most common stitches skill share: So just like the needles, when we're choosing what stitches we need in lingro sewing, we need to ask the same questions. Firstly, what is the fabric, and secondly, what is the application? So there are five common stitches used in lingr sewing and some of them are for more of the application and some of them are more for the fabrics that we're using. I'm just going to go through those and show you the stitches that we'll be using. It'll be a really good idea if you could start practicing now, start getting familiar with the fabrics and the different stitches and the needles that you'll need before we get into sewing the garments because then you'll have practice and you'll have experience with what you're going to use before you start doing it. Firstly, we have the waven cotton. As we know, with the wave and cotton, we are going to use the 80 universal needles. These ones. I've already put one in the machine. Firstly, we're just going to practice the most basic stitch that we use in ingr sewing, which is the straight stitch. Or if you have an industrial machine, it's called a lock stitch machine, and it's basically ugly. It's exactly the same. It's just a straight stitch. Mainly just used for seams and top stitching and basting. The basting stitch is a slightly different stitch, and we're going to go on to that in a minute. So firstly, let's look at the straight stitch. So turn the machine on. Firstly, we're just going to do a straight stitch as if we were doing a seam in a garment. For instance, this will be more likely used on bra cup seams. The standard size for seam allowces in lingerie is 5-6 mil. I'm going to use six mill seam allowance. For this one? So let's turn that around and we're just simply going to do a straight stitch. Now, I prefer to have my needle position in the center of the foot here. When when I first put it on, it is on the slightly left, but I prefer a center precision, so I'm going to move that. So for the six mill, take your tape measure and then line up the tape measure either on the zero or at the centimeter. I prefer to do it at the centimeter because the zero doesn't really exist too well on my tape measure. Then see where six mills. Using the central line where it's going to stitch, I can see I have put the fabric in the exact position. For my foot that I'm using, which is just a standard foot, the fabric is in the middle of the last metal bit of the foot here. Now I know where my fabric needs to be for the seam allowance, I can then sew that. If you do need a bit of extra help with keeping the seam allowances, six mill then you can always put a bit of tape here and run it just along here, and then you know that the fabric just runs along the tape so you don't have to think about it too much. Let's just start. I'll just finish that. As you can see, it created a nice six mill seam allowance. The ideal length for the straight stitch would be between 2.5, 2.5 and three on your machine. Using a fabric like this is quite easy to use. It's quite big and friendly. There's no slipperiness. It's not too thin, it's not going to be dragged under the machine or anything. So, that's the straight stitch. Then whilst we're at it, we'll do the basting stitch. The basting stitch is a temporary stitch that we use to hold layers together before we then use a final stitch later on to hold it down permanently. The basting stitch is designed to be taken out. Again, it's a straight stitch, but it's just a longer straight stitch. If I just increase the length here, I would advise between 3.5 and four length on your sewing machine. If we just. And there we go, you can see the Tuteav turn that round, can see the stitch length is a lot longer. So if you need to unpick that, it would be a lot easier to unpick. We'll be using the basting stitch when we get onto Module three in the Bolt sewing. I'll be talking a lot more about that then. Okay, now we've got the jersey, as this is a stretch fabric, we need to the stretch needles. I've put in a 75 stretch needle in the machine already. So we diving seams with stretch fabrics. You unfortunately can't use the straight stitch, although it's very easy stitch, you can't really use it on seams that need to stretch because the straight stitch will stop the stretch. Then what will end up happening is if it's under a lot of pressure, the thread will snap and you will have a hole in your garment. You have to use a stitch that will stretch with the fabric. So I just also say you can use overlook an overlooker or serger for stretch seams because if you adjust the settings on them, it can allow the fabric to stretch. So if you have an overlooker you can use that, but we're not going to go into the overlooker in this course. We're going to concentrate on the domestic machine. If I want to create a seam with the knitted jersey, I would use the zigzag stitch. The zigzag stitch allows the fabric to stretch. So let's pretend we're doing a seam, let's take that to the machine. Again, we want to six mil and then we are going to put the zigzag stitch on the machines. So for the zigzag stitch, I would advise quite a small stitch when doing seams. And the reason that is because if your zigzag stitch is too big, it's too wide, the length is too long. When we pull it around the right way, you'll be able to see kind of holes in the stitching line. I'll show you that when I've done the stitch and also you're more likely to see the thread as well coming through. So I've put this on a three width and a two length. Another thing to note is that because the zigzag it's a stitch that has width, you need to allow that in the seam allowance. Instead of lining up my fabric in the center of this metal part of the foot here like I did with the straight stitch, I need to line it up. This is just a little guess. But from experience, I know that I need to line it up more with the start of the metal part of the foot here. Then if you want to make sure that six mill, again, you can measure it. You can do that within the first few stitches just to make sure you've got the right whip, yeah, that's six mill on that one. Here we go. If I stretch that out, you can see it stretches. And then on the white, probably see that better there we go. Then if we open it up, so this would be the right way, you can see, obviously that's the loose stitch at the bottom. It's not too bad, that's actually not too bad. What can happen, like I said, is that you can see sometimes the threads because of the long length of the zigzag stitch. Now, You can make the length shorter, but what often happens is the seam stretches out more. So there's kind of a fine balance with this act stitch. If you go too small, things will be super wavy. That means the fabric has been stretched out. You have to find a fine balance. I don't think that's too bad. There is a slight wave on that, but when that's in a garment, it will be absolutely fine. Um, this one I done before and it's a bit more of a wave. The length on this one was two. The length on this one was 1.8, as you can see, it's just a bit more of a wave. But then, like I said, if you go too long, you're more likely to. See the little gaps here. If your seam isn't under too much pressure, if it doesn't need to stretch too much, you can use a long straight stitch, basically a basing stitch alongside the straight stitch, but be aware it does reduce the stretch. So if there's anything where the seam does need to stretch out a lot, then I wouldn't advise to use it was a sha, what I would do. So you can get away with this for the side seams and knickers, especially the more shorter ones as well. Sometimes you have to just play around and see what works best for you. Let's put this on the straight stitch. I'm going to put it up to a 3.5 length, so not quite as long as the basin stitch. Then all I'm going to do is just create a straight stitch alongside the zigzag. Now, while I think about it, there is actually a stitch on my machine that is like that. I could potentially use that as well. Perhaps I'll show you that after actually. No, not all machines will have that. So if you don't, don't worry about that. It's actually easier to see on that side, as you can see, but it has reduced the stretch. Only use on seams that don't need to stretch a lot. But what it has done has reduced the thread coming through on that side. So let's have a go this stitch on my machine. I didn't plan to do this, by the way. I just thought, maybe I'll show you a now. Let's have a go. Um, but smaller. I haven't figured the settings out for this, so we'll see how it goes. I think this is actually a hemming stitch. Takes a bit of a while actually. Max isn't the best one to use. Ah, yeah. Yeah. See, I actually used this stitch when I made a swimming cushion. I made a swimming cushion on my domestic machine. I didn't use the overlocker it's possible to do that as well, by the way. Yeah, that stretches. Let's have a look at the other side. That's good. That's not too bad. If your machine has that, then you could use that. It has more stretch. Actually, it has about the same. Maybe a tiny bit more stretch than the one I done. The seam hasn't waived or anything, so that's quite good. That could be an option if you do have that stitch. One, I don't know what the stitch is called. I can't remember, but on mine, it's number six. It's basically a straight stitch down this side and a zigzag on that side. So the next stitch we are going to look at is the three step zig zag. It's like the zig zag, but it has three steps to it. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, it's actually really quite secure stitch and it does allow the seams to stretch as well. The only problem is, it is quite a long stitch. So if you did use that in the seams, like we just done, you would have quite big gaps. Actually, I did just try it so I can show you. This is the three step zigzag. And it does stretch, though again. But as you can see, has this. It's quite pretty, actually. If you want that look, you could use that for a seam. But yeah, this is actually really quite secure stitch. The places we would use that usually on making lingerie is either lace top stitching, which I'm going to show you now. Or when we're doing the elastic application, and it's the same with the zigzag as well. We use the three step zigzag and the zigzag stitch for the elastic application, which we will be going through in the next module. So because I'm using the stretch fabrics, I've got 75 still in. What we're going to do is we're going to top stitch this lace to this jersey and we're going to be using the three step zigzag. I'll tell you why I prefer to use the three steps ziag as opposed to the zigzag when I've stitched it. My stitch width is five, my stitch length is 1.4. All I'm going to do is attach the lace onto the jersey. It's more of a top stitch seam. We just placing the fabrics on top of each other. You can also do this with raw edges as well and you can go right to the edge. We'll try that actually. I'll line my needle. Actually, my needle is already on the far right, so that's really handy. But you can line your needle up so that it's the furthest that it is going to go to align with the edge of the fabric. There we go. As you can see, that's top stitched on because of how secure the stitches, you can trim away the excess and you can actually leave it like that if you just use the single zigzag stitch, it's much more likely that the fabric isn't going to hold under pressure. If you pulled it out, it would probably come away. The other reason why I prefer the festep zigzag stitch for this application, it's you find the zigzag stitch can often bunch the fabric up. There's a little tube of fabric like that, which isn't obviously what you want at all. I find the three step zigzag definitely better to use for this application. The three step zigzag is perfect for this because it doesn't do that. It allows the stretch. It's all really nicely secure, proper stretching that out. You can see that's not coming away. That's a really good stitch to use. So the last stitch we commonly use in laundry sewing is called the Br tax stitch. The bartex stitch is only used for a certain few applications. It's a top stitch to keep things in place. When we do the seams in the kicker sewing, we'll be sewing the seams flat. So they don't flop around underneath with the bartex stitch. Then also in industry, it's also used for the top stitching for the strap application. What is the bartex stitch? Basically, it's just a really short length zigzag. That's literally all it is. I don't know if you've had a satin stitch, but that's really tight. It's like the stitches are basically touching, but this one is just a tiny bit further away, and it just creates a really dense, strong stitch. Now I would actually say this is probably the hardest stitch to use in linger sewing, and it's more likely you might be fighting with your machine with this stitch a bit. That's because there's so many layers to sew when you use this stitch and it's such a dense stitch. The combination of the both makes it quite a tricky stitch. But there are ways that we can make it easier for ourselves, which we'll go through when we actually sew the garments because it will be easier to show you than. Let's just do something that would resemble a baar tech stitch on this jersey fabric here. So I'm going to put the zigzag stitch on my machine. The width isn't usually very big, so I'm putting mine on 3.5 to start with. But it's the length that needs to be quite small. Now, I don't like to go any smaller than a 1.2 because that's when you can start fighting with your machine. See, in industry, they have a specific machine that is called the bar tech machine, and it just whizzes it. I've seen it done before and it's really quite amazing. Wow, how did that just do that so easily? Um and obviously, that's really dense, but that's what those machines are made for. If you ever get to look at an industrial machine and you see how well they sew, you'll be amazed. And you'll be like, Oh, my God, why haven't I got one of these? So yeah, they are really quite interesting to see when they're being used. So let's try this one. So I've doubled it over because with a bar tack, like I said, it is more you use more layers. It's actually probably would be thicker than this, but we're only working with the fabric just to show you how it goes. So this. And another thing, it would be a very short stitch. You wouldn't do it any longer from that anyway. There we go, the white shows a bit better. So that kind of resembles the Bar tech stitch. I would say that's still a bit long in the length. We could go down one more, try one more. I'll go I've taken the length down to one instead of 1.2. Are we gay. So that is basically the bar tack stitch. And as you can imagine, if you are sewing something really thick, that is going to be quite tricky to do. But it's not impossible. We can do it, and I'm going to show you some really good tips as well as we go through. So as you can see, it's a really dense stitch. It holds the fabric in place really well. Once you use the Bar tax stitch, you won't be able to move the fabric like that staying where it is. Four T four layers are staying where they are. It's a very secure stitch.