The content of the "sewing tips" posts I'll be sharing might seem like "duh" information to someone who has been sewing for years. Or for someone who has been sewing for year. But let's face it, we all start somewhere. There are things that I just did not know when I first started sewing things, and knowing those things would have made a tremendous difference in my finished projects. (Also, apologies for the weird spacing and layout in this post. Something went a little wild with the photo uploads and I don't know how to fix it!)
For this first round of tips, I want to talk about pinning, and more specifically, pinning together the layers in cloth pads. These have lots of thick layers that tend to bunch and shift, and some good pinning can really help prevent that and save some time in the end. It will also help to create a nice, smooth finished pad, that turns out a little more professional-looking.
First, let's take a look at just how we're sticking the pins into the fabric. In this first picture, I have 3-layer sandwich of flannel and Zorb. When I first started making pads, I would hold the pin straight up, perpendicular to the layers I was pinning, then tilt the pin to the side to catch all of the layers as I came back up through the fabric. That caused the top layer to pull out and the bottom layer to push in towards the center of the piece. To avoid this, you want to insert the pin into the layers at an angle almost parallel to the fabric. That will keep the layers from shifting before you ever start to sew.
The next thing that I wanted to point out is that it's good to use enough pins to secure everything, but if you can stitch slowly when you move to your machine, you don't need a ton of pins for everything to stay in place. Start by using a few pins at the ends and center to secure your core, and then you can put the pins back in the same areas when you're pinning your core to the wrong side of your topper layer.
In this pad, I'm making a hidden PUL layer. When I'm working with PUL, I like to use these clover clips instead of pins, so I don't make any holes in the laminate. As with the pinning, I like to just use a few clips at the ends and a few at the wings, just to keep things from shifting. The clips take up some space, and I like to keep my layers secure without having to stop every few stitches to remove the clips. So I like to space them out just a little.
It's also a good idea once you've clipped all of the pad layers together, to flip it all over and check the back side. As you can see here, that PUL layer will bunch up quite a bit. One of the nice things about using clips is that it's really easy to just unclip one at a time, smooth out the back layer, and put the clips back, as you see in the next picture.
Smoothing out the PUL layer is something that didn't even occur to me for a long time, but it really makes a huge difference. The finished pad is less bulky and it eliminates any weird bubbles in that bottom layer. Once you've got everything all smoothed out and clipped back up, you can flip it over and move on to your sewing machine to hem, turn, and topstitch.
Hopefully these tips were helpful! Feel free to leave comments if you're looking for more tips or for help with troubleshooting.
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