Tuesday, January 25- Pinning, cutting, ironing, and interfacing, oh my!
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Alright, so we traced out pattern onto the paper of our choosing and our fabric has been washed, dried, and ironed. Remember how we lined the salvages up when we folded and not where the yardage was cut? This is important. When fabric is wrapped on the bolt, it's uaully done on a machine that moves pretty quickly. Then the consumers fondle it. It is unwrapped and rewrapped by the sales person everytime someone has some cut off. Basically, it becomes twisted on the bolt, and when it's cut, it's not cut straight. Hense, the lining up of the salvages.
When you line up the salvages, you're going to have a "folded" side and an "open" side. The pattern pieces marked 'place on fold' have their folded edge lined up with the fabric's folded edge. The pieces marked 'cut 2' need both pieces (most of the time) to be mirror image. when the fabric is folded in half, you not only cut 2, but you also get the right side of your fabric on the right sides of your project.
Remember this image?:
This is how the pattern designer came up for the most pieces out of the least amount of fabric.
Lay all your pattern pieces out on the folded yardage, just as you see pictured on your pattern. Make sure the grain arrows line up with the grain of the fabric, none of your pattern pieces should overlap, and then you start pinning. Try to keep the fabric and pattern flat while you pin. If you life the fabric up, the pattern pieces will shift, the fabric will shift, and you will go nuts. Take your time, it's okay!
Once all your pieces are pinned, double check to make sure sure spinned everything on right, and then, starting with an outside pattern piece, start cutting. Cut close to the edge of the pattern, but be careful not to cut the pattern itself. Once all your pieces are cut out, throw the scraps away/in the compost (I keep anything as big as my hand or bigger for future projects) and cleanup your workspace.
*note: you will have to cut pattern piece #8 out, and then place it in a new spot of your unused fabric and cut it again. To advoid the confussions, you could just cut out 2 copies of piece #8 and not have to move it*
This is the part where interfacing comes into play. Interfacing does NOT get prewashed or pre-ironed. Especially if it's fusable interfacing, like we are using. Select the pattern pieces that call for fusable interfacing and pin it to the interfacing. Cut them out.
Cutting is done!
Now, the directions say to trim 1/4 inch away from the edge of the interfacing. This is to keep your seams from becomming annoying bulky. Place the bumpy side of your interfacing on the wrong side of the cooresponding pattern piece, centered, and iron, slowly. Continue ironing until the interfacing is firmly attatched. Set your iron to the side and let the interfaced parts of your project cool.
A note about ironing- make sure the heat setting on your iron is right for your fabric. Either in the directions or on the iron itself will say where to set your setting. Also, some fabrics should be dry ironed, while others work best heat ironed. Synthetic fabrics usually shouldn't be ironed at all because they are made of plastic and will melt.
If you want, you can choose to iron all of your pieces, after you cut them out, before sewing. Remove them from the pattern copies to do this, especially if you used freezer paper which would adhere itself to your pattern piece and might take a bit of time to remove.
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Everyone still following along and ready to start sewing tomorrow?!
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interesting. i must have an older pattern b/c in the "how to cut" image, it shows piece # 7 lined up to cut on the selvedge, not the fold. i was totally confused b/c it says right on the pattern piece to cut on the fold. thanks for confirming what i thought was correct.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the smaller pattern that has that mistake printed on it, because I remember reading in the Oliver +s foruns that someone spotted that error and was confused. Glad the photos are doing some good!
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