Sarai is a wonderful seamstress and designer and one for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration. Her patterns are consistently beautiful, straightforward to make, and yield a wonderful garment. She tackles all types of fabrics with aplomb and crafts the most wonderful tutorials in the process. Without further ado, I give you Sarai Mitnick!
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It’s so exciting to see what everyone has made so far for Sew Colette. It’s hard to believe you’re already on to Taffy, one of my favorite patterns.
Taffy is fairly simple and straightforward in terms of construction, but of course there are a few challenges here and there. In fact, that’s why I included it. Taffy is designed to get you using a couple of different seam finishes (French seams and bias binding). Plus, it’s cut on the bias and uses a light fabric, so you need to think about fabric choice and drape as well. But never fear, I have a few tips to help you along the way.
Fabric:
1. Choose a lightweight fabric with good drape. This blouse is meant to flow, so be sure to hold your fabric up and examine the drape carefully. Don’t go for anything too thick either, because it could make those French seams a bit bulky. French seams are really meant for your lighter fabrics.
2. Try making your own bias tape. You can certainly purchase some ready-made, but making your own is a lot of fun and gives you many more choices. Check out the instructions for making bias tape in the book (p. 138-139), or this tutorial from my blog: http://www.coletterie.com/
3. Use stabilizer for floaty or slippery fabrics. The sample we made for the book is a gorgeous silk chiffon, and we couldn’t have done it (at least not without a lot of cursing) without our trusty Sullivan’s Spray Stabilizer. Stabilizers help temporarily stiffen light or slippery fabrics, making them much easier to work with.
Cutting:
4. Make a muslin. Perhaps this goes without saying, but be sure to work out your fitting challenges before cutting your fabric. For Taffy, you want to make sure that the overall size is good, that it fits at the shoulders, that the neckline doesn’t gape, and that the bust fits well.
5. After cutting your pieces, let them hang overnight from a hanger. This helps to stretch them out a bit prior to sewing.
6. Use pattern weights. Be sure to use some good, heavy pattern weights to hold your pattern and fabric in place while cutting, particularly if your fabric is light enough to want to float off the table. I find this particularly important when cutting on the bias.
7. Don’t stretch the fabric while cutting. Because you’re cutting on the bias, you need to make sure that your fabric isn’t getting stretched out as you cut. Cutting through a single layer (as the cutting layouts show) is helpful for this. You can fold the fabric along the bias and lay your patterns on the fold instead, but you need to be extra careful not to stretch the fabric in this case.
8. Use markers or pencils instead of snipping notches or dart legs. Because you’ll be doing a French seam, you want to avoid making any notches in the edges of the pieces because they could end up interfering with the seam finish. Instead, when you see a notch, mark it with chalk, or water soluble pen or pencil.
Construction:
9. Staystitch the curved edges. It’s a good idea to staystitch the neckline as soon as you have your pieces cut (before hanging them overnight). Staystitching immediately will help keep this curve from stretching out. Stitch ¼” from the edge, since you will be binding with bias tape.
10. Use plenty of pins. If you’re a more advanced seamstress, you might be used to sewing without using many pins. But for a bias blouse like this, it’s important to pin your edges together before sewing. Because bias tends to stretch so much, it’s much easier to match seams together while laying flat on a table and pinning than while actually sewing.
11. Take your time with the binding. Doing all the bias tape binding, especially on those loooong sleeve hems, is pretty time consuming. Take it slow and don’t get frustrated if it’s not done in a jiffy.
12. Try the blouse on again before hemming. Check to see if the blouse stretched at all, or if the hem became uneven due to sewing. Even out the hem and shorten if necessary before you stitch.
Finally, I have one bonus tip that doesn’t involve sewing: store the blouse folded. It’s a good idea to not store this blouse on a hanger in your closet, because it may stretch things unintentionally. Bias pieces are often best stored folded whenever possible.
Does that help you guys out? If anyone has other tips, either for bias sewing, binding, or French seams, definitely contribute in the comments!
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