15 Sewing Tricks Your Grandma Should Have Showed You
There’s always something new to learn even if you’re an expert. Take these sewing tips for example. You may love to sew, or you may be just learning how. Either way, there will be something in this article you never knew (but your grandmother might). We found and shared fifteen hacks that will make sewing easier for you. Some of them are a just genius. You may ask yourself why you didn’t think of that.
I especially liked the bodkin idea. That would have saved me a lot of trouble on laundry day. If I’d known about how to find the lengthwise grain, things would have turned out a lot better.
1.Fill a pincushion with steel wool to make your own Pin-Sharpening Pin Cushion
2.Tired of pinning fabrics? Make your own heavy duty fabric weights using washers and a hot glue gun. Genius!
3.Create gathers in fabric using the cheating method (aka the corded zig zag method).
4.Create your own hemline tool out of cardstock. It’ll help you iron perfectly straight hemlines and folds every time.
5.Use binder clips as an extra set of hands when quilting. They’re perfect for holding your binding in place or making a quilt sandwich.
6.Slide a pin across the end of a buttonhole before ripping the stitches to ensure that you don’t go too far.
7.Use a bodkin to draw elastic out of a waistband. You can also use it to find missing cords in drawstring pants and hoodies.
8.Speaking of buttonholes, do you find sewing them to be intimidating? Check out this tutorial on sewing one-step buttonholes.
9.Put dull, stubborn straight pins in a piece of bar soap to help them go through fabric much easier.
10.Keep your filled bobbins together by storing them in a foam toe separator for pedicures.
11.The fabric must be cut along the lengthwise grain in order to drape properly. If you’re not sure how to find the lengthwise grain, use this technique to find the crosswise grain.
12.You can’t pin leather; any holes made in the fabric will remain. Instead, use paperclips to keep pieces of leather together.
13.Rubber band two pencils together to easily create anytime you need one. The pencils will be about 8 mm apart.
14.After sewing buttons on, cover them with a coat of clear nail polish to keep the thread from unraveling and to hold the button in place longer.
15.Washi tape is invaluable in the sewing room! Mark fabric, use it to make bias binding, mark out seams, etc. It’s 1/4″ wide, so it’s a handy seam measuring tool!
