Sewing

Step by step sewing craft projects

Felt Kitty Ball

A fun craft, not just for you, but for your pet cat too! Hours of fun for both of you as you play with this jingly felt ball!

Potholders

Make your own potholders in the colours of your choice following these simple instructions.

Heart Gift Bag

These gift bags will surely melt your loved one's heart. Easy to make and perfect for Valentine's Day.

Plastic Bag Dispenser

Create an appealing fabric home for all your plastic packets, making recycling them so much easier.

Articles on Sewing

Introduction and Sewing

Sewing or stitching or Tailoring is the fastening of cloth, leather, furs, bark, or other flexible materials, using needle and thread. Its use is nearly universal among human populations and dates back to Paleolithic times (30,000 BCE). Sewing predates the weaving of cloth.

Sewing is used primarily to produce clothing and household furnishings such as curtains, bedclothes,upholstery, and table linens. It is also used for sails, bellows, skin boats, banners, and other items shaped out of flexible materials such as canvas and leather.

Most sewing in the industrial world is done by machines. Pieces of a garment are often first tackedtogether. The machine has a complex set of gears and arms that pierces thread through the layers of the cloth and semi-securely interlocks the thread.

Some people sew clothes for themselves and their families. More often home sewers sew to repair clothes, such as mending a torn seam or replacing a loose button. A person who sews for a living is known as a seamstress (from seams-mistress) or seamster (from seams-master), dressmaker, tailor, garment worker, machinist, or sweatshop worker.

"Plain" sewing is done for functional reasons: making or mending clothing or household linens. "Fancy" sewing is primarily decorative, including techniques such as shirring, smocking, embroidery, or quilting.

Sewing is the foundation for many needle arts and crafts, such as applique, canvas work, andpatchwork.

While sewing is sometimes seen as a semi-skill job, the task of designing good-looking three-dimensional shapes from non-stretching two-dimensional fabric generally requires extensive hands-on knowledge of the design and principles of mathematical manifolds. Flat sheets of fabric with holes and slits cut into the fabric can curve and fold in 3D space in extensively complex ways that require a high level of skill and experience to manipulate into a smooth, ripple-free design. Aligning and orienting patterns printed or woven into the fabric further complicates the design process. Once a clothing designer with these skills has created the initial product, the fabric can then be cut using templates and sewn by manual laborers or machines.

Sewing Classes

Time: At your convenience Please read basic class info.
Cost: R580.00 for 3x 2,5hr sessions. Excludes the fabric required

Basic and advanced sewing classes.

We do:

Dress making
Soft furnishing such as curtaining and upholstery.
Needle work like ribbon embroidery and candle wicking, cross stitch and quilting.

There is no time frame for the sewing classes, as there are a multitude of skills that can be learned and practiced in these classes. We start out with an 8 hour session but take it from there in sessions that you comfortable with.
The sewing is run according to your skills and requirements.

We keep classes small to maximize the attention we can give each individual. The maximum number is therefore 4 per class (exception of sewing, which is a maximum of 2). We do not require minimum booking before we commence with a class.

We Don’t have set times for any particular class as we have various teachers available to help you with the craft you are interested in. Booking and payment confirms your class at the time best suited for you.

For further detail on a specific class, feel free to contact us, and we will send you a breakdown of the course.

We are based in Roosevelt park. Right opposite the JHB Botanical Gardens.

Basic Sewing

In the below image you will lean a bit about fabric and its different properties.

True bais
Selvedge
Crosswize yarns
Lengthwize yarns

When weaving, yarns are interlaced at right angles. A firmly woven strip, called selvedge, is formed along each lengthwise edge of the finished fabric. Grains indicate yarn direction. Lengthwise (warp) and crosswise (weft). Lengthwise grain runs paralled to the selvedge. Any diagonal that intersects these two grainlines is bias. True bias is at a 45 degree angle to any straight edge when lengthwise and crosswise grains are perpendicular. Each grain has different characteristics. Lengthwise grain, has very little give or stretch. When making curtains lengthwise grain runs vertically. Crosswise grain has more stretch and bias stretches the most.

zigzag stitch

One of the quickest ways of finishing seams is by stitching a row of zigzag stitches along the raw edges of the fabric. Trim off the frayed edges.