Top 20 Sewing Vocabulary Terms
We’ve alphabetized 20 terms into a mini glossary. If you’re a pro, buzz through and see how many you know. If you’re new, use them as great vocabulary builders as well as to impress your non-sewing friends.
Techniques
How to Make Covered Buttons
Covered buttons are cool! They add the special touch that says, “Stand back… I’m a home décor professional.” Making them with a kit is easy and inexpensive. We like working with the Dritz kits – available in lots of sizes.
Cheat Card Set
We all love little cheats and hacks! Our popular Cheat Cards cover important, need-to-know sewing tips and/or techniques in a handy business card size: 2” wide x 3½” high. Get the six card set for just $1.99 in our Etsy Shop.
Fancy Felt Flower Appliqué Pillow
Our beautiful abstract flower design is full of flourishes – perfect to render in the soft texture of a quality wool blend felt. When done in striking solids, this appliquéd pillow makes a stunning statement.
Forest Friends Embroidered Kitchen Towel Set
Fox, squirrel, and hedgehog machine embroidery designs are ready to apply to our towel pattern, other kitchen linens, the front of a tote bag, even a cozy sweatshirt or a child’s overall bib. Exclusively in our Etsy shop.
Machine Sewn Seam Finishes 4 Part Series
One of the signs of a truly well-made project is that it looks nearly as good on the inside as it does on the outside. Finishing a project’s inside raw edges elevates the final appearance and adds to your sewing toolbox.
Embroidered Peace Pillow Set
Create a square pillow with an embroidered peace symbol and a coordinating rectangular pillow with the word PEACE embroidered in a gorgeous floral flourish. Our custom embroidery designs are offered as free file downloads.
How to Rip Out a Seam
Mistakes happen to the best of us. The good news: ripping out a seam and starting over is something we all do all the time. With a little care and patience, it’s an easy fix and no one but you is ever likely to know it happened.
Folk Art Embroidered Zip Pouch Set
For the holidays and beyond, these classic zip pouches – with brilliant colors and detailed embroidery, are sweet as a set or individually. Get the instructions as well as the three custom machine embroidery designs in our Etsy shop.
Topstitching and Edgestitching Techniques
Learn to achieve tip top topstitching and enviable edgestitching. For embellishment or assembly, stitching visible from the right side is an important detail and its precision can make or break the final outcome of your project.
How to Turn and Press Skinny Ties and Straps
Learn our tips for using a pair of standard hemostats to quickly, easily, and smoothly turn tiny ties. Once turned, we also show you how a thin piece of cardboard is the perfect template jig for pressing the tie flat and even.
How to Narrow Wide Webbing to Fit Small Hardware
Sometimes the perfect webbing or strapping you’ve selected for a project is simply too darn wide for the D-ring or Swivel Hook you really want/need to use. Try this quick trick to bring your wide webbing down to size.
How to Make and Install Inset Zippers
When you want a professional look for your best bag or tote plus the security of a full closure, you can’t go wrong with the recessed inset zipper. Follow our step-by-step tutorial to see how easy it can be.
How to Make Darts
No matter what kind of sewing you do, sooner or later, you will likely have to sew a dart. To get the perfect contour a dart should provide, follow our professional tips for marking, stitching, and pressing. We review 6 styles.
How to Turn Corners with a Decorative Stitch
Ah – decorative stitching… as long as you’re going straight, all is well. Then the corner approaches. If making a turn with a decorative stitch has you puzzled, we’re here to help with several ways to make a turn for the better.
How to Make Adjustable Straps
Making adjustable straps can seem like a magic rope trick with all the threading this way and that. But, it’s really quite easy and makes the strap much more flexible. Lengthen to wear crossbody, shorten for a shoulder strap.
Speedy Button Sewing by Hand
For some reason, button-sewing by hand is stuck in our head as a dreaded, time-consuming task. That need not be true! Read on to learn our favorite, super speedy, five-step process to perfect buttons every time.
How to Sew an X Box
It’s a classic way to secure all types of straps and narrow panels: a stitched box with an “X” through the middle. The pattern provides strength and stability, and when done with precision, also adds a pretty detail.
How to Make a Blind Hem
A blind hem is exactly what it sounds like: a machine-done hem with stitches you can barely see. It’s perfect anywhere you want a clean finished edge. Good news: the specialty Blind Hem presser foot is standard on most machines.
Mountain Sunrise Embroidered Pillow
This beautiful custom embroidery design is offered as a free download in six major embroidery machine formats. The ascending and descending triangles of the design simulate a rosy sunrise reflected in a cool mountain lake.
Top 10 Designer Tips for Blending Colors and Prints
Mastering the proper mixology of color and motif is something designers spend years perfecting. But there are basics everyone can use to create a fabulous look. We’ve collected our Top 10 Designer Tips to get you started.
How to Use a Twin or Double Needle
Double the precision in half the time. A twin needle is basically two needles attached to a single shank. One is slightly shorter than the other so your bobbin can catch the thread from both needles. So clever that bobbin!
Sewing with Rick Rack
Rick rack has been at the top of the trim list for nearly 200 years. From elegant lace gowns to prairie pinafores, it’s a trim that’s weathered the test of time, and we have the best tips for adding it to today’s projects.
Striped Table Runner with Decorative Stitching
Start with a simple yet bold fabric, add some distinctive decorative stitching, and you can have a stunning table runner perfect for any holiday gathering or special occasion. Remember, “Life is short; use the good china!”
Six Ways to Machine Stitch a Straight Line
A straight line seems like the most basic sewing technique. But we’re amazed by the number of comments and questions we get about how to do it better, easier, and more consistently. Using the right foot for the job is the real secret.
Lumbar Patchwork Pillow
For our Featured section, we’ve been focusing on projects that can use smaller pieces from your fabric stash. This lumbar pillow uses skinny cuts to create pretty strip patchwork. Wavy line free-motion quilting finishes the front.
Felt Kitty Face Sewing Kit
Be ready for any small sewing emergency with a travel-size sewing kit that contains just what you need for a quick disaster fix – even a built-in pincushion kitty. Be prepared AND be adorable.
Hand Sewing Basics
Whatever the task, a bit of hand stitching usually comes in… well, “handy.” We’ve outlined the tools needed along with seven of the most common stitches. Simple drawings and steps show how to do each one.
How to Match a Pocket to a Background Panel
When you want a pocket’s motif to precisely blend with the panel on which it sits, all you need is a little extra fabric, some tissue paper, and those tracing skills you learned back in kindergarten. We show you the step-by-step process.
How to Sew Thick Layers
Layer upon layer upon layer?! With the right presser feet and accessories, an understanding of seam grading, and the patience to go slowly and carefully, you can sew like a pro through thick and thin.
Pillowcase with Closed Overlap Ends
Keep a stark white pillow from showing along the end of a pretty pillowcase. This envelope style closure also helps keep the pillow from slipping out of an open end. Make it stay – and hide it away! The steps are fast and easy.
Embroidered Floral Poppy Placemats + Napkins
We chose the Janome embroidery-only 550E machine to help create this beautiful set of embroidered placemats and napkins, selecting two built-in florals and stitching them against a shear ribbon lattice on a 100% linen background.
How to Make Flat Felled Seams
If you look down at the inside seam of your jeans, you’ll see a trademark flat felled seam. It’s a technique to make the wrong side of your seam look as good as the right side. Get our tips and tools for several versions of the seam.
Top 10 Mistakes That Make Projects Look Unprofessional
We all make mistakes, but many errors can be avoided with proper planning, attention to detail, and the wisdom to slow down. Take the time to consider the best practices that will provide the best results.
Bias Tape Sizing ID
That giant display of bias tapes and bindings can be overwhelming. Single fold, double fold, blanket, quilt. Geeze! What’s what and why? The S4H Sizing ID Chart gives the basic facts about the six most common types of bindings.
Linen Shoulder Bag with Belt Strap Handle
A purchased skinny belt becomes the strap on this unique shoulder bag, and a large, monochromatic embroidered medallion adorns the front pocket as well as the lining pocket, creating a secret pop of pretty on the inside.
How To Sew On Buttons with a Sewing Machine
Don’t know about you, but we find sewing buttons by hand a bit tedious, time-consuming, and it can be hard to get them all to look uniform. Solution: using a Button Sewing foot on your machine. Securely attached and perfectly aligned.
How to Square-Up Fabric to Get a Perfect Cut
If you’ve ever tried to work with fabric cuts are that are not straight and true, you know why it’s so important to square-up your fabric. Find our easy folding, aligning, and cutting tips plus ruler recommendations.
How to Close Up a Seam with Invisible Hand Stitching
Most projects require at least some hand stitching. Often, it’s the final seam closure after turning a project right side out. A Slip or Ladder Stitch creates an invisible seam between two folded edges, or a folded edge and a flat edge.
Learn How to Crinkle Gauze
Learn contortion pleating, which involves twisting the gauze into a bound bundle then drying it in a conventional dryer or a microwave prior to final air drying. Learn to crinkle, then learn to make this gorgeous tasseled scarf.
How to Draw and Measure a Circle Without a Pattern
We’re here help with the steps you’ve forgotten since high school geometry: parts of a circle, how wide to cut fabric to fit a circle, how to draw a circle without a pattern, and how to convert decimals to inches to work with Pi.
How to Insert a Flat Round Base Into a Tube
If the idea of sewing a 2D item (a flat circle) into a 3D item (a tube) sounds like something from another dimension altogether, read on. We break it down into a simple step-by-step process and even show you two different methods.