Tips for Sewing with Chiffon

Chiffon has a bad reputation as being one of the most difficult fabrics to sew with.  Chiffon is a lightweight, sheer fabric made from polyester, cotton, or silk. It is slippery, shifty, and frays very easily.  However, I have some tips for you so that sewing with chiffon is no longer a challenge.  If this is your first time sewing with chiffon I suggest using an easy pattern with few curves and minimal seams.

The following topics will be covered in this tutorial:

• Prepping
• Cutting
• Sewing
• Hemming

Supplies needed:

• Chiffon Fabric
• Small universal needle - size 9(65)
• Plain Gelatin (enough for ¼ cup)
• Bucket or tub large enough to cover fabric with water
• Thread for fine fabrics (polyester, silk, or mercerized cotton; sometimes sold as lingerie thread)
• Rotary Cutter and mat OR scissors and tissue paper
• Pattern, iron and pressing cloth, sewing machine, and/or serger
• Wonder Clips or Fine Pins

 
Tips for Prepping Chiffon:
The single most important tip I have to make Chiffon less challenging to sew is to first give the fabric a gelatin bath. This makes the fabric stiffer to sew with, resulting in less shifting. Once the project is finished, a quick hand wash removes the gelatin and the fabric returns to its normal drape and texture.

To give the fabric a gelatin bath, fill a bucket or tub with warm water and add ¼ cup gelatin.

Stir for 2 minutes so gelatin dissolves.

Add fabric and make sure to submerge.  Then push out any large air bubbles, and stir the fabric around for a minute to ensure the gelatin is being distributed in the fabric.

Leave to sit for at least 30 minutes (I let mine sit an hour just to be safe). After the soak time has ended remove the fabric and place on a bathroom towel. Roll the towel up carefully to remove some of the moisture from the fabric.



Do not twist or squeeze the fabric because it will remove the gelatin; we just want to remove some of the moisture. Then place fabric to dry on as flat a surface as can be found.

When the fabric is dry it is ready to be cut.

 
Tips for Cutting Chiffon:

• Use a cutting mat and rotary cutter
• Use pattern weights instead of pins (I use tuna cans). If you must use pins, use pins for fine fabrics and pin only in the selvage.
• Cut pattern pieces as a single layer, cut nothing on a fold.
• If using scissors, place tissue paper under the fabric as well as the pattern tissue paper on top to create a sandwich (as seen below, however you will want to cut through all three layers at the same time). This helps stabilize the fabric while cutting.

 
Tips for Sewing Chiffon:
Set the needle stitch length to 2mm or 12 stitches per inch. This is a short stitch length that should be used for lightweight fabrics.

Use wonder clips instead of pins to hold fabric together



Instead of sewing a reverse stitch, hold the ends of the loose thread toward the back of your machine when starting to sew.  Then tie the ends of the string in a knot to lock the first and last stitch.



If the machine tries to eat the fabric, slip a strip of tissue paper under the fabric while sewing. It can be torn or washed away when finished and keeps the fabric from getting pulled into the needle plate. Also, if you have a straight stitch needle plate and/or straight stitch foot, use them. 

Sew seams with French seams because serged seams can be seen from the outside of the garment.



Press from wrong side of fabric, use a pressing cloth and no steam. The temperature should be a low setting such as for synthetics.

Tips for Hemming Chiffon:
Before marking hems, let garment hang for 24-48 hours in case the fabric grows. 

There are a few different ways to hem this light fabric.  My favorite way is to sew a rolled hem with my serger.  I strongly suggest using textured nylon (or wooly nylon) in the upper looper because as you can see here it makes a much nicer hem. 



A narrow hem  can be achieved by hand sewing, using a narrow hem foot with a regular sewing machine, or using Ban-rol. 

Ban-rol can be used to achieve a flawless narrow hem with a regular machine.  Recently I found a tutorial by Oliver + S that explains this technique.  In the most simple of terms, sew a frayed edge of the ban-rol to the bottom of the fabric, flip it away from fabric, sew, flip to wrong side and sew again, remove the ban-rol by pulling out the frayed edge and what is left is a beautiful narrow hem.
 
Conclusion:
When finished with your project, a quick warm hand wash with a little detergent will remove the gelatin and return the fabric to original. Chiffon garments should always be hand washed and laid flat to dry.



Chiffon can be used to make a wide variety of garments such as lingerie, infinity scarves, blouses, and breezy jackets.  Do not be discouraged by this lovely fabric, follow these tips and sewing with chiffon can be relatively pain free!

For my project I used View D from McCall's 7200.  I made the size XS and modified it to fit my 9 year old.  After a quick tissue fit, I found I had to remove 1.5" from the height between shoulder and waist (over the bust area).  I also shortened it to the cutting line for views A,B,C. Perfect fit. It took 1 yard of Chiffon.

 I also combined the back panel with the side panels before cutting so the back is 2 pieces (yoke and bottom) instead of 4 pieces (yoke, 2 side panels, and center back panel).  I tried my best to match up lines where seams met.  Can you see the top yoke below? :)

Here is the inside view.  French seams make the insides look just as nice as the outsides.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my tutorial.  I hope you find some helpful tips for your next project.  This is my entry into Week 3 of FabricMart's Fabricista Fashion Challenge.  Head over to the FabricMart blog and see everyone's entries (during the day sometime on Wednesday, September 30th).  Don't forget to vote for your favorite!

Easy and Fast Perfect Hems!

Hemming: not hard, but definitely time consuming. It's during the final stretch of a wonderful piece that you are met with this beast.  I don't enjoy hemming because I just want to get to the finished garment already! :-)

Well I'm throwing out my hem measuring tool and going an easier and faster route.  (This is for a double fold hem - but also would work for single fold with serged edge)

Want to know my secret?

Step 1: Mark of 1/2 inch seam on your sewing machine (or use what I love: a nifty -cheap- Magnetic Seam Guide ). Then sew with a stitch length of 4 all around the bottom of your garment.

Step 2: Have your iron hot and press that up so just the bottom of that thread line is folded.

This is super easy to do all the way around the garment because of the thread line - it flips up so nice and fast - plus there is no stopping to measure.

Step 3: Press up again with the hot iron and pin.

Step 4: stitch all around hem 1/2 inch, just catching in the double fold on the backside.

Enjoy nice, even, fast, and easy hems every time!

~ Happy Sewing! ~ Kristin ~

Pattern Tracing Paper ~ What works best?

Unless you are a rebel when it comes to sewing, most likely you have used some sort of material to trace your sewing patterns.  If you are like me, you want to find one that works well and is economical to boot.  So which pattern tracing paper works best? Continue reading for a list of pros and cons of the top 3 tracing paper types most sewers use.

From Left to Right: Freezer Paper, Swedish Tracing Paper, Medical Exam Table Paper

Let's weigh out the pros and cons. Here is a lineup of all three in a completed traced and cut pattern.

From Left to Right: Freezer Paper, Medical Exam Table Paper, Swedish Tracing Paper

First up: Freezer Paper

Pros:

• Not very expensive $5.76 for the box which is 33 yards x 18 inches wide or about $0.17 a yard
• Can write on it easily
• Pencil erases on it
• Thicker paper - not likely to tear easy
• Can iron it on to slippery fabric to cut it out easier as it sticks right on; once cut you can just peel it off the fabric or even sew with it still attached and remove after. 

Cons:

• Can not iron out the fold lines from storage - ironing will melt it to whatever it touches
• It's thicker fabric so it may dull scissors
• It is harder to see through to trace patterns as shown below.

Next up: Swedish Tracing Paper
Birch Street Clothing Swedish Tracing Paper - 29"x 30' White

Pros:

• Can write on it fairly easy with a dull # 2 pencil.  A sharp one tears at the paper
• Can iron out the creases from storage
• Doesn't wrinkle easy
• Very quiet as it is more like fabric than paper
• Thin like interfacing - not likely to tear easy
• Holds nicely to fabrics when you are trying to cut them out
• Easy to see through to trace patterns (see below)

Cons:

• Expensive $16.94 including shipping for the roll which is 30 yards x 29 inches wide or about $0.56 a yard
• Pencil does NOT erase on it

Lastly: Medical Exam Paper
Medline Exam Table Paper - Standard - Smooth, 21" x 225 ft - Qty of 12 - Model NON23326

Pros:

• Very Inexpensive - Box of 12 rolls totals 900 yards of 21" wide for $35.98 or less than $0.04 yard!
• Can write on easily
• Pencil erases easy
• Can iron out the creases from storage (low setting)
• Easy to pin to fabric when cutting out
• Easy to see through to trace patterns (see below)

Cons:

• Wrinkles very easy
• Very noisy (it is just like the stuff you sit on at the doctor's office)
• Very thin - possible to tear easier however I have not had issue with this yet

And there you have it!  For me the winner is The
Medline Exam Table Paper - Standard - Smooth, 21" x 225 ft - Qty of 12 - Model NON23326

Why? Because you CANNOT beat that price!  Plus it is see through and works well for my needs.  I have a box of 12 rolls/900 yards that will probably last me a lifetime!  I can deal with the noise - it is just the same with the pattern tissue paper noise.  I can deal with the wrinkles because I can iron them out on low setting.
I just cannot justify the cost of Swedish Tracing Paper anymore.  Plus, I won't run out now in the middle of a project! The medical paper is slightly more thick than the pattern tissue paper to give you an idea of what it is like.

*note: it is easy to trace Ottobre patterns onto the medical paper too.  It is nice and easy to see the colored pattern lines through the paper.

So what are your thoughts?  What do you use to trace your patterns?


 ~ Happy Sewing! ~ Kristin ~

How to Sew a Zipper Fly

I thought I would show my steps on how I sew a zippered fly. This is for Girl's pants; For boys you simply flip it the opposite way.

1. Constructing the fly shield.  It should look like this:

 Fold it in half, right sides together. Sew only bottom edge. Trim seam and flip so right sides are out. Press. 

 Serge unfinished side. 

 Apply WonderTape to the right edge

Remove WonderTape backing and place Zipper on that edge (You may need to shorten zipper first as I have below). 

 Using zipper foot, sew close to zipper teeth dow the right side.  Keep Zipper pull in teh middle and stop when you reach it. Keep needle in fabric, lift presser foot and pull zipper past foot to the top. Then put  presser foot back down and continue sewing down the right side to the bottom. 

Serge raw edges of both sides of pants. 

 2. Fold seam allowance on narrow edge of zipper placket to wrong side (shown on right, below). Place WonderTape on fly shield over the zipper tape on the right side where you just sewed one side of the zipper in above steps. 

 Put fly shield under folded over zipper placket as seen below.  Align, remove WonderTape backing and stick them together as shown below. Sew on the right side zipper placket from the top down to the bottom of the zipper. 

  Here is where I sew crotch seam from back waistline to bottom of zipper placket.  I double stitch the seams on the crotch to reinforce. 

 3. Now we will WonderTape the left side of the zipper tape on the placket and attach it to the other zipper placket.  We have already serged the raw end of this larger placket and folded it under.  Align it so the crotch lays smooth and use the WonderTape to stick the loose side zipper tape to the other placket.

 Below I have WonderTape on left side of zipper tape and the curved placket is at the way bottom waiting to be laid on top

 Unzip zipper so that the loose tape is stuck to the large placket as seen below.

 Now fold open the placket and sew on the loose zipper tape. 

 4. Top stitching.  I always look to the inside (wrong side) of the zipper shield and plackets and stick a pin in the bottom of the shield.  

 Then I go to the right side and pin my placket down so it stays smooth.  I make a mark where the underneath pin pokes through.  This is where you want to catch the fly shield in your stitching on the top.  You only want to catch the bottom of the fly shield in your stitching. 

 Now I mark out my top-stitching with a quilter's pencil.  Make sure you know where the fly shield will be brought in to the bottom. 

 Unzip zipper (See my sloppy lines on the bottom slope?  I had to reconfigure to make sure I caught all of the placket bottoms into my top-stitching so there would be no holes in the crotch. The top two straighter lines wouldn't cover it so I slopped them down more). 

Pin fly shield out of the way for now. You don't want to stitch it yet. 

Top-stitch the lines you drew. Stop at the bottom where you had the pin come through and are now sewing the fly shield to the bottom.  Unpin the fly shield and lay it nicely into place.  Sew over the bottom of the fly shield when you continue your top-stitching. (See second pic for more detail)

   This is a view at the wrong side.  See the green arrows?  This is where I caught just the bottom of the fly shield in my top-stitching. 

 You now bar-tack the two lines at the bottom.  (I was experimenting with this here, they should not be curved but straight   My bar-tack stitch I haven't quite got right yet.  Next time I will use a short zig-zag stitch back and forth on the two spots).

Here is a view of the completed Zipper Fly!

~ Happy Sewing! ~ Kristin ~