- Hey, everyone and welcome
back to the channel.
Today I have something in store for you
that should hopefully
help improve your sewing
without ever actually
having to sew that much.
I know it doesn't really make sense,
but what I wanted to do today
was to sit here and go through five tips
that I have to improve your hand sewing,
whether you're a beginner,
whether you're intermediate,
whether you consider yourself advanced.
These tips are things that I
have learned over the years
through my extensive years of hand sewing
as a part of my job.
With that, let's get into
♪ Abby's five tips ♪
♪ To improve your hand sewing ♪
♪ Without really having to sew anything ♪
Tip number one, shouldn't really
come as a surprise to you,
it's wear your thimble guys,
I've already done a video on
how to use a metal thimble.
I will put the link up above,
go ahead and watch that
'cause I kind of cover everything
about using a metal thimble
that I think you should know,
but basically wear a thimble,
whether it's metal, whether it's leather,
I don't really genuinely care
I just really wanna encourage
you all to wear a thimble.
There are people who could hand saw
without a thimble, absolutely,
but for most of us, this
makes a huge huge difference.
Your needle size and your needle type
are actually very very important
when it comes to hand sewing
and it is something that most
of us don't even consider
when it comes to stitching.
First things, first let
me get my box of needles,
not all needles are made equally,
in fact, most needles that
are available today are crap
and that's just an unfortunate
situation that we are in,
in part due to the fact that
most people don't hand saw.
What needles should you
use as a hand sower?
A lot of people I know
when they begin hand sewing
or they do any hand sewing, they grab this
and it is the assorted
needle pack by Dritz
or whatever off ran manufacturing
or even worse you get that
circular plastic thing
that has like just random
assortment of needles in it.
This is crap, these are garbage needles
and in fact, I was looking
at the eyes of these needles
and they are raggedy,
jaggedy, they're not smooth,
they are bent, they are malformed,
they look like they'll give you tetanus.
They're just crap, like
they're absolute garbage
and so, but this is
usually what's available
anywhere you grab needles
and you don't know what
kind of needles you need
so what do you do?
You grab Oh, 45 hand
needles, this should work
no, they don't.
Now it says here it
contains betweens, sharps,
embroidery, chenille and tapestry needles.
Like these are really bad
and I wanna show you how crappy they are.
Let's just compare, this
needle here is Dritz needle
from just the multipack, you
can see how not nice it is.
Here is a Bohin needle in France,
slightly bigger eye 'cause
it's not the same size,
but you can still see how
smooth that is by comparison,
how nice that is by comparison
and that's because this is a good needle,
this is a bad needle
look at that, look at
those pieces is of garbage,
but this one, this one
is a personal favorite
who has an eye like that?
Like, look at that, they didn't
even try to clean that up.
It is just (mumbling) what is this?
This isn't, what is that?
Like that's just ridiculous.
Here's a colonial needle,
just something to keep in mind there kids,
quality matters with your needles.
Ideally, you're gonna
want English needles,
English needles are
traditionally the best needles.
They're becoming increasingly
more difficult to find,
but if you can't get English needles,
get Japanese needles like Clover.
So the best brands to work with
when it comes to sewing
needles and what's available
are going to be colonial needles.
Colonial needles also
makes Roxanne needles,
John James needles.
These were traditionally made in England
and sometimes you can still
find John James needles
that say made in England,
but John James needles have changed
how they manufacture their needles
and it's not for the best.
It says on the back of the packets now
assembled and inspected in England,
using needles made in China
to Entaco's quality and specification.
Most of the needle is made in China,
but then it's taken to England
to kind of be finished and inspected.
So it's not the worst,
but they've definitely stopped
producing the entire needle
from start to finish in England.
Basically what you're gonna wanna look for
is a needle that's made in Europe.
If they're made in Europe,
they're gonna be pretty good,
if they're made in Japan,
they're gonna be pretty good.
There's two main types
of hand stitching needles
there is the sharp needle,
which is kind of the basic
dressmaker hand sowing needle,
it's the most common hand
sewing needle that's out there
and then there's also the between,
the between is also known
as the Quilters needle
and it's a little bit shorter,
it's a little bit fatter,
the other type of needle
that I actually suggest using
comes from Nicole, it's what
she prefers to hand saw with
and that is an embroidery
needle in the smaller sizes.
So an embroidery needle that is say
a size eight, nine, 10, 11, even 12.
It's gonna have a slightly
longer, bigger eye
than a between or a sharp wood
and it also is not as
pointy on the eye section
so it's easier to handle if
you don't have a thimble on
and you might find that
you prefer to hand saw
with embroidery needles, Nicole does
and I think it's a really great option
and a really great idea.
I prefer to saw with a size 10 sharp,
depending on what I'm working with,
I might go up to a size nine sharp
or might go down to a size 11 sharp,
the bigger the number,
the smaller the needle,
the finer the needle is.
So I usually find a size 10
sharp is good for most sewing,
unless I'm working with wool
and then I'll go up to like
a nine or an eight sharp
because the little thicker in diameter
and a little bit stronger.
Throw your needles away,
I cannot tell you how many
situations I've been in.
We're hand sewing something,
and they're not the hand
sowers and I asked for a needle
and they pull out needles that are ancient
and they're tarnished and they're bent
and they're dull and
they're no good anymore,
but they won't get rid of them,
need to keep trying to use them.
It's just like a sewing machine,
whenever you have a problem
with a sewing machine,
one of the first things
that people tell you to do
is to change out your sewing needle.
It's the same thing for hand sewing.
I'm gonna be really honest with you guys,
I am a thread snap (chuckling)
I am very picky with the
thread that I work with
when I'm hand sewing,
I always recommend sewing
with a natural fiber thread,
I do not hand saw with
polyester at all, no.
So when you look at antique garments
that have been handsewn, so
things pre sewing machine,
what you're gonna see is you're gonna see
thicker, stronger threads used for seams
while finer, thinner
threads are going to be used
for hemming and finishing work.
So when you're hand sewing a garment,
you do not use the same weight of thread
for every part of the garment.
Most of my hand, sewing projects,
I prefer to work with sewing silk twists
and silk is also not created equally.
Let me explain, alright,
we have here three different types of silk
and three different weights, the pool test
number one, Gutermann's
easy,
number two, 50 weight
Kinkame thread 100% silk,
finally, 30 weight
now definitely, the strongest.
The way that these silk threads
are created are not the same
Gütermann's silk it's made
out of silk, but frankly,
it doesn't feel any different
than a polyester thread.
It's a little bit rough,
it's a little bit coarse,
there's friction against my fingers
when I rub my hands over the thread,
it's not smooth
and frankly, it's not very strong either.
When you take the 30
weight Kinkame thread,
this is smooth, it's soft,
it feels good to the touch.
Doesn't have the friction,
it doesn't have the scratchiness to it
and that's something to keep in mind
when you're hand sewing a seam,
you want this stuff to be strong
it needs to hold up to wear and tear
so the way that you do that
is you use stronger, thicker threads.
So here's the deal with cotton thread,
cotton is just not a very
strong fiber to begin with
and the way that they make cotton thread
is just not that good.
(crowd booing)
I like to get my linen thread
from Burnley & Trowbridge
and they have different
weights and different types.
I really like working with linen thread,
especially if I'm sewing on
something made out of linen
and the older you go, the
more common linen thread is
especially compared to cotton.
Now, when you sell with linen,
you need to use beeswax with it
because this is super duper rough,
it is bumpy, it is slubby
again, that has to do with
how linen is treated nowadays
unfortunately, it's not treated
with respect it deserves.
Well, I'm going to demonstrate
to you in slow motion
my technique for hand sewing.
What I really want to stress to you all
is to be conscientious of your technique.
Think about how your hand sewing,
is this the most efficient way to do it?
How do your stitches look?
Do they look like historic stitches
that we see in the garments here?
Or do they look gappy?
Are they loose?
How big are they?
How small are they?
What do they look like on the outside?
Do they have pretty slant to them?
Is the thread overexposed?
Do you usually catch
your stitching by hand?
Is it usually messy?
Is it uneven?
All of that actually
goes down to technique
because if you have a good technique,
that's how you can develop speed,
that's how you can
develop precision, pacing
and all of that so your
technique is extremely important.
All right, so you see that
the cut line of my fabric
is closest to my body and just FYI
there is obviously a
camera on a little tripod
between me and the fabric.
So this is slightly awkward
to be perfectly honest with you guys,
parts that I'm sowing is closest to me
the rest of the fabric is
away from me on the table.
So if you're working
on a gown or something,
it's laid out nice and smooth and flat,
it's not bunched up in your lap.
I hold the fabric like so,
and then I use my ring finger and my thumb
to fold the fabric,
sometimes I will also do
my index and my thumb.
But usually I ended up pulling
it like this to keep tension,
folding it with my thumb,
embracing it with the ring finger.
You can see, I have my size 10 sharp
pushed between my thumb
and my index finger
and then my middle finger
actually kind of anchors it
and helps control it
and keep it very stable.
You can see, like it's not wibbly,
it's very stable between my hands.
I'm gonna guide the needle
up and down to baste
because we like to baste
push with my thimble, pull
and you see how I hold it like so,
and then my pinky comes here
and then I pull the pinky way.
Now, obviously that's out of the shot,
but will do a full shot so you
can see the whole movement.
But my pinky acts as my tension
and so I'm going this
way with my stitching
and what that is gonna result in
is a pretty well hidden stitch.
Do you see what's happened here?
Do you see how the threads
are not really visible
from this side?
And they're nice and
small on this side too,
they could be better but like I said,
I'm sewing between a tripod right now.
So it's a little awkward
trying to keep it in frame for you guys
(soft music)
and the final tip, baste,
no, don't argue with me baste,
put the pins away and baste.
I cannot tell you how many
times I had to look at interns
and go, what are you doing?
Don't to that
and I did it to totally
that person who was like,
I don't wanna baste that
takes up too much time.
I'm going to go so fast
'cause I don't have patience for this.
and I'm here to tell you guys
hard lesson learned for me
and I'm just gonna teach it to you easy.
It's so much faster to baste your fabric,
especially if you're humming.
It is not faster to pin it, I promise you
I have raced people
and you can make sure that
you're keeping everything
on the straight of grain
and you're baste will
hold that into place.
It'll be nice and even
you won't have like bits,
you know where the gap in the fabric
is like no I wanna be free
and the pins like I'm trying to hold on
or like the pin falls out,
the pins are on top of each
other, it just gets in the way.
The second thing is actually speed,
we've all done it, I've done it,
you start sewing caught
in the needle undo it
stitch get caught in the needle.
If I can get away from one pin
and you get going you start
to get a rhythm caught again
you can't get a rhythm and
if you can't get a rhythm,
you can't get speed
and if you can't get a rhythm,
you can't get precision
because you have to start over again.
When your statistics get really good,
it's when you have a rhythm
and you can just kind of sit
there and start autopilot
and just start sewing
and sewing and sewing.
But if you're always getting
your thread caught on pinheads,
you can't get a rhythm and
then it doesn't look good
and if you can't get a rhythm,
you can't develop your technique
and if you can't develop your technique,
we already thought about that
it's looks like art garbage
and if you can't get a good rhythm,
then you can't get speed.
So ultimately basting helps
you improve your technique,
it helps improve your rhythm
and it helps improve your speed
and it helps improve your
quality of your sowing.
If you want your sewing
to look good by hand,
you gotta baste it, just bite the bullet.
(soft music)
All right everyone, that is it
for my five tips to
improve your hand sewing
before really hand sowing
anything kind of, sort of.
Anyways, I hope that you all had fun
I hope that you all learn something today,
I hope that I've given you something
to kind of chew on and nosh on
and to contemplate when it
comes to your hand sewing.
So I hope that my five
tips have helped you out
let me know in the comments below
which tip you thought was
the most like (mumbling)
mind blowing
(mumbling)
I hope that you all have an
amazing rest of your week
I will see you all here next
Sunday with another video
and with that it's time
to go play with the dogs
I'll see you all next time, bye.
(upbeat music)
This is the part where
I need to get my notes,
Oh God that's just (mumbling)
wait just look at that,
like (mumbling) gross.
(upbeat music)
Look at that just garbage.
I don't remember what I was talking about,
but I think it was cotton threads.
Mesmerized, merchandised, cotton, oh Abby.
Trust me, okay?
So costume auntie Abby
says, baste your fabric
and (indistinct chattering).
(upbeat music)
