Sewing is a wonderful and useful hobby, but it also cannot do without overcoming some difficulties. Which actually are not and can be completely solved even with minimal tailor skills. And today we will raise the issue that most newcomers to the sewing business are confused.
What are you talking about?
Each novice craftswoman is concerned about one significant point. Sewing almost any product, you have to deal with such an important operation as the processing of seams. They perform it in different ways, but most often thanks to a device called an overlock.
The line accurately executed on an overlock, no doubt, pleases an eye. The product at the same time looks exactly "branded". And in general, this technical device is able to make life easier for any craftswoman.
Unfortunately, not every one of us has this expensive device. Meanwhile, any seamstress wants to do all the work from beginning to end beautifully and accurately.
What to do?
Let the absence of an overlock do not bother you. You can sew an overcast seam manually. It is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Of course, you will have to spend much more time, but the result outwardly can look very decent.
What is an overcast seam? We use it for the final processing of fabrics during the sewing process. At the same time they can fasten individual panels. Thanks to this, you can get a very neat fabric cut. And there are several ways how to sew an overcast seam manually. And in our article we will try to touch on some of the subtleties of this work.
The sewing made by hand seam in the product exactly looks like, the photo below demonstrates quite clearly.
Let's get started
So, we do not have an overlock. Before doing the overcast seam manually, we will estimate our resources. Take the highest quality needles, preferably a well-known manufacturer. It is best if it is a needle with a special coating in the area of the hole, then called the "golden eye". Thanks to him, the thread will be easy to slip in and slide smoothly through the fabric.
The numbering of needles used in manual sewing has a gradation from the 1st to the 12th number. What do these numbers mean? This is ten times the largest diameter in millimeters.
Never take a needle for work if it is dull, bent or rusted. And do not forget about the correspondence of its thickness and thread. Indeed, the larger the diameter of the needle, the more serious the force applied to push through the fabric will be required. Accordingly, the thread must be thick enough.
What else do you need to know
In addition, you should not take an embroidery needle, which has a blunt, that is, a specially rounded tip. It is not possible to make a stitching seam manually with its help. Its purpose is only to draw cross-stitch patterns on the canvas.
It will be useful to use a thimble. It will protect your fingers and nails from accidental damage. Yes, and the sewing process will go faster with him.
It is easiest to process materials that have a high density and do not crumble very much. Working with them is easy even for beginners. With thin and loose - a little harder.
Manual overcast seam - how to start?
Getting started, insert the needle from the wrong side to the front side. A knot tied on a thread will remain on the back, that is, the wrong side. Then, stretching the thread, the needle is withdrawn back (away from itself) to the wrong side. With further pulling the thread, you should leave a small loop and pass the needle through it along the edge of the fabric without piercing the material.
The loop must be carefully tightened, holding it with your free hand. After which the procedure is repeated. You stretch the needle towards yourself, then back, insert it into the loop and gently pull it up. The result is a series of neat, durable stitches.
What else can manual overcast seams be? There is a so-called twist, it is used as a finish, filling out frills and slices. When sewing a product in the studio, it is changed to a role seam.
What does it look like?
Manual overcasting seam in this case is as follows. First, a thin, tight roller is twisted from the fabric. Then he gently stretches on his left hand (on her index finger), while sticking with the middle and thumb of the same hand.
A needle with a fine thread must be prepared in advance. With its help, the roller is tightly wrapped with thread - stitches that should fit together as tightly as possible. The direction of the needle puncture is toward you. The thickness of such a roller should not exceed a millimeter.
What is a buttonhole stitch?
Slices of the product can be processed with the so-called manual stitch seam. To make a loop, you need a thread of sufficient length, it should be enough to process a whole loop or at least half.
The procedure in this case is as follows:
- Having built the first loop, we pass the beginning of the thread into it and tighten. Then the thread is neatly laid on the side of the cut.
- In the case when the thread is already ending, leave its end and use the new thread to sew the next stitch without tightening the loop.
- The end of the previous thread and the beginning of a new thread are threaded together into the loop formed, after which the loop is tightened. Both tips should be laid on the side of the cut.
- Similarly, the desired number of stitches is sewn. The ends of the threads are pulled and cut.
- The last of the stitches is repeated twice in the same place, and the fabric must be turned inside out. The needle is brought under a couple of last stitches, stretched and cut with scissors.
Having gained some experience, any of the novice craftswomen will orient herself in which of the seams is more convenient for her to perform and what exactly comes out more accurately. Then she will be able to determine the preferred method of processing tissue sections.
Other types of overcast seams manually
There are other varieties of such seams. One of them, called oblique, is very simple. When processing the fabric, the stitches do not tighten much, positioning along the oblique so that in each linear centimeter of the cut they fit from 3 to 4 pieces. The length of each stitch should be about half a centimeter or a little more.
A slightly more complicated overcasting seam called cruciform. It is done almost like the previous one, but when it reaches the edge of the cut, you should turn in the opposite direction (without turning the fabric over) and move in the opposite direction. The stitches overlap each other crosswise.
As a result, a section of our product is decorated with a series of neat crosses. It should be ensured that throughout the entire seam the uniform height of the stitches is observed, the pitch between them, as well as the same angle of inclination - the stitches must be parallel, otherwise the work will not look neat.
More options
How to make an overcast seam manually in a more complex version, with imitation of processing on an overlock? They work similarly to the case with a buttonhole, but the needle should be pulled twice through the top of the triangle from the stitches.
The same technique must be used when processing corners of the product. Each needle tip must be “visited” at least two times!
Let's hope that this short article turned out to be useful to our hardworking readers, and now everyone understands that small difficulties in the sewing business are quite surmountable. Good luck to everyone in mastering this wonderful type of creativity!