Sewing clothes for yourself is very profitable, as it allows you to save money. Many housewives master this craft, but are faced with problems such as choosing fabrics for sewing a particular product. After all, if we sew fashionable clothes ourselves, I want to make it unique and bright.
Assortment: choose material
When choosing materials, the majority focuses primarily on the "semantic load" of the product, that is, on its appearance. Varieties of silk are widely used for blouses - crepe de chine, crepe georgette, poplin, chiffon. They are lightweight, resilient, their hygienic properties are good. Now silk materials are produced from natural fibers mixed with synthetic (acetate, viscose) and artificial fibers. These fabrics hold their shape very well, do not crease, are good to wear. If we sew fashionable clothes ourselves, we know that for the manufacture of shirts and blouses, cotton materials that are lightweight are widely used.
The assortment of materials for dresses is diverse: cotton, linen, natural silk and chemical fibers. Such a demand is explained by the presence of fibers with different structures, various weaves of threads, design and fabric colors. Now in fashion dresses from knitwear, which is also presented in a large assortment. Knitted fabrics differ in a number of advantages: they sit well on the figure, do not constrain movement, products from them are elastic.
Principles of selection
When choosing the basis for a future product, it will be useful to take into account the following points:
- When choosing fabrics, you need to pay attention to the labels indicating the name of the fibers and their ratio. The composition of the fibers affects such moments as the method of caring for the product, the choice of wet-heat treatment (WTO) mode, the choice of model, and others.
- In the case when we sew fashionable clothes ourselves, knowledge of the physico-mechanical characteristics of the fabric will allow us to accurately determine whether it suits this model. These include such properties of the canvas as stretching along and across, shrinkage, the ability to deform, shedding threads in the joints, resistance to high temperatures, color fastness.
- All materials have the ability to shrink to varying degrees. This property is used to fix the shape of parts using the WTO. But some fabrics have more shrinkage than is required. In order to avoid distortions of the seams and reduce the size of the parts of the products during sewing before cutting, it is necessary to carry out decating - steaming. This can be done simply with a steam iron. It is better to make a decoding for all types of materials - this way you can avoid unpleasant surprises.
Useful Tips
Thus, in the case when we sew fashionable clothes ourselves, it is necessary to choose the fabric. And for this you need to know the composition of the fibers in it. In many large stores, consumers are provided with a technical passport for a particular material. But there are cases when it is not possible to find out the composition of the fabric. In this case, you can take advantage of several useful tips:
- examine the appearance of the material, put it on your hand, wrap it, pay attention to how the fabric is draped, whether it is pleasant to the touch, soft or hard, heavy or light, whether it wrinkles a lot;
- try to pull along and across the canvas;
- You can determine the composition of the material yourself if sellers provide sample pieces. In extreme cases, you can buy a small section and conduct experiments by cutting a small piece.
How to conduct experiments?
Cut a small piece (5 by 5 cm) and check the material first for the scattering of fibers. The method of processing the edge of the seam depends on this. Fabrics made from coarse and semi-coarse wool, cotton and rayon are heavily crumbled into sections. This must be taken into account when modeling products from them. Avoid the use of incisions, complicated embossed seams, coquettes of complex shape, welt pockets and other elements. Additional seam allowances should also be considered.
When we sew fashionable clothes ourselves, we do not always know that you can determine the composition of fibers in the following way - you just need to set fire to a shred with tweezers. By type of flame and ash, you can set the type of fabric fibers:
- Cellulose: cotton, linen, viscose threads are easily set on fire, quickly burn with a yellow flame. When removed from the fire, a glow remains. You can smell the burnt paper. Ash is soft, gray in color, easily breaks up.
- Protein: woolen, silk threads burn slowly, with twisting, usually fade spontaneously. The smell of burning hair. Ash wool threads black or brown, easily crumbles. At the end of the silk thread after burning, there remains a charred crushed ball.
- Acetate, acrylic threads burn and melt even after removal from the source of fire with the smell of vinegar. Ashes are a black ball.
- Nylon and nylon, consisting of polyamide filaments, burn and melt, immediately stopping combustion after the fire is removed. Instead of ashes, a hot mass forms, which can be stretched with tweezers. As it cools, the mass hardens.
- Polyester fibers, mylar fibers burn like polyamide fibers, but they are more resistant to elevated temperatures. With black smoke. Ashes in the form of hard fragile balls of black color.
When we sew fashionable clothes, we most often do everything by eye. However, adhering to these simple tips, you can easily choose the right material for any type of clothing and sew it with high quality.