Whilst it’s often quickest to use your sewing machine to put together hand-crafted pieces of clothing or other fabric projects, there are times when hand-stitching is useful. When finishing waistbands, linings, hems or similar, hand-stitching can provide a neater, more professional-looking finish.
According the Daily Mail, sewing is the new trend for Millennials.
However, whatever your age, needlework can be a fun and interesting hobby as well as useful for creating or mending your own clothes.
When you’re shopping for material such as cotton fabric online, it is readily available in stores like https://www.higgsandhiggs.com/fabrics/plain-cotton-fabric.html.
Running Stitch
Great for making gathers or ruches in fabric, this is a basic stitch. You push your needle and thread down through your fabric – then a few millimetres along push the needle back up and then repeat.
You should end up with a line that looks the same at the front and back of the fabric.
Back Stitch
Particularly useful when mending clothes, this stitch is used to create a strong seam.
Go into the material then back up again. Then go back upon yourself about ½ cm to the right of your first stitch and go back down through the material, finally coming up about ½ cm to the left of your first initial stitch – effectively swooping back over the line of stitches you have previously done as you go along.
From the front you will have a neat line of stitches, but from behind you will see all the overlapping stitches.
Blind Slipstitch
This is an almost invisible stitch perfect for when you don’t want the sewing and threads to show.
Fold over your material and pin. Insert your needle in and through the fold, then carefully pick up a few threads from the material underneath and pull through. Complete the stitch by going in and out the folded edge about a centimetre along and repeat.
Blind Catchstitch
Another useful hemming stitch, this is great for positions where a hem needs flexibility or you wish all the stitches to be hidden within the material of the hem fold.
Press and pin your hem fold. Working from the left, you make a tiny stitch under the fold, then another tiny stitch in the main part of the material diagonally a centimetre along from the first stitch and repeat.
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