Tutorials

How to use the tissue paper for sewing shoulder seams

Shoulder Seam Trick

Sometimes when sewing small seams, like the dress shoulder seams, your sewing machine needle can push the corner of the fabric into the hole below. Here is a tip to prevent that. Included in your kit are several squares of tissue paper. The video above shows how you can use these to keep your fabric from going in the hole in the throat plate. The video below shows how to tear your tissue paper off.

preventing fraying

These dresses are designed to be scrappy and simple. However, when an edge of cotton fabric isn’t “finished” it does fray a bit. For simple doll dresses that can be fine. If you’d like to prevent the fraying there are number of ways this can be done. Most are too tricky for a child beginning sewing.

The easiest is stay-stitching. Stay-stiching is merely sewing close to the edge of the fabric. The stitches basically hold the fabric in place and the fabric will not fray beyond the stitches. So the tricky part is getting the stitches close enough to the edge. A good exercise in precision, and if at first the stitches are wonky, it’s all part of the process and fun. I used contrasting thread so you could see it, you can choose to use matching thread. Below is a video of stay stitching.

A second method is narrow hemming. I fold over 1/4 inch of fabric, iron and then sew it down, all around the edge of the dress. An adult should do the ironing, since it is tricky and you need to be careful of your fingers. Below are videos of the ironing and then the sewing.