Sewing 101 Syllabus

Originally posted to the 18cLife mailing list, this article is reproduced here by permission of the author.

I've taught Sewing 101 at the Hive series of workshops several times, and I've gradually shifted what I teach from actual stitching to much more basic lessons.  I start with things like:

• What "small needle" means — I encountered one learner who kept being told "your needles are too big" and kept buying shorter and shorter needles until she ended up with the world's shortest quilting needles that no one could sew with.  Now I'm always careful to be specific and say "thinner" and "fatter" vs. "shorter" and "longer" in the appropriate context, but I also say something brief about "smaller" and "bigger" in case they encounter other people who use those words.
• How to match the thickness of the thread to the coarseness of the fabric.
• How to match the fiber that the thread is made from to the fiber the fabric is made from.
• How to match the thickness of the needle to the thickness of the thread.
• Tradeoffs between short eyes and long (embroidery) eyes in needles.
• Tradeoffs between cutting a longer vs. shorter length of thread to sew with.
• How and why to use beeswax on the thread.
• How to thread a needle.
• How to make a knot in the end of the thread.
• How and why to position and reposition the thread in the needle as you thread it and as you sew (and why it's usually not worth it to use a double thread).
• Tradeoffs of different kinds of pins.
• How to keep the thread from twisting as you sew, and what to do if it twists.
• How and why to secure the fabric (by pinning it to your pants leg, or whatever).

All this could take up a whole workshop and you have still not taken a single stitch! If there's time, I teach running stitch, backstitch, combination stitch, and whip stitch, and when to use each one.  If we're lucky, we might manage to sew a little bag with a drawstring, but we usually run out of time.  I don't worry too much about whether they'll remember how to form the various stitches.  That, they can get from a book.  The other stuff, not so much.

Your servant,
Sue Felshin