BIAS TAPE You sometimes need to make your own bias tape. You may want a width that isn't readily available, it may be difficult to find tape that is sufficiently durable for rough sewing, you might find making your own quicker than waiting for mail order, and making it yourself is the only way to get tape that matches your fabric. Preparing the fabric: ===================== Most of the time, you will be using scraps that were washed and pressed before you cut out the garment. If you are buying whole cloth, take the usual precautions for the sort of fabric you have bought. If the fabric isn't stiff, it will be easier to handle if starched. If you need to draw a thread or tear, do so before starching. Threads get glued in when starched, and tearing pops out the starch along the edge. Also, starching serves to un-ruffle edges that have stretched during tearing. (You can, however, re-touch torn edges with a little diluted starch on a sponge.) You don't need to cut along drawn threads until after starching -- they usually remain clearly visible -- but it is sometimes convenient to have the fabric already square while ironing. On the other hand, some fabrics ravel if cut before shrinking or starching. Study the piece in hand. A light spritz with spray starch suffices for many fabrics, but light cottons should be dipped in boiled starch, preferably strong enough to make them act like paper. Boiled starch can be bought pre-made in bottles at the grocery store -- follow the directions on the label. If bottled starch is not available, you can use corn starch, potato starch, or whatever white powder your cusine uses to thicken sauces. Put one tablespoon into a pint of cold water, stir until the particles are evenly distributed, and bring it to a boil while stirring constantly to prevent lumps. (You can bring it to a boil in half the water, to speed things up, then dilute it and bring it back to the boil without paying such close attention.) If something is wanted really, really stiff -- small doilies to be hung by one corner, for example -- the undiluted starch is used boiling hot, so that the thick starch will penetrate. For the usual case, add warm or cold water until there is enough to cover your fabric, dip, slosh around, wring out, hang to dry -- tumble driers and whipping winds remove starch -- sprinkle, wrap in plastic overnight or until evenly damp, iron. The fabric *can* be ironed straight out of the starch bucket, but that's doing it the hard way, and it won't come out as flat as dried-and-dampened fabric. If it happens that you have a slick, waterproof surface bigger than the freshly-starched fabric, pat the fabric out nice and square, let it dry, and peel it off. Blocking is easier than ironing, you don't waste time dampening, and it is guaranteed flat. Blocking also leaves the fabric stiffer than ironing does. It is customary to starch when the fabric is still wet from washing, as wet fabric takes starch more evenly than dry fabric does. To cut a hundred yards of one-inch bias tape ============================================ from two yards of fifty-inch fabric, ==================================== when seams are not a problem: ============================= After a thorough shrinking, cut the ends of the fabric along drawn threads, or tear them straight. Press, shrinking the torn ends if required. Cut into two pieces along the true bias. If you have a padded table, one way to mark the true bias is to measure one foot from one end on both selvages, then start a fold at one of the marks and bring the other mark down to touch the selvage. Press the bias crease in. For an unpadded table: make marks and fold as above, then mark the selvage again where the mark touches it. Unfold and use a folding ruler or a chalk line to draw a line from one mark to the other. A gridded cutting mat can be used to mark the line, but mark it before you cut it; don't try to cut along a line that hasn't been drawn yet. Sew the two ends together and press the seam. You now have a short, wide piece of bias tape. Mark the tape for dividing into narrower pieces. One way is to fold the tape in half, iron in a crease, open it, fold each edge in to meet the crease, etc. This method works best when there is a certain amount of tolerance in the final width. Another is to mark all the cutting lines with a very long ruler, carefully measuring the space between them. Be careful to let the cloth lie flat and relaxed so that it won't change dimensions while you are working on it. A #2 pencil makes a fine, non-smudging line. Graphite doesn't come out, but the edges will be covered. Start cutting the tapes at each pointy end. You will snip one selvage at the right end, and the other selvage at the left end. Sew the remaining selvages together, being careful to match each cutting line to its continuation at the seam line, not at the edge. Press the seam, which will spiral around the tube you have created. Because the cutting lines were offset, they will be joined end-to-end into one cutting line which spirals around the tube. Stick a piece of plywood (or anything flat, hard, and smooth) inside the tube, and use a ruler and pencil to true the cutting lines where they cross the new seam. Any jog that is visible at all is likely to make your hand waver when you are cutting. Cut along the cutting line with scissors. If you use a knife and cutting mat -- and if this is *not* your first venture into tape-making -- cut the middles of the cutting lines before sewing the seam, while you can still spread the tape out flat. Leave an inch or two uncut at each end. After pressing the seam, finish the cuts with scissors, or put a small mat inside the tube. Generic instructions for cutting tape, ====================================== when seams are not a problem: ============================= By some means or another, produce a short, wide piece of tape and proceed from that point in the above instructions. From ample yard goods: ---------------------- Cut a triangle off each end of a length and make the scraps into scarves, or triangular bandages for your first- aid class. If the cloth is only 39" wide and standard 40" bandages are wanted, mark the selvages one inch from each end, and draw the bias lines starting from these marks. Cut one-half inch off the sharp point of the scarf, and fold under a quarter inch. When the raw edges are hemmed, it will look as though you had cut a forty-inch square in half, and mitered the hems at the points. From scraps: ------------ Study the shapes of the pieces. There might be a reasonably large piece that can be trimmed into a diamond shape. There might be two pieces to trim into trapezoids and seam together. You might sew a triangle to each end of a rectangle, or a triangle to one end of a trapezoid, or sew two triangles to each other. To make tape when seams are a problem: ====================================== Straighten the edges of the piece for convenience in marking. Each edge should be on the straight grain, the cross grain, or the true bias, but shape is not a consideration. Mark true-bias lines across the piece at suitable intervals. Use a marker that won't fade. Each time you need a piece of tape, find one that is about the right length, and cut it off. Pressing Bias tape: =================== Some procedures call for tape that's entirely flat, some call for tape that's pressed under on one edge, and for some you'll want to press like commercial "single fold" or "double fold" tape. Single-fold tape has a quarter inch of each edge pressed toward the middle. (This is why bias is rarely cut less than an inch wide.) Double-fold tape is pressed in half lengthwise after the edges are pressed under. In commercial tape, the second fold is a tad off-center, so that one side is a trifle wider than the other. This way you can slip an edge between the two layers, edge-stitch on the narrower side, and be sure of catching the edge that's underneath. After pressing the tape, it should be wound firmly on a reel or card to prevent the folds from coming undone. Cotton tape is more inclined to stay pressed if you starch it heavily before you cut it into strips. If you make miles of tape, buy a little tool that folds it for you. Pressing single-fold tape with the raw edges next to the board helps keep the folds folded until you press them. Keep the nose of the steam iron right up against the nose of the folder, so that the tape has no space to unfold in. Guide the tape with the spare fingers of the hand pulling the folder, to keep it centered; the folder will quite cheerfully fold one seam allowance wider than the other if left unsupervised. Guiding the fabric also causes a slight drag, and the resulting hint of tension makes the tape want to fold. It is also possible to push the gadget along the tape with the iron, but I've forgotten the details. I think I did it raw edges up, and with the iron sideways to prevent the nose from pushing the folds outward. Pulling the tape under a pin stuck into the ironing- board cover isn't as convenient as using a gadget, but the free middle of the pin can be any length that you have in mind. Pull the tape through with the raw edges up, so that you can encourage them as they approach the pin. If you are making only a yard or two, take advantage of the natural tendency of bias to fold exactly in half. Fold the tape in half lengthwise and iron the crease. Iron it open -- hastily and without steam -- and fold first one edge and then the other to meet the crease-mark down the middle. Single-fold tape is finished; make double-fold tape by re- pressing along the first crease. ------------------------------------------------------------ Department of "well, duh!" 10 July 2007: I just read : "Pre-crease the strip for easy application. Fold it in half lengthwise, right side out; steam-press firmly; fold in half again, press." There is no reason on God's Green Earth for the crease you stitch along to lie in the final direction, and this is *much* easier than pressing an imitation of commercial tape! ------------------------------------------------------------

28 September 2016

I have read a tutorial saying that the way to make bias tape is to fold the fabric along the bias, pin that fold in, then mark cutting lines parallel to the fold and cut strips with a rotary cutter (thus cutting two layers at once), working from the outside toward the fold. Which was illustrated by a picture of a cutter near the line nearest the fold -- the pictures in that series of tutorials are often uninformative or inept. The purpose of working toward the fold, of course, is to preserve the fold to keep the two layers lined up. If you try this, I'd suggest pressing the fold in instead of pinning it. It makes the fold more definite and easier to measure from, and the pins would get in the way of laying the ruler to mark the first line. I'd also suggest cutting a strip of cardboard to the exact width of the desired tape and using that to draw the lines. But when I draw parallel lines, I measure at right angles to the guide line and make dots that I later connect. That way all the lines are measured directly from the guide line. ------------------------------------------------------------ I don't think I've mentioned anywhere how useful a "laser level" is for marking bias lines. Tools, PAGESEW\RUFFTEXT\ROUGH007.TXT, explains how to use it. I mark only a few lines, and then measure from those when I'm cutting my bias-cut bras. The scraps usually afford an ample supply of long pieces of bias tape for binding the armholes, but sometimes I'll mark off several pieces of tape before laying out. ------------------------------------------------------------ EOF