E:\PAGESEW\RUFFTEXT\ROUGH016.TXT

Cutting out

ALWAYS: ======= Lay out everything before you cut anything. (Unless maybe you've got a hundred-yard roll of the fabric, or you're using up assorted scraps, or for some other reason there is no chance whatsoever that you'll end up a quarter of an inch short.) Confession: =========== In an old joke, a farmer hired a new hand. On his first day on the job, the hand was so eager and energetic that he seemed likely to work himself into heat stroke. After repeatedly admonishing the hand to pace himself, the farmer resorted to telling him to sit in the shade and sort potatoes. When the farmer came back to check on him, the hand was out cold. The farmer brought him to with a bucket of cold water, then anxiously inquired as to what had happened. "It was all those decisions!" I'm completely exhausted after I cut something out, and seldom sew on the same day. It's all those decisions! Pattern Weights =============== For a while, there was a tremendous fuss over the novelty of using elaborate pattern weights instead of pins to hold patterns in place while cutting out. Sixty years before that, my mother used whatever was handy, including a green-glass kitchen salt shaker. I find books and drafting tools convenient. My big red 45ø draftsman's triangle is indispensable, especially when I'm cutting with a knife. (It isn't the knife that's new ÄÄ it's the high-tech cutting mat that makes knife cutting practical again.) Pinning ======= I've heard people say they never use pins when using a rotary cutter (rolling knife) because running over a pin will ruin the blade -- but trying to cut a pin will ruin scissors too, and that's much more expensive than ruining a disposable blade. But I *am* less likely to use pins when using a cutter, because one really needs to lay down a ruler or some-such to steady the edge being cut, and pins interfere with that. On the other hand, pins keep things from sneaking out of line when you raise the fabric by slipping scissors under it. (Scissors aren't supposed to raise fabric *much*; bent- handle trimmers are bent to allow you to keep the blade of the scissors close to the table.) I use pins much more than my mother did because I'm much less organized: I sew in fits and starts, and rarely sew on the same day that I cut out. A pattern piece pinned to a part is very convenient in identifying it and, in some cases, is needed to tell which way is up. When I use a pattern piece as a template, as when cutting out a rectangle, I pin the pattern to the garment piece to keep track of it. Pin two opposite corners of a piece first, or pin both ends of the grain line, to keep the pattern from shifting out of its carefully-measured place on the fabric. Then pin corners, sharp turns, the middles of long stretches, etc. Stick the pins along the cross grain or straight grain, not parallel to the edges of the pattern. Small-headed pins distort the fabric less than large- headed pins. Flat-headed pins are said to combine the virtues of both, but I have no experience with them. If you are really worried about the pattern slipping, baste it to the fabric. You should use weights instead of pins when cutting fabric that shows holes, or at least keep the pins in the seam allowances. Another expedient is to draw around the pattern with a removable marker (or #2 pencil, if the cut edges aren't going to show), remove the pattern, and then cut. Drawing around the pattern is also useful when you want to use a pattern several times, but don't want to make several copies of it. Use only removable markers, since you might change your mind while fitting them together -- this is one of the few uses for a self-removing marker, since you aren't likely to dilly-dally about cutting along the marks. You can also use basting spray, double-sided tape, etc. to hold pattern pieces in place. I have no experience with gluing my patterns to my fabric, but I have used masking tape to keep a scrap of satin from wiggling around on the table. Masking tape should be removed as soon as it's not needed, as the glue will become permanent if given time to soak in and dry out. Ditto for drafting tape. --------------------------------------------------------- Laying out ========== Respect the grain no matter what. (But remember that "respect" isn't a synonym for "slavish obedience".) (In knits, we say "respect the stretch", but the methods are the same.) Sometimes you measure from the edge of the fabric to the straight-of-grain arrow -- this is easier if you draw a line on the pattern extending the arrow from one edge of the pattern piece to the other. Extra lines parallel to the straight-of-grain arrow are sometimes convenient. Sometimes you lay the straight-of-grain arrow -- or one of the marks parallel to it -- on a stripe of the fabric. It may be convenient to mark the chosen stripe with chalk, basting, or the like. Sometimes you lay one edge of the pattern on a fold, selvage, drawn thread, or crosswise cut. Sometimes a piece has straight edges on both the straight of grain and the cross grain, and then you notice whether or not your fabric is straight! Sometimes you can interchange cross grain and straight grain, but not always. If the fabric has stretchier warp threads than weft threads, you probably *should* switch the grains. (But the fabric may be designed to be used with the elastic threads running up and down.) Use the layout diagrams on the instruction sheet for inspiration, but don't take them seriously. The fellow who designed those layouts could only guess at how wide your fabric would be, he had no clue at all as to how you would alter the pattern, and it is rare for a separate layout to be provided for each size of the pattern. If you have two or more garments to cut from the same length of fabric, laying out both at the same time will probably allow a more-efficient layout. Sometimes you can lay out the pieces of one garment pointing one way and the pieces of the other pointing the other way, to interlock tapered pieces and yet cut all the pieces of each garment with the same "nap". I can get two pairs of pants from a length of fabric that used to give me one. Lay the large pieces out first, then nest the small pieces in among them. Be prepared to re-shuffle the pieces to nest them more economically. Sometimes wasting a little fabric in order to cut everything with the cloth folded exactly in half is worth it. If you use a pattern a lot, consider copying the pieces that should be cut on the fold onto folded paper, so that you can lay them out on single fabric when that saves trouble. Also copy any pattern pieces you may want to use more than once during a cutting session. Sometimes drawing threads and cutting a length of fabric into shorter pieces makes the job easier, particularly when some of the pieces have straight edges that should lie on the cross grain. This trick is particularly appealing when the fabric is longer than your table. If you are young and agile, lay out long pieces of fabric on the floor. I had hardwood floors when I was young and agile, so I'm not going to be much help with the now-ubiquitous carpet. Carpet can get caught in your pins, it prevents the efficient use of your cutting mat, shaggy carpet can catch on the points of your scissors and be damaged, some kinds of carpet are lumpy and bumpy, and carpet grabs your fabric and prevents it from shifting, so that it is easy to lay it out distorted and hard to pull it straight. And the carpet now in fashion can't be rolled up and shoved to one side. You can push two or more tables together to get a longer cutting surface, lay a long piece of plywood on whatever supports come to hand, buy a folding banquet table, have a custom standing-height table made, pack up everything and take it to the firehouse to cut on their long tables . . . If the fabric dangles from the end of the table, supporting it with a chair or other piece of furniture will help to keep it from dragging on the fabric that you are cutting. You can lay out in sections, rolling up the fabric with pattern pinned to it at one end of the table. If you are using pattern weights for convenience in using a rotary cutter, pin while laying out, then remove the pins and substitute weights after moving the mat underneath the section to be cut next. Once everything is laid out nicely, it may be convenient to cut a piece in the middle first, to cut your fabric into easier-to-handle pieces. If you are agile enough to lay the pattern out on the floor, but crawling around to cut out is a chore, after laying out and pinning, cut the fabric into pieces that are easy to transfer to your table. Ordinarily you cut around a pattern lying on your fabric, but sometimes it is convenient to draw around your pattern and then cut on the line -- particularly when you are using the same pattern piece more than once. ------------------------------------------------------------ Orientation: ============ cutting with the nap, keeping the right side out ================================================ Sometimes a fabric has a nap or a one-way design that requires that all pieces be laid out with their tops pointing to the same end of the fabric. Cutting this way is called cutting "with the nap". Sometimes it is obvious which way is up, sometimes you have to study it, sometimes you make an arbitrary decision and stick to it. Stand in front of a mirror, holding the fabric now with this end up, now with that. Pick it up by the middle, or drape it with its middle around your neck with both ends hanging down, and study both orientations at once. Stroke the fabric -- the nap will feel smooth when you stroke with the nap, and rougher when you stroke against it. If the nap points down in the finished garment, it might wear longer, if the nap points up, it may look richer, because the observer is looking down into the nap. When in doubt, cut with the nap pointing down -- that's the way all the other mammals wear it. If it doesn't matter which end is up, cut with the nap anyway, as long as you don't have to waste fabric to accomplish it. There just might be a subtle difference that will show up after the garment is assembled. Likewise, when a fabric is the same on both sides, keep one side outside anyway. Though cutting with the nap often wastes fabric, it is rare for one-sided cutting to do so, since garment pieces nearly always come in pairs. Be consistent about whether you fold the right or wrong sides together when cutting -- if you can't pick one method for all cutting jobs, at least be consistent within each job. I usually fold the right sides together, because that is easier to remember ("protecting" the right side), but if you are marking with a tracing wheel, it's easier to put the carbon paper inside the fold, so that you never have to mark through two layers of fabric; in this case, you'll want wrong sides together. If there is any chance there will be some doubt in your mind later, knot the end of a thread and take a stitch on the wrong side of each piece, so that you can look for the knots when assembling. This can be combined with thread- marking a notch -- and the knot can also be used to distinguish one thread-marked notch from the rest, if you need to. Most sewing books suggest large chalk X marks on the wrong side of the fabric. If you use medium-size arrows instead, you also keep track of the nap, and know which is the straight grain and which is the cross grain. Make more arrows on the scraps as they fall away, and they will be more useful for making doll clothes, patchwork, and appliqu‚. Since chalk marks are apt to wear off, make small #2 pencil arrows on the wrong side of print scraps. Other scraps, of course, might be used with the other side up, and should not be marked permanently. Arrows should always point up, since "this end up" is easy to remember. Embroidered arrows ------------------ Sometimes you want to arrow a fabric before washing it. For example, if you have a small washer and have bought twenty yards of 60" ten-ounce denim, you will have to cut or tear the fabric into pieces before washing it, and may need to combine parts of two or more of these pieces into a single garment. Embroidery is the only marking that is both removable and washable. You may wish to use embroidery to mark a delicate fabric, or a fabric that might be weakened by the alkali in chalk. Luckily, embroidering arrows with basting thread is quick and easy. Weave a needle through the fabric and pull through, being careful not to pull the thread all the way out. Put the needle down a little to one side of the last stitch and bring it up exactly where the thread is emerging from the fabric. Pull through and repeat on the other side. Weave back to where you started, filling in the gaps left by the first pass of running stitch. This mark is the same on both sides, it's firm enough that you could use it for an ornament in the final product, and it's quite easy to pull out -- but if you confine the marks to the selvages, you probably won't need to pull them out. If you don't want the mark to be the same on both sides, work from the wrong side of the fabric and begin with a knot. After working the head of the arrow, instead of filling the gaps in the arrow shaft, tie the thread to the last stitch of the shaft with a couple of buttonhole stitches, and leave at least a quarter inch of tail when you cut off the thread. This makes a neat and attractive arrow with a dotted-line shaft on the right side, a nicely messy arrow on the wrong side, and if you don't count the knots, it takes only three stitches to make You can knot the very end of a thread by wrapping it around the tip of your finger, rolling it off, and stroking your pinch down the thread to tighten the loop. If you aren't in practice, the knot is apt to be large and messy, but for a marking arrow, a large and messy knot is all to the good. Cutting very expensive or hard-to-handle fabric: ================================================ && [I distinctly remember having had something to say when I put that heading in here!] Cutting cotton jersey ===================== I've finally learned how to tame jersey, and it *does* make lovely T-shirts and underwear, once you succeed in cutting it out. Jersey tends to curl. Read: it snaps into tubes the instant you let go of it. Difficult fabrics can be tamed by starching them, but it's difficult to iron starched jersey without ironing in stretch, which will cause the garment to behave oddly after you wash out the starch. To deal with this, you need a clean, smooth surface larger than the fabric to be flattened. First, straighten the ends. If it's possible to withdraw a thread from jersey, it will fall apart along a thread-straight line. If it has knitted-in stripes, you can cut along a stripe. Sometimes you have to hope that the design was printed straight, and sometimes you go by guess and by golly. Get it as straight as you can, because garments made of knit are even nastier than wovens about twisting and crawling when cut off grain. Now, lay the fabric out on the smooth surface and fold it in half with the right sides together. Lengthwise or crosswise doesn't matter. Match the edges. Be alert, at this stage, to the possibility that the fabric wasn't cut on the straight of grain when the knitted tube was slit open. If so, match the grain, rather than the cut edges. Baste around all the cut edges, taking large stitches so that it's as quick as pinning. Stitch as close to the edge as you can, so that very little of the fabric is free to curl. Pat and pull the fabric into perfect alignment, and allow it to lie relaxed on your table (or whatever). Spray it thoroughly with diluted bottle starch. (A plant mister is convenient for this.) Give it an hour or two to soak in, then turn the fabric over and spray the other side. Allow the fabric to relax until it is absolutely dry, and then you can handle it as easily as interlock. Leave the basting in until it gets in your way. If the fabric is folded in a convenient manner for cutting out, remove it after cutting, and you won't have to remove it from edges that haven't been used as the edge of a pattern piece. Oddly, I haven't found it necessary to wash cotton jersey so treated before wearing the finished garment, not even when I was making underwear. If your sewing machine skips stitches when sewing on knits, use a slice of sponge to brush strong starch along the places where the stitching will go, allow it to dry relaxed, then iron it. Also check that your needle isn't damaged, and that it's fine enough for the fabric. EOF