In this post I have a few tips for you.

I recently had some fun working in a sewing machine store. I felt like I’d found a dream job, but sadly an old injury made its presence known again and I couldn’t continue to work there.

While I was there I was learning so much though. Imagine a  job where you have to learn all the different sewing machines, what they do, and then practice. I told everyone I’d gotten a job in a toy store. The only thing that could possibly have been better would be to work somewhere like Bra-Makers Supply. Well, that or a jewelry store.

One of the first things I learned was about my own sewing machine. I’d even taken lessons for my new machine when I bought it and didn’t learn this:

Did you see my presser foot? One of my complaints with this sewing machine had been there’s just was not enough room under that presser foot. Well, no problem now that I’ve learned if I just continue to lift it up a bit more than it goes up on its own there’s lots of room. It won’t stay there on its own, but I’m very happy with this newly found information and have put it to use already.

Here’s something else I learned that is so interesting, and affects all of us who sew – thread can be wound onto the spools upside down! Did you know thread had a right way of unwinding and a wrong way? Me either.

So, what difference does that make? Take a look:

If you look at the beginning of the video, you’ll see I’m taking the thread off the spool with the name at the top, which we’d normally consider to be the top of the spool. As soon as I pull the thread out from the spool, it soon starts to twist. According to how the thread has been wound on the spool, the top of that spool is really the bottom. We need to test our threads (each spool we buy) before sewing so they won’t twist on us in our machines. Really, who knew?

It was suggested to me when I buy thread, bring it home and test it before sewing. Then once I know which way the thread won’t twist, take a marker and put a dot on the ‘real’ top of thread so as to know how to load it. Thread twisting in our machines is not something we want. That’s a great tip!

One last tip, but this one isn’t a video. This is from my recent Ivory Bomb.

In the past I always worked from the front when attaching my strap elastic. I just made sense to me.

However, on my ivory bomb, I decided to pin the elastic to the band from the inside.

I loved how the power net was meeting the edge of the elastic. In the past, I would notice they didn’t always meet perfectly the way I wanted when I pinned from the front. Sometimes the pins would push the power net rather than go through it. I’ll be pinning my strap elastic this way from now on.

Happy creating!