Sewing

Turn of the century sewing in Detroit, Michigan

Antique Singer sewing machine

Sewing is an ancient craft involving the stitching of cloth, leather, animal skins, furs, or other materials, using needle and thread. Its use is nearly universal among human populations and dates back to Paleolithic times (30,000 BC). Sewing predates the weaving of cloth.

Sewing is used primarily to produce clothing and household furnishings as curtains, bedclothes, upholstery, and table linens. It is also used for sails, bellows, skin boats, and other items shaped out of flexible materials such as canvas and leather.

Most sewing in the industrial world is done by machines. Pieces of a garment are often firstly tacked together. The machine has a complex set of gears and arms which pierces thread through the layers of the cloth and semi-securely interlocks the thread.

Some people sew clothes for themselves and their families. More often home sewers sew to repair clothes, such as mending a torn seam or replacing a loose button. A person who sews for a living is known as a seamstress, dressmaker, tailor, or garment worker.

"Plain" sewing is done for functional reasons: making or mending clothing or household linens. "Fancy" sewing is primarily decorative, including techniques such as shirring, embroidery, or quilting.

Sewing is the foundation for many needle arts and crafts, such as applique, canvas work, and patchwork.

General sewing methods

Machine sewing is the most popular method. Hand sewing is still done to some extent for finishing and repairing garments. Sergers are becoming more popular for home use, but are not capable of all the functions of a traditional sewing machine. Because of this, people usually purchase a traditional sewing machine first, and purchase a serger at a later date. Sergers prices typically start at two to three times the cost of a traditional sewing machine.

• Hand-sewing: using a needle and thread with your hands to produce stitches.
• Machine-sewing: using a machine to produce similar effects to hand-sewing, but at a much quicker speed. Sewing machines can be electrically or mechanically operated. Electric machines are by far more common.
• Serging: trimming the edge of fabric and overcasting all in one step, sometimes with the option of stitching as well. Also used for creating artistic effects. Serging is ideal for stretchy fabrics or fabrics that should have neat edges. Virutally all commercially-sold clothing is completely made with one or more specialized industrial sergers.

General sewing applications

Almost all of these methods can be done by either hand, sewing machine, or a serger; however, the specific techniques used can be quite different. Some methods are not appropriate for some applications, even though it may be possible to replicate another method. As an extreme, you could technically duplicate serging with hand sewing, but it would take at least several hundred times as long to do the same work. Furthermore, some techniques are not possible with other methods: making an embroidery stitch called a french knot is easy by hand, but impossible by sewing machine or serger.

• Dressmaking/Tailoring/General: general techniques to create clothing and other textile projects.
• Mending: using general techniques and specialized methods such as darning to repair textiles.
• Quilting: sewing together layers of fabric and/or fibrefill to make warm blankets and clothing, or used for effect. Machine quilting is most common, but quilting "purists" and traditionalists do all quilting by hand.
• Serging: uses multiple threads to produce a stretchy and secure edge finish or seam that keeps raw edges of fabric neat. The term "serging" is commonly used to refer both to the act of sewing with a serger, and the type of effect the serger produces.
• Embroidery or machine embroidery: artistic embellishment.

Occupations requiring sewing

• Cobbler
• Corsetier
• Draper
• Dressmaker
• Glover
• Hatter
• Quilting
• Sailmaker
• Tailor
• Upholsterer

Sewing tools and accessories

Sewing box (~1955) with sewing notions

• awl
• bobbin
• bodkin
• dressmaker's or tailor's shears
• measuring tape
• needle
• pattern
• pattern weights
• pin
• pincushion
• rotary cutter
• scissors
• seam ripper
• tailor's chalk
• thimble
• thread
• tracing paper
• tracing wheel
• wax, often beeswax

Notions (objects sewn into garments or soft goods)

Closures:

• buckle
• button (buttons can be sew-through or have shanks.)
  • toggle
• chinese frog
• eye
• hook
• hook-and-loop tape (often known by brand name Velcro)
• snap
• zipper

Finishing and embellishment:

• bias tape
• elastic
• eyelet
• grommet
• heading
• interfacing
• rivet
• trims (fringe, beaded fringe, ribbons, lace, sequin tape)

List of stitches

• back tack
• backstitch
• basting stitch (or tacking) - for temporary fixing
• blanket stitch
• blind stitch (or hem stitch)
• buttonhole stitch
• chain stitch
• cross-stitch
• darning stitch
• feather stitch
• hemming stitch
• lockstitch
• overlock
• padding stitch
• running stitch - for seams and gathering
• sailmakers stitch
• slip stitch - for fastening a folded edge to a flat piece of fabric, or to another folded edge
• stretch stitch
• straight stitch
• topstitch
• whipstitch (or oversewing stitch) - for protecting edges
• zig-zag stitch

References

• Singer: The New Sewing Essentials by The Editors of Creative Publishing International ISBN 0865733082

See also

• sewing machine