Sewing experiment success!
Oct. 16th, 2013 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73So I have a piece of canvas which is now thoroughly decorated and is ready to turn into a bag. I spent last night with some super-strong nylon thread, a couple of different kinds of 90/14 needles, and some canvas scraps to see what was going to work with regards to construction. What I learned:
- I always like to at least give universal ballpoints a try. Yup, even on wovens. I know I'm prone enough to errors that I don't want to break any more cloth fibers than I have to. However, the denim needle gave much better results: no puckering, didn't have to mess with the stitch length or anything to keep it happy.
- I have a couple of options for construction. These bags are meant to be used, darnit, but I don't know how much I need to over-engineer them, esp. given that I'm using something pretty close to upholstery thread for them. I could:
- do a regular straight stitch for the seam,and then
- do a serge-type overlock, which will work as reinforcement as much as it works as a seam finish
- do a fake French seam: fold both edges of the seam inward, then sew along the outside, catching all 4 layers. Disadvantage of this finish: not specificially a reinforced stitch.
- do a reinforcing triple stitch for the seam, and then
- either do a simple zigzag to overlock, which is not super-reinforcing
- do the fake French seam as above.
I can't really do the fake French seam on both the top and the side without leaving a bit of edge that's going to be susceptible to fraying. So probably I'm going to go with the simple single seam and do the serge-like overlock, even though that will use a lot of thread.
Note to self: The nylon thread, if left idle in the top of the machine, likes to kind of stick at first and can be a little hard to pull through. As far as the stitches themselves go, the tension looks fine though.
Another note: Knots: As I'd noticed in the embroidery session last weekend after the serious thread clog, there's something up with the knotting process. It kind of feels like the bobbin end isn't long enough to get caught up properly for the knot making (though that may be due more to the stiffness of the nylon thread than anything else). If I want a knot with this thread, I need to pull the bobbin thread up out of the hole first and hold some of the top thread. This will be important for serging, which only has the knot option. Regular seams can just use backstitching, which seems to lock the threads fine. It will be interesting to try knots with just regular weight cotton and see what happens. I'll be down in Sunnyvale sometime next week and had been planning to stop by Eddies to pick up some stuff anyway; I will ask about it then and perhaps schedule a service while I'm away on vacation in November.
- I always like to at least give universal ballpoints a try. Yup, even on wovens. I know I'm prone enough to errors that I don't want to break any more cloth fibers than I have to. However, the denim needle gave much better results: no puckering, didn't have to mess with the stitch length or anything to keep it happy.
- I have a couple of options for construction. These bags are meant to be used, darnit, but I don't know how much I need to over-engineer them, esp. given that I'm using something pretty close to upholstery thread for them. I could:
- do a regular straight stitch for the seam,and then
- do a serge-type overlock, which will work as reinforcement as much as it works as a seam finish
- do a fake French seam: fold both edges of the seam inward, then sew along the outside, catching all 4 layers. Disadvantage of this finish: not specificially a reinforced stitch.
- do a reinforcing triple stitch for the seam, and then
- either do a simple zigzag to overlock, which is not super-reinforcing
- do the fake French seam as above.
I can't really do the fake French seam on both the top and the side without leaving a bit of edge that's going to be susceptible to fraying. So probably I'm going to go with the simple single seam and do the serge-like overlock, even though that will use a lot of thread.
Note to self: The nylon thread, if left idle in the top of the machine, likes to kind of stick at first and can be a little hard to pull through. As far as the stitches themselves go, the tension looks fine though.
Another note: Knots: As I'd noticed in the embroidery session last weekend after the serious thread clog, there's something up with the knotting process. It kind of feels like the bobbin end isn't long enough to get caught up properly for the knot making (though that may be due more to the stiffness of the nylon thread than anything else). If I want a knot with this thread, I need to pull the bobbin thread up out of the hole first and hold some of the top thread. This will be important for serging, which only has the knot option. Regular seams can just use backstitching, which seems to lock the threads fine. It will be interesting to try knots with just regular weight cotton and see what happens. I'll be down in Sunnyvale sometime next week and had been planning to stop by Eddies to pick up some stuff anyway; I will ask about it then and perhaps schedule a service while I'm away on vacation in November.
