sewing Archives - Page 22 of 42

Swing tacks

What’s the little fiber bridge
that keeps your linings tame?
S-W I-N-G T-A-C-K-S

Okay, that was uncalled for. But swing tacks, also known as French tacks and thread bars, are pretty great. They are a connection between two pieces of fabric that keeps the fabric in general alignment while allowing some motion. You’ll almost always find them at the hem of lined pants, for example, so the lining can’t twist or bunch up. I used them recently for my wool peacoat (which you may recognize from its relining).

The center back hem of the lining needed a tack. I’d tacked it twice already, but it kept coming out because I was doing the shortcut: a finger-knit chain (which should be called finger-crocheted, since it is exactly a tightened crochet chain). The problem with that is it only stitches through each end once, unlike a thread bar. The pockets also needed tacks so they would stop coming out every time I pulled out my mittens.

How do you make a swing tack? Stitch back and forth between your two layers a couple of times – I usually have 3 or 4 crossings (here, three, with doubled thread) between them. That allows you a strong connection that’s not just through a single bit of fabric. Then make a buttonhole stitch down the threads to hold them together and give them a layer of protection against wear. Buttonhole on thread is actually a series of half hitch knots, and it goes surprisingly fast. In the image above, the half hitch is made but not tightened. It may be hard to tell what’s on top: where the thread crosses itself, the part closer to the needle is on top. Where the thread crosses the tack, the tack is on top at the upper crossing and the thread is on top at the lower crossing.

When you tighten the stitches they will be much closer together than is necessary to sufficiently cover the thread bar, so don’t despair if your stitching seems to be making no progress! Just spread them down the bar with your thumb and forefinger.

Pardon the blur. The added benefit of a properly-made swing tack is the buttonhole stitch wants to spiral around the threads, causing the whole works to coil up when it’s not being pulled on, and hiding completely under the fabrics.

Besides swing tacks, thread bars are used for invisible belt loops and for lingerie straps (where one end of the bar is inside a garment shoulder and the other attaches to a snap, with the other half of the snap also on the garment shoulder – you can use lightweight ribbon for this as well). They are a good tool to know, and one I’ve been meaning to write about for over a year!

Mending coats

I’ve done a lot of coat mending this winter. First was a donation coat that came to the Sew-op via a member of the Co-op. It needed a new zipper and had one pinned to it. It sat there a little while before I took it home, put in the new zipper, secured a seam that was coming loose, removed a clear-plastic ID pocket that was fragmenting, repaired a torn pocket – and mended a small hole that I nipped into it when removing the old zipper. After a trip through the washing machine it went to the local shelter’s closet for someone to stay warm in.

I didn’t photograph it really, except for this:

I tried the method of basting all the layers of the coat together prior to removing the zipper, so they stay put for installation of the new zipper. I had to do it twice because, unbeknownst to me, the lining was puffed up close to the zipper. You can see my stitching above the top piece of velcro. I didn’t have to baste both sides because the other had a seam line entirely inside the zipper.

When we were visiting my grandmother over Christmas, we went to a consignment store and a thrift store, and I bought a coat at each one. Vermont is definitely a place where a coat wardrobe sees use, and mine needed some upgrading. The first purchase was at the consignment store, where I found a nice long heavy coat… that needed some button help.

Such is the way of secondhand wardrobes. By the way, looks notwithstanding, that coat is entirely synthetic.

We went to the thrift store second, and I found a nice corduroy jacket for spring and fall. It just needed a little snag fixed up.

I was pleased with how the repair came out, especially since I didn’t actually have matching thread.

And there we are! A decent percentage of my coat wardrobe changed out – I donated two of my previous coats to make room for these.

Miff Miffler

If you were wondering why my first needle felting project was just a green and yellow blob, here’s your answer. We attend a weekly movie night, and after the show there is usually a contest. Often the contest involves drawing or writing the answer to a question, and one week (for a question which might have been about what precipitated WWIII in that night’s movie), Matt drew the following:

This cat was originally labeled “Miff Miffer” but by popular demand (read: how everyone remembered it) it was changed to “Miff Miffler”. One of the movie night organizers later named his wireless network Miff Miffler, and now he even has a Facebook page.

I’ve been wanting to make a plush Miff Miffler ever since, and after scaling back to a much smaller and less-perfected version than originally planned I was able to make one for Matt for Christmas. Here he is licking the Christmas tree.

His legs are big and wonky and his face and head aren’t quite proportioned right, but for something I made with a limited number of drafts I’m pretty happy with him. He’s made of acrylic felt and fiberfill. Gussets in his upper back and lower belly help give him the potato shape of the original, and his eyes are made with a rounded, short-tailed fly stitch. Actually several of them, on top of each other. The layers of his ears are glued together as well as sewn into the head together.