How to… Cut your fabric
Don’t be afraid of cutting your fabric, arm yourself with these top tips and knowledge to make sure you cut with confidence every time.
You’ve picked out a beautiful fabric and now you really want to make something wonderful, or at least wearable, with it… but what if it goes wrong?
For beginner dressmakers, and even experienced dressmakers, cutting into fabric can often be one of the biggest fears! You can fix and unpick most mistakes but if you cut your fabric wrong there is very little you can do about it.
Avoid 5 common mistakes when cutting your fabric…
Use sharp fabric scissors. This will make cutting all fabrics so much easier - a blunt blade will chew rather than cut the fabric. As you cut, try to keep the fabric flat on the table. Some sewists like to use a rotary cutter. If using a rotary cutter I’d still always recommend to follow tip 4 and roughly cut the pieces with scissors first.
True up the grain line and the straight grain arrow on the pattern pieces before pinning the pattern pieces in place. Use plenty of pins, don’t be sparing. Fabric weights can also help keep wriggly fabrics in check and act as an extra hand where needed. Pin all the corners first before filling in around the edges.
Follow the lay plan to help you fit all the pieces on the fabric. If you don’t have a lay plan or if you’re free-styling and trying to fit your pieces into less fabric than is recommended (we’ve all tried it!), make sure you put the largest pieces on first then fit the smaller pieces around it. And ALWAYS follow the grainline arrows.
Roughly cut out all your pieces from the fabric before cutting out around the paper pattern pieces. This will allow you to turn the piece around as you cut avoiding having to cut at uncomfortable angles.
Before removing the paper pattern, make sure you transfer all the notches and any other markings from your pattern to your fabric by either marking with an erasable pen/chalk or with a small snip into the edge of the fabric. Use the tips of the scissors and make sure snips are no larger than 5mm to avoid them showing if you need to let out the seam anywhere.
Once you have cut out your pattern pieces, take them off and set them aside but keep them handy in case you need to check any markings during construction.
Well done! You cut your fabric! Find out how to work out which stitches to use and top tips for sewing jersey knit fabric and woven fabric.
Good pinning =good cutting!
Find out how to improve your pinning technique for more successful sewing!
