Teaching Beginners How to Sew- Lesson 5 - Little Bag

Now we'll start learning some basic techniques for most any sewing project: Turning under and stitching raw edges.

 

~~ Sewing Lesson 5~~

Review the term "selvage" which is the edge running on each side of the fabric and is woven so as not to fray.  The white area cut off on this piece is the selvage.

Also, talk about "straight of grain" which is the weave of threads in a fabric.  Good quality fabric will have threads running perpendicular in the weave, and when torn will tear a straight line.  Patterns have a line on them that is intended to be placed parallel to the "selvage." If you pull the fabric from selvage to selvage, you will find more stretch, then if you pull the fabric in it's length.  Of course the most stretch is pulling on the weave in a diagonal manner. 

To Make the Little Bag

After pressing, stitch as close to the folded edge as possible.

Find a place on your pressure foot that you can follow to help make the stitching straight.

Running the ribbon through the casing was a bit challenging for my 3rd soon to be 4th grader.

Make 3 or 4 stitches, backstitch to the pin, continue stitching down the side.

Turn right side out.

Tie the ends of ribbon together in a knot close to the end.

This isn't the neatest finish for this ribbon casing, but will do for this lesson.

Just in case you missed Lessons 1 thru 4, you can find the links below.

Sharing at several Linky Parties.

Thanks to the FREE programs:

possibly used for this post

GIMP for cropping & other digital effects

 Photoscape for downsizing & watermarking photo

PicMonkey creating collages used on this page