Lessons

Lesson Info

Cutting out the Fabric

So now that we know our fabric anatomy terms, I'm going to talk a little bit about our layout here in our instructions we've got a menu of our pattern pieces, so these are all the pieces you should have cut out and ready to go there's a little key here that tells us about what's happening in this layout this white shows us that it's a printed side of the pattern facing up and this a gray shows us that it's the printed side of the pattern facing down this is really important as we start to get into the direction that our fabric is in and the direction that our pattern pieces they're going to be pinned to the garment these layouts are broken down by wit the fabric, so I have the skinnier fabric forty two to forty four inches first and he's also broken down by size is my fabrics a little wider it's fifty eight inches, so I'm going to jump down here fifty four to fifty eight inch wide fabric. This layout here is for size x small through small I'm a medium, so this is the one I'm going to u...

se up here size medium through x large so this is what I'm going to be looking at to make sure that my pattern pieces fit correctly onto my fabric I also want to make sure that they're all going in the right direction I have a solid fabric here, so it doesn't really matter if it has the top to the bottom top to the bottom, everything going in the right direction but occasionally I like to make this skirt out of a prince and if my print had a direction, I would want to make sure it was all going in the correct direction so we can tell from looking at our layout the skirt gets skinnier at the top where the waste is and it gets wider down by the him and the way this is laid out, everything would be going from top to bottom top to bottom through the length of our fabric there in order for this to happen there's one pattern peace peace number one here that has to be pinned to the fabric with a printed side down that's what this little key is telling us all the other pattern pieces air going to depend with the printing side facing up like this this would be printed side facing down. So now that I know what I'm looking at, aiken set this off to the side and start pin. So now that we know which lay out we're going to be using I like to take my pattern pieces and make them look just like the layout on my fabric to make sure you've got enough fabric and you kind of get an idea of what I'm doing this first piece screw up front, this is the one that has to be turned so that the printing is facing down. The reason is, is because, like I said in the intro, we talked about all of the pattern pieces going from the top to the bottom so that if you had a prince on this fabric, all of the pieces would be with the print orient in the correct direction if I tried to take this edge here and put it on the fold that's not really following my directions here, this says place of this edge on the fold, and if I turned it around like this, this edges on the fold, but then this piece is upside down. So in order to fix this, I'm going to take this entire piece and flip it so that it's facing down like this referencing my layout, it looks like he's number two is next, the skirt side friends and then I have peace number three also cut on the fold right down here, he's number four skirts side back it's gonna look just like this. And then I've got my pocket pieces and my waistband pieces this down a little bit, and if I look at my layout, I've got to pocket pieces right next door to each other this is important. This says, cut for so if I took this piece put it on my fabric and cut around it, I would have to pockets I'm going to need to cut an extra set one pocket will be the outside, the other pocket will be the lining this is where if you decide you want a different fabric for the lining, you can totally do that you only need to cut one set of pockets and they would cut the other two out of your lining fabric, which I'll show you in just a minute so these guys were here if I wanted to cut the lining of the pocket out of the same fabric, I would just make sure I left enough room here to be ableto un pin and repin right next door to it and then these guys these air the waistband pieces this is also cut on the fold and it says right here place this edge on the fold so these guys were going to go right here like this and I totally have enough fabric to cut my skirt. So now I'm going to start pinning if you don't have a lot of room when you're working, you can always kind of lay your stuff out and then fold it up a little bit and as you pin, you can kind of roll it up in the other direction, so first I'm going to start out pending on the fold again, we want to make sure that this edge of the fabric and this edge of the pattern are is lined up this possible. So I'm going to make sure that I've got the edge of the pattern right up against that full dutch, and I'm going to put a couple pins in right along that edge to make sure this pattern peace doesn't move around these pins air anchor pins, they're the first ones I'm going to do to make sure that my pattern stays in place. Well, I do the rest of the pinning, the reason we're pending this pattern to the fabric is we're going to cut around it, and we don't want this paper to move all we're cutting. We want to make sure our fabric is exactly the same size is this paper pattern piece? Oh, so if you feel like you're cutting and your fabric is moving around too much or your paper pattern is moving around too much, you can always stop and put a couple more pins in. So cutting on the fold, like I said, means you want to pin along that folded first. The other rule when you're doing pending and cutting is if something has a grain line on it, you need to make sure that this grain line matches up and is parallel to either the fold edge of your fabric. Or the salvage edge of your fabric. So I'm going to use my ruler to measure I can pull this a little bit more this way. You want to give yourself a little bit of room between the pattern pieces, you don't want to pull it right up next door to it, and I'm going to use my ruler to measure one end of the green line from here to the fold. I like to pick a number that I can remember, so I'm going to pick sixteen and a half. I've got that lined up over here on my fold, and then I'm going to shift the pattern piece to be right at the end of my ruler. Then if I move the ruler out of the way, I can use a pin tow anchor that right at sixteen and a half inches. Now I take my ruler and I come down to the other end, and if I make this sixteen and a half inches here that I can slide migraine line to the top of my ruler, and now I know that this green line is parallel to the fold edge or the salvage, and thus parallel to all of the length of grain threads running the long way of my fabric this is really important accurate grain line is what makes clothing hang on the body correctly. If you started to skew it that's when you get signed, seems that start to wrap around the body instead of staying on the side like they're supposed to not so bad if you're buying a cheap t shirt from target, but if you're making something, you want people to be amazed by how beautiful it looks. So after I do the green line here, I'm gonna pin my corners and the action of pinning that I'm doing. I'm keeping my pin kind of parallel to the table like this I don't want to be stabbing into the table, I'm sliding it through the pattern and both layers of fabric, and then I'm lifting enough to make a little tent like this and pushing the tip of the pin through. I'm really trying hard not to stick my hands underneath the fabric, because that makes a big lump and we want to keep this a smooth as possible, so all the corners get pinned and then I'm gonna fill some pins in all the way around the edges. A good rule of thumb is a hand span between the pins is at least the minimum that you want feel free to add more, they don't have to be right next door to each other, though the bottom, so I'm going to continue to pin. For the rest of this here, everything on the fold, anchoring it on the fold before I pin the rest of it, anything with the grain line measuring and anchoring that grain line before I move forward, I can fold this up because it's are you been pinned and slide this down a little bit if you decide you want to cut teo pocket pieces that air the same, sometimes I like to kind of use my chalk to make sure I don't cut into this, so I would say, ok, here's one piece and then this is going to be where I need another piece, so I know that when I'm cutting, I don't want to cut through this area because I need it for my pocket. If you're going to be using a separate fabric, all you need to do is line up your grain line and pen and cut this piece this waistband piece. We're also going to need to reuse it says right here cut one unfold for fabric and one unfold for interfacing, so I'm gonna pin on the fold in the rest of it, cut this out, and then I'll need to use it again to cut my interfacing, all right, I'm gonna place this edge along the fold and anchor it with my pins, making sure that's raid on a fold there in the corners. And the motion for pinning I want to keep my pin quite parallel to the table. I don't want to stab into the table, I'm sliding it through the paper and both layers of fabric until I can feel it run along the table, and then I'm lifting it up to create a little bump and pushing it drew so not have everything pinned and I'm ready to start cutting. This is where you want to switch to your fabric shears. Nice, sharp shears. They're going to give you a clean line when you cut and that clean, sharp edge to your fabric is what's going to make your seem look great? So when you're ready to start cutting, you can do it one of two ways, and it really depends on what's comfortable to you. I encourage you to try both. You can put your hand on your pattern and cut, so the pattern is on the left and the fabric is on the right, or you can hold on to the fabric and cut, so the pattern is on the right and the fabric is on the left, whichever way feels better for your hand in whichever way you think you're getting close to the pattern as close as you can without cutting it. So I'm going to slide my scissors under. I also like to try to keep the tips of this year's on the table and nice long cuts or what you want. You want to open up your scissors nice and big and get this v right up to the fabric there if you push on the fabric that's going to get frayed edges so just rested there and just one nice long cut assed closes you can get just like this along the edge of your pattern, same thing up here, slide it right in and then it's up to you. You can continue to turn your pattern pieces in the direction that you need to help you cut them accurately. I can set my cut piece off to the side while I cut the rest of them. The's little triangles here are called notches, and we're going to cut right past them. For the time being, we're not going to cut in quite yet, so you can continue to cut out all of the pieces that you've pinned being careful to not cut into the area you set aside for your second set of pockets. If you're going to do that out of your main fabric. So there's only a couple more things we need to do to finish the cutting portion of this project. I do need to cut a second set of pockets, so before unp in this pocket and repent it. This is now when I do need to cut out these notches, so you'll see these little triangles on pretty much every pattern piece that you have, and you want to use your shears, just the tips of them to cut out either a black notch. If it's on a line that's common to all the sizes, and then the color of the size that you've picked again minus gold for medium, you don't want to go past the point of the notch, but you do want to cut it out so that you can really clearly see it. Once you've cut the notches out, you can unp in your pattern piece, and this is where you can choose to make a second set of pockets out of the same fabric or out of a different fabric. If you like. For the lining, I recommend if you have a slightly heavier weight fabric that's going to be the main body of the skirt to pick a lighter weight fabric to line the pockets with, but if your whole skirt is made out of quote, wait cotton or a sham bray, then you can totally self line, which means used the same fabric for the inside of the pocket if I was to use the same fabric, I have my little space reserved and I would line it up just like I always do, lining up the grain line pending the corners and cutting carefully around the edges and if I wanted to use a separate fabric, the pattern tells us that we need a third of a yard to do that with so I can just line it up exactly this anyway on my extra fabric measuring from the top of the grain line in the bottom of the grain line over to the fold or the salvage pinning it and cutting it in your pocket pieces. This fabric that I'm using for my skirt, by the way, is from robert kaufman and it's, one of their lightweight indigo denims. It makes a fantastic vintage pocket skirt. The last thing I have to do is I have to un pin my front waistband again, this one says, cut one on the fold of fabric and cut one on the fold of interfacing so I've cut my fabric and I've cut out my notches now I can unpick in and in your layout there will be the picture that you need to fold up your interfacing correctly for this so we can reference size extra small to medium or size large two extra large I'm gonna be using this one because I have a medium. So all I do is take my eighth of the yard of interfacing and folded in half the long way. And then I have enough room to place my fold edge right here, an anchor it with my pins. But a couple more pins in tow hold everything in place. And then I'm gonna carefully cut around the edges of my pattern, just like I did with my fabric. And I'll cut my notches before ian pin. I can always tell when we've had a beginner class because they're notches all over the floor, and then I'll unpack in and that's it for the cutting. Now we're going to move on to some of the other prep work we need to d'oh.