Needle number for plastic sewing
If you want to personalize your garments or those of your kids, you have the vinyls in my store. You can choose the name or text and the color of the vinyl. There are even metallic and glitter colors for the little princesses!
The pattern is the Ishi dress, by Straightgrain. It’s a very simple pattern to sew and very nice. It gives us several options of sleeves, short and long, depending on the season for which we want the dress. I have chosen to leave it sleeveless, so it will be cooler for the summer.
For the main front and back panels I used a fabric that I think is chambray, a kind of denim very thin and nice to wear. For the side panels I used patchwork fabric I had around the house.
I’ve been pretty quiet the last few weeks (a good euphemism for months, hehe). The reason has been mainly a very important order that a friend of mine made me: to silk-screen print the cotton bags that she was going to give as a gift on her wedding day. It was a responsibility that I could not fail.
Sewing rubber
To begin with, you should know that there are two types of textile vinyl: cut vinyl and print vinyl. The cut textile vinyl is a monochromatic vinyl that is cut with the desired shape and adhered to the fabric, while in the print textile vinyl you can print a drawing or photograph to later adhere it to the fabric.
In this tutorial I have used textile vinyl for cutting as it has a wide range of solid colors that look very nice once transferred to the fabric. To achieve the same result with textile vinyl printing you need a photo quality printer and a high resolution image.
Textile vinyl for cutting consists of a matte side to which a hot melt adhesive has been applied, and another glossy side with a siliconized or carrier film that will be applied with heat and will be removed once the vinyl adheres to the fabric.
It should be noted that textile vinyl can be applied on cotton, polyester, acrylic and their blends. For elastic or lycra fabrics there is a special elastic vinyl that adapts to the fabric when stretched.
How to sew plastic canvas
The most laborious project I have made in plastic canvas has been this raincoat and with it I have learned a lot of things that I collect in this tutorial so that you lose fear of this fabric. It is a relatively unknown material, so I start with a list of the questions I had plus the ones I have received from you. The first thing I did was to “study the laminates”, because if I understood what they are I could better understand how to work them.
This was my first experiment. Normal needle, normal pin, normal thread and straight stitch. Laminated fabric right side up, so that the base of the pin is in contact with the plastic coating. After two or three stitches I understood why. The metal pin sticks to the vinyl and the fabric does not move forward. Fabric with the laminate facing down: the fabric moves forward and does not get stuck because the teeth manage to pull it, but not uniformly.
However, the vinyl prevents the fabric from molding with heat. No matter how much pressure I applied with the iron, the fabric would return to its place and there was no way to control it. Some of it would give way, but not significantly after the batch of iron it had taken. This matters because when joining two sides as in the hood lining of my raincoat, the seam line was constantly coming out. To put it in place I employed two techniques: understitching the lining to the seam allowances, and topstitching the seam edge.
With which needle to sew the leather
The interior of many cars is black and therefore in summer it can be very hot because of the black vinyl. Therefore many ideas are made so that the summer heat is not a problem to those who are in the car all day long and a steering wheel cover can be a great idea for these cases.
Measure around the circumference of the steering wheel and add 1″. (Mine is 46 1/2″ + 1″ = 47 1/2″). The extra inch is the seam allowance. Cut 5″ wide fabric by the measurement you just calculated. Cut 2 pieces of 30″ elastic.
Option 1: lay the fabric face down and paint the back with puff paint. Do a better job than I did. For the picture, I didn’t put enough paint on because I wanted it to dry faster. It doesn’t have to be pretty, no one will see it. The paint will help keep the cover from sliding off and, in an emergency, that’s probably a good thing:)
Fold the elastic under and zigzag back around the steering wheel cover. This gives a clean edge and a decorative elastic finish. Don’t like the zigzag finish? Fabric stores also sell “twin needles”, this gives you a similar finish to the hem of a t-shirt. I find them expensive and a bit fragile for this type of project.