Crafty Thursday: The amazing Top Stitch

As you know, I LOVE to sew :) Did you know that? Haha!

Almost all projects that I do require a topstitch and for the longest time, I never could figure out how to do that. It is so simple but I truly did not understand it. Now I do so I wanted to share the wealth :)

Some of my sewing instruction, believe it or not, has come from Nancy Zieman, who has a TV show on Saturday mornings on PBS. She is very clear and relevant in her delivery about basic sewing, along with more advanced techniques.

One thing that frustrates me about her (and other sewing shows), however, is that they have REALLY expensive sewing machines that do EVERYTHING and a sewing foot for the machine for absolutely everything you would ever want to do. In a recent episode on her show she showed how to top-stitch and I did not even realize there is actually a top-stitching foot for the machine! But, I am here to tell you that you do not NEED a top-stitching foot.....or even a really expensive machine to sew well! Now of course, SOMEDAY when I have oodles of money *(haha), I would like both an expensive surger and a nice computerized embroidery machine......but until then I can fake it on a lot of things and they turn out just as nicely!

All top-stitching is, is a line of stitches that are on the top of a piece of fabric. They hold the 2 pieces down once they are sewn together from the inside and they make it both more sturdy, and more decorative.

I am going to show you how to do this with a regular and not a top-stitching foot :)

In this project, I was working on straps for the casserole carrier that I have been making. They are wonderful, by the way. I have used mine several times and wondered how I lived without it for this long :)

First of all, here is what the strap looks like without a top stitch. It is sewn together from the inside and then turned inside-out:

The first thing you need to do, is pin it down. To get the pinning done precisely is very simple. You take the pin and go in at a 90 degree angle to the fabric facing away from you, then turn it down so it is flush with your fabric. (Like my Angry Birds band-aid? :)

Then you simply sew a straight stitch, sew at about a 2.5 length along the length of the seam. The feed dogs will feed your fabric through, but I like to help it along by SLIGHTLY pulling on the fabric from the opposite end. Keep the needle as close to the seam as possible. (Apparently if you have the fancy foot it has a guide that keeps it even for you).

Remove the pins and that is it! Now look how pretty the straps are!