how to sew spandex

In this structure I will show you how to construct-
Use a home sewing machine to make a superhero costume for spandex.
Contrary to what is generally believed, sewing spandex on home machines with the right tools and techniques is actually very easy and effective, learning to sew spandex is a good skill, no matter what you intend to do with it.
This Instructure is part of how I became a superhero series, and in previous tutorials I showed you how to create your own customization-
Pattern suitable for spandex suit.
If you have your own pattern, ready, or if you just want some tips for sewing spandex on your home machine, this manual is for you!
Otherwise, you may want to start with one of the other tutorials in this series.
Superhero costume design to build a Spandex super suit (*you are here)
Introduction to EVA foamting WorblaPainting and finishing the moth wing cloak printed by Worbla and EVA FoamCustom: Tools: Before you start sewing your supersuit, or any spandex item, to make the process smoother, you should do something.
First, choose the right needle for your project.
Although the universal sewing needle can sew elasticity, there are needles specially designed for different types of elastic fabric.
The sweatshirt and stretch needle have the end of the ballpoint pen that helps prevent the needle from tearing the fabric, and the structure of the needle is designed to avoid the stitches falling off.
Test your stitching first on each new fabric.
When you sew along a grain or cross, the stitches may behave differently
A knit so you need to take this into account when sewing.
If your machine allows you to adjust the pressure of the pressure foot, then reducing the pressure can help you prevent the stretch fabric from stretching or shrinking when sewing, as shown in the following figure. Pin!
Spandex Stretches and travels when you sew, so securing your pieces together safely is the key.
Sometimes, when we sew a tricky shape, or try to match the seam perfectly, it is better to sew it manually before you do the machine sewing.
Of course, basting can be a bit tedious, but sometimes it makes it easier to sew clean seams and eventually save you time and frustration.
Some people think you need a serger to sew spandex, but while serger and overlock machines are great tools to simplify stretch sewing, they are by no means the only option.
The main challenge of sewing spandex is that your stitching needs to be able to stretch with the fabric, so you need to use special stitching when using a home machine.
When you sew a stretch fabric, the stretch fabric can also be a bit slippery, elastic and hard to control, although I actually find the stretch fabric to be one of the most easily sewn stretch fabrics.
Stretch sewing will definitely bring some unique challenges, but since I started sewing spandex on the machine at home, I have become a convert and I think, with some tips, home machine is actually a better sewing stretching tool than serger.
On most home machines, you usually have several different stretch stitches to choose from.
Do you know all the winding lines marked with numbers on your stitch selector dial?
These are actually very useful needles that can help you stitch the stretch.
Here are a few of my favorite: Zigzag
The classic work of sewing elastic fabric on a home machine, because the structure of the stitching allows the seam to stretch.
If the zigzag is the only stretch stitch that your machine offers, it\'s a good choice but not necessarily the best.
The zigzag seam has a considerable gap between the stitches, and the lines tend to be pulled on the tights and become visible.
The zigzag may also have a tendency to fold, not as strong as some other more reinforced stretch needles.
I usually only use the zigzag to stitch seams in the model
Like the costume we created in the last lesson. Overcasting (or Knit)Stitch -
This is a great stretch needle because it can form both a clean and complete seam line and a wider seam line to finish the edge of the fabric.
It is also very flat and can stretch a lot and is great for stitching spandex and other very elastic fabrics. This is my go-
Once I know my clothes fit, I can sew a suit.
One drawback of this stitching is that if you make a mistake, it is difficult to remove the seam.
There is a special \"stretch needle\" on my machine \"(S. S. )
Pattern on the dial of the stitch width used when sewing most stretch stitches like this.
Check out the machine manual for how to set up the stretch stitching. Triple (
Or straight extension)Stitch -
The needle looks like a normal straight needle, but it is sewn three times per needle to make the seam more stretched.
It\'s not like other stretch pins sometimes shrink, it\'s good for seams that need to look clean and have a lot of strength, or seams that need to be opened instead of done together, because they are stitched with a zigzag or overlay line.
It is also a good needle for wrapping edges and stitching spandex.
I use this needle a lot, but like the overcasting needle, it\'s hard to get it out if you screw it up. Triple Zigzag (or Tricot)Stitch-
Like a regular glyph made of straight needles, this needle is both strong and elastic.
This is a great way to stitch things that need to be stretched, but not very good for seams.
It uses a lot on elasticity and underwear and is a good stitching method that can create an application while stretching, or set up on a invisible mesh board for cuttingouts.
Another technique used by many household spandex sewers is the \"stretch straight seam\" method.
It means you use your regular straight seams like you on
Stretch fabric, but when you sew, you stretch the stretch fiber.
You need to do this with both hands, one hand in front of the foot, one hand in the back of the foot, as the fabric feeds under the needle, both hands in both directions
When you finish sewing, this creates space for stretching of regular stitching.
Personally, I don\'t like this method very much. I find it embarrassing and difficult to master it.
I also think this makes sewing curves and complex shapes more difficult and the completed seams are not as strong as the seams of other stretched stitches.
If you work on a machine that does not have other stretching needles (
Like industrial machines.
You can definitely use this method, or it can be a good needle for sewing models.
Ups because the seams are easy to take out.
When you sew and stretch on a home machine, one thing happens is that the seams shrink or become \"wavy \".
This is because the fabric, especially the top layer fabric, is not fast enough to feed through the machine, and will stretch when sewing.
This seam stretch is not necessarily a problem when you sew something like a super suit, but if it will cause you difficulties, you may want to try to use the walking foot attachment on your machine.
The foot of the walk has \"walking\" teeth, reflecting the movement of the lower feeding dog, helping to move the fabric through the machine and create more uniform stitching.
This is especially helpful for stitching a slight \"sticky\" material like the faux leather I use on the suit.
Sober feet are also helpful for many other types of sewing, especially when you work with thick fabric or leather, so they are not a bad investment.
Not all walking feet work on all machines, so check your manual or go online and see which one to buy for your machine. (
You don\'t necessarily need to buy the one that your machine manufacturer sells, though.
Janome made a $50 foot walk for my machine, but I found a very good foot walk on Amazon for $11).
To connect most walking feet, you need to unscrew the entire foot support by unscrewing the thumb screws.
Slide the foot of the walk over the foot bar, while mounting the small claw on the right side of the foot at the bottom of the needle clip screw.
Tighten the thumb screw and you can sew it.
Sew Like when using a walking foot attachment.
Test it on your machine and compare the results of different stitches.
The red fabric at the top of this photo twists and turns with ordinary feet, and the twists and turns at the bottom are stitched with walking feet.
As you can see, the normal feet stretch the fabric, and the seams become wavy when stitching the zigzag, while the foot seams on the walk are tiled.
I found on my machine that regular and triple glyphs work better with walking feet, but the other stretch stitching works better with regular feet.
I think it will be different depending on the machine and the fabric.
It\'s a good reason to always test your stitching first!
When you start sewing your spandex with the stretch needle of your choice, let the fabric naturally enter the machine (
You don\'t need to pull it through from behind or in front).
I sometimes press the fabric slightly forward from the front as it feeds at the foot of the press to counter the tendency to shrink.
The only stretch I have when I sew is when I try to make a slightly longer fabric into a shorter one or sew around a curve.
It helps to stretch the spandex a little at these times so that it gets flat, even when you sew.
It doesn\'t matter if your seam is finally folded here, because your entire garment is stretched tight enough that any folds should lie flat on the body.
If you are sewing something big, try not to let your fabric hang on the machine while sewing, the weight of the fabric will stretch the seam and make it harder to sew neatly.
Support your project on your desk or leg.
Sometimes, when I sew and stretch, I even put a pillow on my knee and lift my project higher.
One strategy to get a really neat finished seam is to make the seam allowance wider than the knit stitching you use, which will help prevent the seam from being stretched and folded when you sew.
When you\'re done, trim off the excess to create a neat finish, be careful not to cut into the stitching.
When you sew your supersuit together, the order in which you connect the pattern pieces to each other will vary depending on your design.
When I created the paneling in the design of the pattern design of the Spandex Supersuit Instructure, I talked about how to strategically plan the panel to avoid the sharp corners of the seam, when we assembled our work, it is important to remember this.
If your suit has side seams like mine, it usually means that you should fully assemble the front and back before you sew them together.
Usually, it is also good to sew small pieces or hard-to-sew small pieces before they are attached to large pieces.
In addition to this, the best order of operations will depend on your personal design.
To figure this out, lay out your cut pattern pieces the way they are assembled and consider the best order to connect them.
Start to help guide you with your gaps, nail them together in order and sew them together.
On the front of my design, before I connect the leg to the lower front panel, I need to sew the purple little side sleeve on the leg.
If I do the opposite, attach the legs to the lower front, and then try to sew at the purple side embedding, it turns the purple small piece into a point that is hard to stitch.
To avoid more tricky corner seams, I continue to assemble the front of my suit like this: my black perforated spandex is a bit pure and in some places like the waist and hips I want to line up.
To do this, I just put myself on the same lining, fix them together, and then sew them on a double panel like a piece.
When you sew in all of these panels, make sure that the seam allowance is laid in the same direction at both ends of the seam, and if they twist along the seam, they end up looking cluttered.
If you sew two styles of thread that need to match perfectly, this usually happens at the side seam, before you sew the seam on the machine, it would help to stick the pieces together in this place.
Put the Needle through two pieces, just right where you want the seam to meet.
Sew the seams together by hand, with a large stitch of about 1 inch on each side.
When you sew with a machine in this area, your seam line should meet perfectly.
I will discuss this when I sew the model
In my design, I designed an spandex super suit instructable, but it can be a bit tricky to sew the inner seam on a pattern like this, because the two pieces are in the opposite shape, the back is a point, the front is a V.
To pin the two pieces together, match the crotch point and place a pin here.
Then start fixing one side and then the other.
It will be a bit awkward and the front pieces are tied together to fit the position of the back.
It may be a good idea to apply this area before sewing.
I\'m lazy, I don\'t take my simulationup.
As you can see, when I sew it, my stitching barely grabs the edge of my front piece, which will make the crotch part a bit unstable.
When I make the final version of the suit, I must brush it in this corner first.
Here is another way to sew the inner seam of the suit, which is also suitable for sewing the inner seam of the pointed angle panel.
I will try to avoid the sheer decorative tip seams of the seams as much as possible, since the design of the tip corners is best done with decals, but if you have to do so, this technique works well.
There is a concave part on the top, and by pasting a pin in the exact corner of the sewing line, combine your two pieces together.
Rotate the concave parts to one side, align the seam allowance with the seam allowance of the convex part, and fix them together along this side.
Sew along this seam and stop when your needle is right around the corner.
Lift your Press foot and cut the seam allowance in the corner close to the needle.
Surround the second side of the top piece together to meet the second side of the bottom piece.
Put your foot down and sew the second side down.
You should have a clean pointed seam when you flip the fabric.
If it\'s a crotch seam, you might want to re-stitch a few inches here
Enforce the corner.
If you have any very curved panels that can be sewn together, you should use a slightly different technique.
As I described in the basic machine sewing class, it is also tricky to create a flat plate with a curved seam line due to similar bump problems: in order to make the seam, we need to sew the two fabrics together and push the wrong side out.
As you can see, they don\'t match at all when we put them together.
In fact, they are the opposite and stand out as sharp pieces.
When you sew with a woven fabric, you have to clip the concave seam allowance and expand along the convex seam like this: it\'s not too much of a problem for a stretch fabric, because you can usually stretch the concave fabric to fit the convex fabric when sewing.
If you are working on a very tight curve, it may be a good idea to stick the two together before you sew them with the machine.
Complete the original edges of your spandex set, such as cuffs, ankles, sleeve holes, and neckline.
, You usually want to make the hem by simply folding it once or twice at the edge of the fabric and stitching it down.
You can use any kind of stretch needle on your machine, I often use triple straight needle because most of the other needles will form a very obvious needle pattern outside your fabric, the more twists and turns the style of the stitches, sometimes forming a wrinkled hem.
Another great solution for making very professional hems while stretching is to use double needles.
The two-pin needle creates two straight-line needles at the top of the fabric, creating a zigzag between the two rows below.
Most machines have this function and it is very simple to use.
To set the machine to double stitch sewing, you need to make sure that this feature is supported by the machine.
If your machine has two wire shaft pins, it can hold a double pin.
The width of the double needle is different, so when you buy the double needle, make sure it won\'t be too wide for your machine.
The distance between the pins should not be wider than your widest zigzag setting.
Insert the needle into the machine like a normal needle, and put a wire shaft on each wire shaft pin.
Connect the two threads together through the machine as if they were a thread.
Separate the thread above the needle rod thread guide and thread the left side through the guide rail and the left side needle.
Skip the needle rod thread guide with the correct thread, just pass it through the right hand needle.
Set your machine to a straight pin setting with a pin length of about 2-3.
Fold your fabric along the edge to create a double or single fold hem and then use the double needle thimble to maintain an even distance from the folded edge.
The two needles should create two stitching lines on top of the fabric, and a zigzag at the bottom between them, which makes the stitching possible to stretch.
If the zigzag pulls the two stitches together and creates folds between them between the tunnels at the top and below, tighten the thread tension at the top and loosen on the online shaft until the stitches
It is a good idea to strengthen your hems with elasticity in some places, such as leg holes, sleeve holes, ties, to help the spandex stay in place and prevent it from stretching or sagging.
If you are making a leotard style suit without legs, the leg hole is a particularly important place to place this elasticity, but you have to be careful not to make it too tight, otherwise you might be dug up by that unappealing --in panty line.
:/On my suit, I decided to add elastic hems to the edge of the deep V-neckline as these panels are sewn on the suit at each end, I added elasticity before I sewed the panel in.
I nailed 3/8 wide elasticity at the seams of the neckline panel and stretched it a little, but not much, and then stitched it down with a zigzag shape.
I folded the elastic band along the Velcro line, created a folded hem, and then stitched the hem from the top with three stitches.
I could have used the zigzag here, but the straight needle looks more neat.
The Edge will eventually look a bit wrinkled, but it doesn\'t matter, because it will get smooth when it stretches to the body.
I can also create a double fold edge that is completely closed elastic like this: hem binding is another edge finishing technique that can be used, which benefits the wrap edge curve and produces a good decorative effect.
I like to add the binding to my edge before I combine the edge seam to the seam, as I do on my sleeve, but you can also add the binding at the back.
Cut a 3/4-
1 \"wide, depending on the width you want to bind, then pin the strap to the edge you want to bind and nail the right side together.
Stitch the two pieces together along the edge in a zigzag shape.
Flip the strap to the other side and pin it.
Make sure the lower edge of the strap extends to the seam.
Stitched in a ditch between the binding and the main fabric (
In other words, topstitch inserts directly into the seam between purple and black so that your stitching is hidden at the top, but will grab the purple fabric below).
To get this done, I sewed the underarm seam of my sleeves and created a nice finished cuff shape.
If you want, you can even combine this technology with elastic to create hems for binding and elastic!
As we mentioned when making the pattern, when you want to create a clean finished edge in a shape bent like a collar,
The face is a good solution.
I designed a face for the collar and neck of my super suit and once I put on my sleeves I could sew the collar and face up.
To attach such a collar, first sew the outer layer of the collar on the neckline of the suit.
Sew the finish layer of the collar to the neck.
Since I want the seam allowance to go flat along my neck, I also use the zigzag to sew it down from the outside.
Fix the outer edge facing the collar together with the right side, and then sew along the edge with a three-pin straight seam.
It would be nice to use a straight needle here instead of another stretch needle as you would like to be able to trim the seam allowance near the sewing line.
Trimming like this will help to form a smooth curve on the edge of the collar when the layers flip to the right.
Flip the layer inside, flatten the collar and stitch it up along the edge of the collar to determine its shape.
The collar and front neck area of the suit are now finished with clean edges, but the face neck is still loose inside the suit, so pin the front and body of the suit together, it\'s a good idea to sew them together along the neck seam.
This is a change in how you use the face to create clean edges in strange shapes when making tights.
While I usually think it\'s best to avoid a zipper in A elastic tights, sometimes you only need one zipper for your design.
You can use several different zippers when you have to set up the zipper.
I think the standard zipper insert rail style is one of the best and easiest options and the invisible zipper is quite simple as well.
As I mentioned in the design spandex oversuit instructions, the problem with adding a zipper to the stretch garment is that where the zipper is connected, the fabric is no longer stretched, so the clothes in that area will be tighter.
It is common to add a zipper in the center front of the unit, but personally, I think this is one of the worst places where you can place the zipper because of the threat of campers, the star of the super suit that fits!
For this reason, I think it would be better to add a zipper at the rear seam in the center, or even add a zipper at the top of the shoulder or on the insert sleeve line.
If your style requires a central zipper, make sure you add a little extra torso length to the pattern, and even add a panel right below the zipper, eliminating the central front seam of the crotch department.
Adding a zipper on the front or back of the suit is basically the same.
I\'m going to show you here how to set the railway style zipper to a stretch garment, but if you prefer to use the invisible zipper or want more information about the zipper, look at this lesson in my machine sewing class.
For example, we have a zipper in front of the center.
Fix your center front seam together and mark the position at the bottom of the zipper (
For the convenience of sewing, it is best to add a zipper before sewing the side seam).
Use a stretch stitch that extends from below to this mark.
Any area of the hand buster that needs a perfect match, such as a collar seam, then sew the rest of the front seam with a standard straight needle at a relatively long stitch length.
It should look like this from the front: Open the zipper.
When your suit is still folded in half on the front seam of the center, open the seam allowance and fix one side of the zipper on the seam allowance and the right side on the right side as shown below: apply this side of the zipper to the seam by hand.
Close the zipper and fix it so that the zipper teeth are located right on the central front seam.
Now, use your hand to sew the 1/4 \"around the zipper out of your teeth, all the way through the seam allowance to the right side of the garment.
You should be able to see your basting stitching on each side of the front of the center, like this: now sew the side of the zipper with your zip foot and a normal straight seam, through the bottom, up from the other side.
If you are using a metal zipper, be careful when sewing the bottom of the zipper, because you may break the needle on the zipper tooth.
You can\'t sew all the way to the top of the zipper because the zipper stops, so stop for about 2 inch.
Use the seam opener to open the center front seam of the garment all the way to the end of the zipper, then pull the zipper down a few inches and finish the sewing at the top of the zipper.
Take out the sewing and Pow!
The railway zipper is perfect!
Show us what you did!
What new super smooth second skin did you create for your secret identity?
What do you think?
Do you think any new superpower is beginning to emerge?
If you have used your new home machine spandex sewing machine to create an awesome project, please share a \"I made it\" in the comments section below \".
If you would like to add some super accessories to your outfit, check out the rest of the instructions in this series for how to use worbla and EVA foam!