Super Sewing Tips for Beginners: The Basics

Hey, welcome back to Everything’s Famtastic! I hope you’re having a great week! We have been busy enjoying our delicious, homemade lamingtons that I baked with the kids last Sunday for Australia Day. They are sooo good! And the kids had a blast helping out in the kitchen too 😉. We had quite the production line set up…

But, this week I want to have a break from talking kids stuff (cooking with kids, books for kids, sick kids, school holidays…) and talk about something else that you can get excited about: SEWING!

Have you ever wanted to learn how to sew? Perhaps your first test-drive of a sewing machine was back in high school. Perhaps you’ve nervously left your sewing machine in its box, untouched since you discovered it under the Christmas tree. Or maybe you have been experimenting with your machine for a little while but have yet to get into the swing of things because you’re unsure what to do.

Well, you’ve come to the right place! Here I’d love to share a brilliant list full of advice for sewing beginners just like you. Like I wish I’d heard a couple of years back when I was starting out. These tips will help you to get confident to use your machine and successfully complete projects without the stress and hair-pulling!

Once you’ve read through this list, there’ll be no excuses to not sit yourself down at your sewing machine, turn it on with confidence and get started!

Ready?

Basics for Sewing Beginners

Get to Know Your Sewing Machine

Right, so you have access to a sewing machine, whether it is yours or borrowed. But what to do now? Learn about the machine! Sewing machines these days might look intimidating, what with all the screens and buttons and promises of self-threading and countless stitch options. Breathe! Don’t let all these fancy details scare you: learn about them!

Read the manual. What does each stitch do and for what type of project is it good for? Learn how to thread properly (both the upper thread spool and the bobbin). Learn about the different types of needles and when to use them. How do you change the needle? What does tension mean and how can it be controlled? Which direction does the handwheel need to be turned? What does that presser foot do and why are there more than one in the sewing machine kit?!?

Once you learn a bit more about how your machine works and what controls will be the most useful to you (Straight stitch #1: yes, definitely! Fancy curly twirly stitch #79: probably not so much!), you will feel more confident about actually USING your little magic machine 😊.

How Can I Learn to Sew?

Start slowly and start small. Sure, that fancy cocktail dress looks like it would be perfect for that party in a couple of weeks, but if you never sewn anything more detailed than a pillow cover, tackling such a project will probably leave you overwhelmed.

Once you know how to thread your machine and how to choose the correct needle, the best thing you can do is practice. Yes, you read that right: Practice! Practice! And Practice some more!

Grab yourself some old fabric (old bedsheets or shirts are great for this), sit down, and test out your machine. Most machines offer a number of sewing speeds. Start with a lower setting (high speeds at the start of your sewing journey could lead to increased heart rate, LOL 😉). Try the different stitches and experiment with stitch lengths. You’ll get a good look at the appearance of the stitches in fabric and also how it feels to gradually guide your fabric through the machine.

Some easy beginner sewing projects include anything with lots of straight lines! Items such as cushion covers, aprons, scarves (take a look at my free Infinity Loop Scarf pattern here!) and tea towels are perfect examples. Straight lines are your friend 😊. Practice these sorts of easy sewing projects until you feel confident and can complete them perfectly. Imagine how good you’ll feel when completing your first (and 2^nd, and 3^rd and…) project!

One way of tracking your progress as you start creating is to keep a journal, where you can take notes and keep fabric swabs to remind you of your projects. With time and practice you will naturally gravitate to different fabrics, alternate stitch types and more complicated projects.

Of course, you don’t have do learn how to sew all on your own (although it IS possible). Check out whether someone in your town is offering sewing classes, even if just for a weekend crash course. There you’ll be able to ask your questions in person to a professional and also get inspired by the other course participants.

Sewing SOS- Help!

You really want to get that project done and it’s just not working out the way it should have? How frustrating! Or perhaps you’ve got dreams as big as the piles of fabric lying around and you’re just lost as to where to start first? Take a breath!

Crooked seams, broken needles and tangled thread might make you want to kick that stupid sewing machine (or maybe that was just me, hmm…) and stop trying altogether. Don’t quit on yourself! Practice being patient with yourself in this learning phase.

Like learning anything new, every beginner will get some things wrong. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! I promise you, you will! So either, you get too scared to make mistakes (I’ve talked before about facing your fears, remember?!?) and don’t even try to sew anymore OR you choose to keep practicing and learning from your mistakes.

One mistake I have personally learned from (and apparently, so have many others I spoke to) is this: don’t keep sewing when you are tired, frustrated, angry or rushed. Feeling like this practically guarantees you’ll stuff up something 😉. Walk away and give yourself a short break before coming back to try again with a clear head.

Maybe you ignored the last suggestion and went ahead with your sewing project at 2am and realised you just sewed a sleeve into a neckhole. Do you want one last resort SOS tip to manage those wrong stitches? I’ll let you in on every sewing expert’s sneaky secret. Own a seam ripper! This handy little tool can slice through stitches like a knife through butter. As annoying as it may be to actually need to use one, you’ll be more frustrated when you want to undo stitching gone awry and you don’t own one 😉. The seam ripper will be a faithful pal, trust me.

Last but Not Least Advice for Sewing Beginners

This entire post has been talking about how to begin when you’re new to sewing.

Learn about your machine, Learn about the stitches. Learn basic projects. But like with any new hobby, the learning doesn’t have to stop once you have mastered those cushion covers. Or when you have mastered those shirts. Or the skirts. Or the pullovers. You can keep learning new projects, new techniques, new equipment, new short-cuts and more. Never stop learning and developing your sewing skills! One day you’ll look back at how you started and blow your mind by how much your sewing talents have progressed.

Sewing machines have lots of moving parts that need oiling and collect lots of fabric fluff in all sorts of out-of-sight out-of-mind spots. Learn how to maintain your machine, or pay someone else to do it. This will prevent your machine from giving you a nasty surprise one day.

But where can you find patterns, instructions and inspiration for more sewing projects and techniques? Oh, the options are endless (often for free)! Use a search engine like Google. Scroll through the pretty pins on Pinterest. Check out the numerous channels and videos on You Tube. There are sewing magazines at your local newsagent. And there are most likely sewing courses somewhere near you too. The resources are out there; go grab them!

Before you go out and buy fabric and supplies for a particular project, take the time to read the sewing instructions for that pattern! Many a sewing newbie has bought some random piece of fabric which turned out to be too small for what’s needed. Or worse still, got halfway through a project without having read the instructions previously, only to realise that the techniques needed are far trickier than they imagine. Having a clear list of all the things you need to buy for your project can be really helpful. (You can grab mine for free here!) Read, prepare, and THEN sew 😉.

Righto! So, by now you should be feeling more confident about: using a sewing machine, searching for resources you might need, and being best prepared to avoid unnecessary mistakes. And even if you do make a mistake, you know you’ll cope and learn from it 😉.

Happy sewing to you! I hope you have a great week and have the chance to push yourself to try something new. You can even share a photo of your latest work with us below!

Have you got any other tips for fellow beginners you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section.