Folding Cutter
Sewing – cutting before I sew?
need some advice, how do I cut a straight line before I sew. May seem stupid, but, looking for advice from someone who has lots of experience. Do I just use a ruler and measure it out? or is there an easier way. Cuts are for (say a cat bed), two edges of my material “seem” to be straight from the fabric store but, what about the other side. Do I fold? Any advice/ideas are appreciated. Thanks. I do have a roller cutter.
Fabric will tend to move and stretch as it’s being cut with shears unless you cut on stabilized fabric.
If you’re going to use a rotary cutter, you must have a mat under it, and most mats are gridded so you can lay the fabric out straight and use your ruler.
Paper is the secret for cutting fabric accurately. I use unprinted newsprint, but anything that isn’t overpowered by the fabric will do — tissue paper will work on silky fabrics, the backside of cheap giftwrap works well, etc.
Prewash, dry and press your fabric.
Pin the fabric selvage to one edge of a length of paper. Fluff the fabric up in the air and allow it to fall flat on the paper. Pat any wrinkles out by bouncing a thin plastic ruler or a nylon pancake turner on the wrinkle. If the wrinkle persists, fluff the fabric up in the air and pat out again. Takes about 5 minutes a yard for most fabrics.
Next, pin the pattern to the fabric + paper underlay. You can measure over from the paper edge to the grainline and get the pattern perfectly on grain.
Finally, cut through pattern, fabric and paper underlay. Use the longest bladed shears you can control, which should be of the “bent trimmer type”, like these:
http://www.kaiscissors.com/category.php?…
When cutting, do not lift the lower blade off the table… this minimizes distortion and improves accuracy.
Good quality, sharp shears really, really are the secret. Open the blades as far as you can, cut, then move the shears and do it again.
Keep the pieces pinned to the paper until you’re ready to sew. Fabric dripping off the edge of a table or over the back of a chair will cause the fabric cut edges to slightly distort on most fabrics, greatly distort on some.
See: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/vi… for a quick tutorial I threw together for someone else on proper pattern layout… you can see the underlaying newsprint under the fabric, which was a particularly slithery silk suiting.
More on cutting and pins from a professional:
http://www.fashion-incubathttp://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive…
or.com/archive/to_pin_or_not_to_pin/
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