In this section, we are going to tell you about pins and needles. There are many different needles available. Check out the information we are going to give you and you will find out a great deal about them.
Supplies:
No supplies needed.
Directions:
Choosing Your Pins and Needles
We are going to go over a few pins and needles and show you different techniques using these pins and needles. If you are going to be sewing on a very fine material such as organza, you need to make sure your needle has a very fine tip so it goes through the material smoothly.
Straight Pins – There are a few different types of straight pins. When you go to buy pins, you will notice that there is one pin that has a very small, metal head. Then, there are two or three that have large plastic heads of different colors and come in different lengths. The pins with the big plastic heads are easy to see when you work with them and, therefore, are also very easy to find and pull out when you are done. Our preference is the long silky needles with the big heads. They are easy to slip into the fabric and because they are longer, they hold more material and are less likely to slip out. However, they do not work with fine materials because they are not as sharp as others.
Safety Pins – There are also several safety pins. They come in a number of sizes and colors. Traditionally, safety pins are either gold toned or silver but occasionally you can find them in white or black. Our favorite is a medium size safety pin with a curved back. These pins are very strong and do not open easily when in use. When you have a costume fitting or someone needs something done quickly, we always recommend using one of these safety pins. The normal pins with straight backs can easily pull open. If you only have those pins and you have a last minute, quick fix and need to make sure that the pin stays in place, take a pair of pliers or whatever you have available and smash the head of the safety pin so it cannot open. That way, the pin cannot open up when your dancer is dancing. We do not normally recommend the big safety pins because there is just too much room in the pin and they tend to slide around. With the little pins, you can do a quick fix by just going through the fabric twice and it holds.
If you ever have to put some straps on a costume at the last minute, use the smaller curved pins. Do not place the pins vertically because that will allow the straps to pull up and leave a gap between the strap and the garment or it puts pressure on the safety pin and causes it to open. However, if you place the safety pins horizontally, the straps will not pull up and it will not put undue pressure on the safety pin.
Needles – We prefer working with very long needles. They are easy on your fingers, easy to thread because of their very large eyes and you can sew faster because you can put more material on the needle. But, because they are not the sharpest needles, you cannot use them on organza or satin. You want a very fine point to sew on delicate materials like that.
When it comes to threading a needle, there are a few ways you can do that. The traditional way is to thread the needle by passing the thread through the eye and then tying a knot on one end of the thread and leaving the other end of the thread loose. The problem with that is that as you pull each stitch through the material, the loose end pulls closer and closer to the eye of the needle. Eventually, the needle becomes unthreaded and you need to rethread it. We prefer to pass the thread through the eye of the needle, bring the two ends of the thread together, and tie a knot in both ends together so it becomes one big loop. An easy way to knot the two ends together is to slightly wet your index finger with your tongue, hold the two ends of the thread between your index finger and your thumb, wind the ends around your index finger and gently roll those ends between your finger and thumb and pull. This creates a nice neat knot at the end of the thread.
When sewing a button, snaps or anything else that requires multiple stitches to make it extra strong, another neat trick is to take an extra long piece of thread and fold it in half creating a little loop. Pass that loop through the eye of the needle (which is very easy with that long needle with the big eye), pull the thread through the eye until that loop meets the two ends and tie off the knot with the loop and two ends together as described above. This, in essence, gives you four strands of thread instead of the one strand you get with the traditional method and makes each stitch four times as strong and much more secure. You only need to make a fourth as many actual stitches. This makes the whole process of sewing buttons or snaps on much faster especially when you have a lot of buttons.
Typically, when using a running stitch, you will stitch in and out leaving gaps between the stitches. We prefer to make the stitches overlap the stitches making them twice as strong and ensuring there are no gaps. That is easy to do by making your first stitch and then bringing the needle back a little to insert it again instead of just continuing in a forward manner. With each stitch you want to go back a little before you sew forward. Continue in that manner until you have completed your line of stitches.
