Preserve Your Precious Pattern Pieces with Old Interfacing

Looking for a really great way to preserve your precious pattern pieces? Have a roll of old, lightweight, fusible interfacing just waiting to be put to use? Whether woven or non-woven, here’s a cool way to turn your less than impressive interfacing into pattern piece additions that strengthen and preserve at the same time!

Step 1:

To start, pull out a piece of non woven fusible interfacing and a piece of tissue pattern paper to test. Cut  your interfacing so that it is only slightly larger than your tissue paper piece, then iron together. Keep your iron on the STEAM OFF setting only.

5 Simple Sewing Tips to Save the Day

These 5 sewing tips will help your next project move along seamlessly! Sewing can be frustrating, even for the very experienced types at times. For the beginner, a project can all too quickly become a disaster, wasting time, materials and money while leaving a distaste for sewing in the process! Save your patience while honing your skills with the following tips:

Sewing tips

Understand your fabric

Tips for Sewing on Buttons

Replacing buttons is a great beginners project to help develop hand-sewing skills. Sewing on buttons is typically simple with a quick and satisfying result. Use the following guidelines to practice placing buttons wherever you like, from frocks to handbags and everywhere in between!

Sewing on Buttons

Tips for adding or replacing buttons: (Note: the following tips are for sew-through buttons, not shank buttons)

  • From the start, remember that you need to leave a bit of space between the button and the fabric if it is an article of clothing. That space will be required in order for it to ‘button’ upon completion! So while the button will need to be sturdy, leave a gap.

Top 5 Minky Fabric Sewing Tips

Sewing with minky fabric can be a challenge. The following tips will help the process go more smoothly as you learn to work with this very soft fabric!

minky fabric

  1. Pin before cutting minky fabric. Minky tends to be a stretchy fabric. If you are pairing it with a standard fabric, you will want to make sure to pin it prior to cutting to ensure a size match. While it may seem extreme, pinning every inch is ideal! This will reduce puckers and slipping under the pressure foot.

Tips & Tactics: Sew Liberated –A Beginner’s Tutorial!

Are you new to fabric crafting and sewing? Sew Liberated is an affordable and fun way for beginners and intermediate sewers to hone their skills while completing 20 projects! Learning to sew can be intimidating, but at just over a dollar per project, this kit is a chinch and a steal!

*You can purchase fabric by the yard from our online fabric store while you wait for your kit to arrive!

Sew Liberated kit

J&O Fabrics Top 10 Knit Fabric Tips

jandofabrics, jersey knit, knitsFrom Coco Chanel’s influential use of jersey knit fabric in her suits from the early 1900’s, to the iconic wearing of body-skimming knit sweaters by sex symbols like Lana Turner and Jane Russell in the 1940’s, the use of knit fabric has constantly found its place in the realm of sportswear and high fashion well into the era’s. The new millenium is no exception.

J&O Top 10 Tips for Working With Faux Fur

jandofabrics, faux fur, fur, fake fur There was a time when you had to mount an expedition to the far off wilderness to find fur. With the J & O Fabric Store fur fabric collection you can cancel your trip and shop with us instead! Our garment weight furs can be used to make anything from elegant fur coats and shawls, to fun sweater collars and funky bags. Our fur upholstery can be used to make the fuzziest blankets, warmest bedspreads, and coolest throws. With just a yard or two, you can also make coordinating rugs for slippery bathroom floors or open living room spaces.  

Go Green Gina: Make Your Sewing Room Greener, Happier & Healthier!

go green gina, jandofabrics, ecofriendly, organic fabric, go green, green living, green sewing, sewingFor many of us, the idea of ‘going green’ and playing a vital part in helping to save Mother Earth from resource depletion and over consumption, is more than just a passing fancy. J&O Fabric store is doing our part by bringing in more and more organic fabrics.  As each day ushers in new devastating information pertaining to the effects of global warming, pollution in our air and waters, cancers in our food supply, and the long term effects of genetically modified textile crops such as our beloved cotton, more and more of us are raising our awareness to the fragile balance and co-dependency of man and nature, and are taking steps both big and small to ensure our survival and that of future generations. One such step that we can take as seamstresses, tailors, crafters, and designers, is to make our sewing environments more eco-friendly. With the running of our machines and the burning of the midnight oil (lights) to get our projects done sometimes, the amount of energy we use in the course of a day, a week, a month, adds up. When considering that the leading cause of our eco-system breakdown is still the burning of coal to generate electricity, we owe it to Mother Nature to do our part, one change at a time.

10 DIY Crafts in 10 Hours.

One of the main excuses we have for not making our own clothing or home fashions is the lack of knowledge of how to sew. The second excuse is the time it would take to even do so. Luckily with access to the world wide web and the availabilty of almost every how to video, downloadable tutorial, and quick reference/resource guides, learning how to sew just got 100x easier. The best part is that once you learn how to sew, there are several quick and easy projects that take hardly any time to complete, some in less than an hour! That’s right! In less time than it takes you to pick out an outfit for that hot date or catch up on the latest episode of your favorite sitcom, you can complete any of a number of cool felt crafts, novelty cotton fashion accesories or home accent pieces made from upholstery fabric or decorative fabric ,and still have time to exhale. From satin pillows and vintage novelty aprons, to funky nylon bags and denim pants, sewing it all together is quicker than you think once you know how.

Top 10 Excuses for Craft Project Boo-Boo’s!

seasmstress at sewing machine

Each day one of the members of our J&O Family has the inviting yet sometimes arduous responsibility of posting our ‘Sewing Tip of the Day ‘ for our fabulous facebook fans and twitter followers to view, comment on, and discuss. And while we enjoy being able to supply those little tid bits of info, every once and awhile we find ourselves seeking the same guidance and assistance from our community of seamstresses, tailors, designers, artisans, crafters and self-taught elders.