I teach sewing classes, and one of the most popular classes I teach is T-shirts, which covers the basics of sewing with knit fabrics, and some of the trickier techniques you use in T-shirts. T-shirts aren’t hard to sew: I sew them up in batches of three in under four hours for the lot.  But being easy to sew, and getting a successful T-shirt, very much depends on picking the right fabric for your project, and this is something I find that a lot of people struggle with. To help, here is a guide to knit fabrics, and a bit of an experiment with how different knits result in different finishes. The first thing to look for in a knit for a T-shirt is whether it looks like a knit fabric that you have seen made up into T-shirts that you have enjoyed wearing.  After that, there are four things to keep in mind when picking knit fabrics: weight/thickness, stretch, recovery, and stability. Weight & thickness aren’t actually the same thing in fabrics, as it’s …

Happy holidays everyone! As a little gift, here is a tutorial for making one of my favourite homemade gifts: a cushion cover decorated with an appliqued motif.  This tutorial uses iron-on bonding to apply the applique motif, which makes it MUCH easier to work with (and is also a great technique for anything you want to applique). To make an 18″ cushion cover  you will need: One 35cm/14” to 40cm/16″ zip 1/2 metre of mid/heavy weight non-stretch fabric cut into 3 pieces: one square that is 49cm x 49cm (19.25″ x 19 1/4″”) (for your cushion front), and two rectangles (for your cushion back) that are each 49cm x 26cm ( 19 1/4″ x 10 1/4″”) a 30cm x 30cm piece of midweight cotton fabric for your applique a 30cm x 30cm piece of Vliesofix (aka Bondaweb) or Steam-a-Seam  for your applique One 18″ square cushion inner Plus basic sewing equipment like a sewing machine, thread, scissors, marking chalk, and iron etc. First you’ll need to choose a motif for your applique.  For my demonstration …