Sewing Tips: How to Mark Your Fabric

Video Transcript

" Hello! I’m Stephany from Stephany’s Simply Sewing on behalf of expertvillage.com. I’d like to take a few moments to show you how to mark your fabric once you have cut out your pattern pieces. The first thing you need to be aware of is that your fabric does have a right and wrong side. My fabric, in this case, is the same on both sides, so I need to decide which is going to be my right and my wrong side. For ease of marking, I have decided that the fabric that is on the outside is going to be the wrong side. I want to do my markings on my wrong side. Some things that I do need to mark are any circles such as these. These indicate where my sleeves go in. This is how to center the pocket. These markings right here will be my placket and my pleat lines for my sleeve. The easiest way to mark the fabric is to place a pin in the dot, gently pull the head of your pin through the pattern, then take a marking instrument. I have a chalk one and this is also a water erasable marker, and simply where I have placed the pin, I mark a small dot. Being sure that I have marked both sides of my fabric, I use that procedure on all of my dots. When I am marking a pleat line such as this, the easiest way to do that is to mark the end of your line, the end of your dotted line, then to also mark the edge that is on your seam like that. Then what you can do is peel back your pattern. Once again, pop your pin through your pattern tissue. Use your ruler, line up your dots and your pins, and carefully trace your line. Make sure that you do that on both sides. That is how you mark your fabric in preparation for sewing your garment. "