Never again settle for plain hand-sewn projects! Add your own unique colour and style and adorn your projects with a variety of gorgeous decorative stitches. This essential book is complete with easy to follow techniques, diagrams and tips.

Whether you just bought your first sewing machine or have been sewing for years, Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts will open your eyes to an irresistible range of ideas. A comprehensive visual reference, the book covers everything a home sewer craves: the basics of sewing by hand or machine, along with five other time-honored crafts techniques, and step-by-step instructions for more than 150 projects that reflect not only Martha Stewart’s depth of experience and crafting expertise, but also her singular sense of style. Encyclopedic in scope, the book features two main parts to help you brush up on the basics and take your skills to a new level. First, the Techniques section guides readers through Sewing, Appliqué, Embroidery, Quilting, Dyeing, and Printing. Following that, the Projects A to Z section features more than 150 clever ideas (including many no-sew projects), all illustrated and explained with the clear, detailed instructions that have become a signature of Martha Stewart’s magazines, books, and television shows. An enclosed CD includes full-size clothing patterns as well as templates that can be easily produced on a home printer. Fabric, thread, and tool glossaries identify the properties, workability, and best uses of common sewing materials. And, perhaps best of all, when you need it most, Martha and her talented team of crafts editors offer you the reassurance that you really can make it yourself. The projects are as delightful as they are imaginative, and include classic Roman shades, hand-drawn stuffed animals, an easy upholstered blanket chest, a quilted crib bumper, French knot-embellished pillowcases and sheets, and Japanese-embroidered table linens, among many others.With gorgeous color photographs as well as expert instruction, this handy guide will surely encourage beginners and keep sewers and crafters of all experience levels wonderfully busy for many years to come.

Provides general instructions for fitting, constructing, tailoring, and finishing women's, men's, and children's clothing and for making curtains and bedcoverings.

Craft.

With hundreds of step-by-step photos and instructions and a user-friendly format, Sewing with Knits and Stretch Fabrics provides emerging fashion designers with comprehensive information on how to design and stitch garments made with popular knits and stretch fabrics such as jersey and spandex. Czachor explains the basics of stretch fabrics, how the stretch ratio impacts the design and how to correctly identify the type of knit. Students will learn about the correct needles and thread for various stitches and techniques using a sewing machine, overlock (serger) machine or a coverstitch machine, plus essentials of sizing and fitting knits and preparing fabric for sewing. The text progresses to concise instructions for knit garment contruction, including coverage of details such as collars, facings, closures, bands and hems, waistline finishes, and pockets within respective chapters on t-shirts, tops and sweaters, dresses, skirts and pants, jackets, activewear, swimwear, and linger. The final chapter covers specialty techniques such as finishing details, embellishments, felting and fabric manipulation. Sewing with Knits and Stretch Fabrics provides all the tools to professionally complete the garments and advance the designer's skill and understanding of how to design using the unique properties of knits.

If the sewing machine does it, then the technique is here! Anyone looking for advice on those indispensable basics will find a variety of ways to do bias binding, buttonholes, edge finishes, gathering, hem finishes, mitering corners, seam finishes, topstitching, and zippers. Or sewers can learn how to make any item eye-catching with an array of creative touches, including appliqu�, crisscross chain stitching, eyelet embroidery, and lacework. Every technique comes complete with machine setups and guidance on fabrics, stitching, needles, threads, tension, and the presser foot.