Our College fabric, also known as French Terry, is a soft and comfortable fabric made with 96% cotton and 4% lycra. It’s a knitted fabric with a looped back side, that holds you warm. French Terry works great for sewing pants, shirts and dresses. It’s great for the cooler seasons but also for a chilly summer day when you would need a jacket or college sweatshirt.
- Wash your fabric before sewing. The fabric can shrink because of the large amount of cotton.
- Cut with a rotary cutter or scissors
- Use ballpoint needles like stretch needles or Jersey needles – these needles have a rounded top and don’t destroy any loops.
- Use high quality cotton or polyester threads
- Use a serger (4-thread) on standard settings (eventually lengthening the stitch length slightly), it sews and cuts the garment clean at the same time. If you do not have a serger, you can easily get a great result when using a sewing machine. You just have to choose an elastic seam like zigzag, three point zigzag or reinforced straight stitch.
- When sewing with a sewing machine, it can be helpful using a walking food that transports the fabric better or increase the presser foot pressure.
- Serge or overcast all edges to prevent the fabric from fraying
- Don’t push or pull the fabric when sewing
- It can be helpful to stabilize some seams, like shoulder seams to avoid stretching out the fabric. Sew in a clear elastic band or iron an interfacing band on key seams.
- Not so easy to seam rip seams without destroying the loops on the backside – double check the instructions before sewing
- Use a cover stitch for the hem or serge the raw edge first and topstitch with a twin needle on your sewing machine.
- When sewing buttonholes stabilize the area with interfacing.
tutorial
How to give your NORA sweater a used style? Try to sew a rounded hem with an open edge. We will explain to you how to do it.
Fold your almost finished sweater / shirt into half, line up the side seams. Start from the side and cut the hem in a nice curve.
Open up your sweater again and now you have a nice rounded edge that is similar in the front and back.
You can leave the sweater like it or you can cut the front a bit shorter. Start from the side and cut a gentle curve.
To avoid the fabric from fraying too much on the hem, a bit is okay for the used look, sew with a cover machine / sewing machine with a decorative stitch about 1,5 to 2 cm away from the edge.
Now your sweater is finished!
Would you like to sew an extra neat neckline and sew in our sewing labels? Have a look on our SEWING LABELS – Tips & Tricks blogpost!
