The nap of a fabric is the term used to describe the texture of the surface of fabric. It is easiest to notice in corduroy, velvet, or fleece. The nap is important because, say you want to make corduroy pants. There are two legs to your pants so you want the nap going the same direction. The best way to describe it is like if you swipe on a fabric with your hand one way, it looks lighter, and if you swipe the other way, the fabric looks darker.
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Before coming starting this project, I had very little knowledge about sewing and almost none about embroidery. I knew a little about sewing from shops classes in middle school and grade 9 home ec when I went to River East. I had learned before how to thread a sewing machine but it had been so long since I did it, that I forgot. Since the beginning of this project, I have learned how to wind a bobbin, take proper measurements for sewing a pillow, and the steps for sewing a pillow. I have also learned plenty of simple stiches for embroidery and have embroidered something for the very first time. I am enjoying the time I spend on this project because I have always wanted to learn how to embroider like my mom used to. It is also really cool to see how you can go from just a piece of fabric, and make into a pillow case, and to see one thread turn into flowers and patterns on a fabric.
Today I learned some simple stitches that you can do when you're embroidering. I learned the backstitch, running stitch, split stitch, stem stitch, French knots, chain stitch, feather stitch, satin stitch, lazy daisy, and the seed stitch. I learned these with the help of my mom who had done some of these when she was younger, and with a youtube channel called handiwork. I wanted to try and practice how to do some of them so I decided to embroider an old nike shirt. I was nervous I was going to mess up, which I did a little bit. In this project I used the stem stitch and the lazy daisy. I tried to make it look sort of like a vine with flowers on it. This was a really simple design and it looked like I could do it easily. In the end though, this took me around 40 minutes, and I messed up on a petal. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. Overall I was pretty proud of myself considering it was my first time ever doing this.
My mom helped me make an envelop pillow. It's called an envelope pillow because the back of the pillow ends up looking like an envelope so you don't have to sew a zipper. One end of the fabric tucks into the other. So the first thing I did was thread the machine. This was pretty easy as there's numbers for the steps on how to do it. The only difficult part was trying to get the thread to go through the tiny hole in the needle. The bobbin part is tricky, you have to put it in a certain way and then crank the side piece away from you and then you'll have the bobbin thread and the part you already did. Then you are ready to sew! The first step is to measure your pillow. Mine was 12" by 12". You do need extra fabric to wrap around the pillow and even more extra for it to be an envelope pillow. We measured out 33" by 17" and had a little extra at the end. Before we cut the fabric, we made a pattern out of paper so that we could see if we would have enough to cover the pillow. We pinned the pattern to the fabric so it would be straight, and cut it out. Next step is to hem the two 17" ends of the fabric so that they don't fray. To make a hem, you fold the end of the fabric to half and inch, iron it, fold it over again, iron it, and sew. You do this again on the opposite end. Now we had to fold the fabric in half with one end overlapping the other end a bit for the envelope look. We had to make sure the fabric side we wanted was on the inside so when we turned it the right way, you wouldn't see the sew lines. Once we were ready, I sewed both sides of my pillow so that it would come together. I made sure to do a backstitch at the beginning and end so that the thread wouldn't unravel. Once I was done that, I flipped it to its right side so you couldn't see the stitching, and I had just made my very first pillow!
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