Hi I'm Meg. I'm the editor at Seamwork and I'm back with another sewing lab where I will do
a little sewing experiment so that you don't have to worry about trying this and wasting your fabric
and today i want to answer a burning question "do you really have to staystitch
your garments?" It's an extra step before you start sewing, it's a little bit of a bummer,
what happens if you don't staystitch? Keep watching and I will show you what I find out.
So what is staystitching? stay- stitching is a line of straight stitches
sewn along a single layer of fabric inside the seam allowance on a curve. So for example, your
pattern may instruct you to staystitch along the neckline, the armholes, on facing pieces, anywhere
that you'll find a curve. These stitches won't be visible when you've finished sewing your garment
so if you won't see staystitching on your final garment, why do you need it?
Staystitching's job is to maintain the integrity of your curves. Anytime you cut a curve on a piece
of fabric like a neckline or an armhole, you're cutting closer to the bias grain of the fabric
and you might know that the bias is the stretchiest part of the fabric.
This means that your fabric is more likely to stretch and distort as you're working with it.
So if you skip staystitching what might happen is that as you are working with this curve on your
pattern it might stretch. So let's say you need to attach a collar to this neckline. If this neckline
stretches out while you're sewing the bodice of your garment by the time you go to attach the
collar the pieces won't match, your neckline will be longer than your collar pattern piece. The same
thing can happen at sleeves you may need to end up doing extra gathering or easing of your sleeves
because your armholes have totally stretched out, it's going to distort the way that the final
garment lays on your body. So what I'm going to do is sew a couple examples of a staystitch neckline
and a couple examples that don't have stay- stitching and we will stretch them and move the
fabric and kind of see how it behaves. That way we will find out just how important staystitching is.
All right so while I sew these samples I figured I could just show you how to staystitch.
So when you staystitch all you're going to do is use a straight stitch. You can shorten the length
of your stitch if you want to create a stronger hold, but it's not necessary and the standard is to
sew about an eighth of an inch away from the sewing line. So if your seam allowance is 5/8
of an inch for example, then stitch about a half an inch away from the raw edge of your fabric.
Some people do like to staystitch directly on the stitching line, which is totally fine.
You do what you need to do. Another tip when staystitching is to start on either end
of the curve and meet in the middle. This will prevent distortion while you're staystitching.
So for example on a neckline you could stitch from the left shoulder seam all the way around the neck
to the middle and stop then flip over your fabric and start at the right shoulder seam and stitch
all the way down to the middle where you just stopped your previous stitches. That will make
sure that you maintain this beautiful curve and that's it, that's that's how you staystitch. So
it's really just a time suck. It's not, it's not hard, it's not difficult, it just takes more time.
Let's take a look at what happens when you stretch the neckline that has been staystitched.
As you can see the thread provides resistance, it won't let me stretch it all the way and if it does
stretch it bounces back, it's not distorting the grain of the fabric. I would feel totally confident
attaching a collar, doing the burrito method, or attaching binding to the staystitched neckline.
Now let's take a look at what happens to a neckline that is not staystitched. You can
see right away that I am able to stretch this much more than the staystitched version. You can see
that the fabric is kind of stretching and growing and that the grain is actually getting distorted.
I would not want to sew a collar to this uh neckline. I don't think that the pieces would match
up and it would be really frustrating. So that is where staystitching can really, really, really save
your project. As far as exactly when to staystitch always if your pattern recommends it. Your pattern
maker has your back. They're going to pay attention to those curves to make sure that you reinforce
them as you're constructing your garment. You can staystitch any kind of fabric. It could be wovens,
it could be knits. Anytime you don't want your fabric to stretch out while you're working with it
just sew a line of stay stitching. Now you might be thinking even after seeing all of this "but
Meg I don't stretch my fabric when I sew," and that might be true but you don't know what's
going on under your feed dogs. Your machine might be tugging and pulling at your fabric and you
won't be able to see what's going on until you are finished and your pattern pieces do not match.
So official recommendation from this experiment is that you don't skip staystitching. You'll really
think yourself later, your garment will fit so much better, and it'll be so much more fun to
sew. If you don't believe me just sew up a swatch yourself, stretch it see what it feels like with
your hands and you'll understand what I'm talking about. I hope you enjoyed this experiment. If you
have requests for another experiment you'd like me to do, just leave a comment down below and
I'm happy to test it out for you, otherwise happy sewing and happy staystitching!