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The 8 Most Important Sewing Skills to Learn
The next step in the Sewing by Design framework is to set up a strong foundation of sewing skills.
Posted in: Creativity & Mindset • December 14, 2022
Imagine that you are building a house on an empty piece of land.
You'd probably have big dreams about what this house would look like. You might be able to picture the lighting in each room, the sorts of cabinets you'd have in the kitchen, even the colors you'd paint the walls.
You might even have a Pinterest board (or several!) to help you envision exactly what that house would look like.
But first things first. You wouldn't start by buying paint and picking out cabinet hardware. You'd start building your house by creating a strong foundation.
It's the same with learning a complex skill like sewing. If we want to be able to make exactly what we want, we need to start with the right foundation.
As we take a holiday break to wrap up 2022, we're re-airing a popular series from the Seamwork Radio podcast that originally aired earlier this summer. In the series, Sarai and Haley break down each step in the Sewing by Design framework.
If you missed the first article, you can read it here or listen to the podcast episode here . It introduces you to the Sewing by Design concept and explains why we compare sewing to a house.
The first step in this concept is to lay your foundation, just like you would when building your home.
The 80/20 Rule
If you open up a sewing book, you'll see a list of unfamiliar techniques, like how to bag a lining or bind your seams. You'll also find hundreds of new words. What even is a bodkin, and where is the bust apex? It's overwhelming. You signed up to sew clothes not learn a new language.
You can lessen this overwhelm by using something called the 80/20 skills.
What are the 80/20 skills? The idea comes from something called the Pareto Principle, but less formally, it's known as the "80/20 rule." It says that in many circumstances, 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions that you take.
In sewing, there is a core group of skills that you use over and over and over again, no matter what the project. They are the 20% of sewing skills that you use 80% of the time.
That's what we mean by the first step in our framework: Lay Your Foundation. Like creating a foundation for a house, you want to create a strong skillset right from the beginning.
8 Skills to Lay Your Foundation
1. Know Your Tools and Materials
You can't really accomplish much without knowing your tools and materials, and this includes your machine and fabric. Learning about fabric is a lifelong part of learning how to sew, but you have to start somewhere.
Here are some resources to help you learn more about your tools and materials (including your machine).
