Unit 2: Woven and Knit

Two Ways to Make Cloth

Almost every piece of yard goods you will ever buy belongs to one of two families. It is either woven or it is knit. That single division decides your needle, your stitch, your stitch length, your seam allowance, how the cut edge behaves, and whether the finished garment hangs straight or twists on the body. Learn the difference once, in your hands, and a hundred later decisions stop feeling arbitrary.

Woven cloth: two sets of yarns crossing

A woven fabric is built on a loom from two separate sets of yarns held at right angles to each other. The lengthwise set, called the warp, is strung on the loom first and stays under tension the whole time. The crosswise set, the weft, travels back and forth across the warp, passing over some yarns and under others. Every crossing sits at ninety degrees. Nothing in that structure is elastic. Pull a piece of quilting cotton straight along its length and it will not lengthen at all; pull it across and it gives perhaps a whisper. All the character of a woven fabric comes from yarns that are locked in a grid.

Because the yarns are simply crossing, not fastened, they can also come apart. Cut a woven edge and the short ends of the weft begin to work free of the warp. That is fraying, and it is normal. It is the price of the grid.

Knit cloth: one yarn, looped through itself

A knit fabric is a different idea entirely. Take a single continuous yarn and pull a loop of it through another loop, and that loop through the next, row upon row and column upon column. There is no warp and no weft. There is one strand, held in place only by the loops on either side of it.

That is why knits stretch. When you pull on a knit, the loops do not have to break or slide; they simply flatten and lengthen, then spring back when you let go. A cotton jersey T-shirt gives in width, gives in length, and recovers. That behavior is what makes knits comfortable and what makes them treacherous under a sewing machine, because a fabric that stretches while you feed it will be stitched longer than it wants to be.

The loop structure also fails differently. A knit does not fray much, because there are few loose yarn ends to shed. Instead a cut or snagged loop can release the loop above it, and that one the next, straight up the column. That vertical unraveling is called laddering or running, and any woman who has ruined a stocking on a splinter knows exactly what it looks like.

Why this comes first

Every machine setting you will ever be told rests on this distinction. A sharp needle is right for a woven because piercing a yarn does no lasting harm to a grid. The same needle in a knit slices a loop and starts a run. A plain straight stitch is right for a woven because neither fabric nor seam is meant to move. That same stitch in a knit will pop the first time the wearer raises an arm, because the fabric can stretch and the thread cannot.

So before you buy a pattern, before you thread a machine, learn to name what is in front of you.

The dignity of the work

The women of Exodus 35 who spun blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen were called wise hearted, and they were spinning for the tabernacle itself. Cloth-making is old, honorable work, and God saw fit to record the names of no one and the skill of everyone in that chapter. You are stepping into a very long line. There is no shame in beginning at the beginning, with a scrap of poplin in one hand and a scrap of jersey in the other, learning what each one is.

Keep a small box of labeled scraps as you go. Two inches square is plenty. A shelf of samples you can actually touch will teach you faster than any page of description, this one included.

Four Tests You Can Do at the Cutting Table

Bolt labels get separated from bolts. Thrift-store yardage arrives with no label at all, and a bin of donated remnants tells you nothing. You need to be able to pick up a piece of unknown cloth and say, within about fifteen seconds, whether it is woven or knit. Four tests will do it, and none of them requires a tool you do not already own.

Test one: pull it four ways

Take the fabric between two hands about four inches apart and pull gently along its length. Then across its width. Then on each diagonal.

A woven fabric will feel dead in both the lengthwise and crosswise directions. There may be a trace of give crosswise, but nothing you would call stretch. On the diagonal, however, it will suddenly give a surprising amount and go soft and slippery in your hands. That diagonal give is bias, and only wovens have it in that lopsided way.

A knit gives crosswise, usually generously, and gives lengthwise as well, though often less. When you let go, it comes back. A fabric that stretches in every direction and springs back is a knit, and you do not need any other evidence.

Test two: look through the light

Hold a single layer up against a window or a lamp. Woven fabric shows a grid: tiny regular squares or a diagonal rib where the yarns cross over and under. If you can find a straight line of yarns running from one cut end to the other, you are holding a woven.

A knit under the same light shows columns of little V shapes on the face and rows of horizontal half-moons on the back. Once you have seen the V, you cannot unsee it. A cheap magnifying glass helps at first; a phone camera zoomed in on a scrap works just as well and lets you study the picture at leisure.

Test three: cut a small edge

Snip half an inch into a scrap, never into the good yardage, and rub the cut with your thumb. A woven sheds. Little short yarn ends come loose and gather on your thumb, and the edge begins to soften and unravel sideways. That is fraying.

A knit does not shed much at all. Instead the cut edge often rolls. Jersey in particular curls firmly toward the right side along the crosswise cut and toward the wrong side along the lengthwise cut. A cut edge that curls up like a scroll and refuses to lie flat is announcing itself as a knit before you have even pulled on it.

Test four: find the selvage

Run your hand to the outer edges of the yardage as it came off the bolt. A woven has two selvages, the finished lengthwise edges where the weft yarn turned around to travel back. They are flat, tight, often slightly different in texture, and frequently carry printed manufacturer information or a row of small pinholes.

Many knits are made in a tube and are either cut open with two raw edges or come with a soft folded edge that has no woven-in firmness. If you find a firm, non-fraying, printed lengthwise edge, you are almost certainly holding a woven.

Build the reference box

Cut two-inch squares of every fabric that passes through your hands and write on a slip of paper what it is: cotton poplin, cotton jersey, rib knit, denim, flannel, interlock. Staple the slip to the square and drop it in a box. Within a season you will own a reference collection worth more than any chart, because you can pull the sample out and pull on it.

Proverbs 31 does not say that the virtuous woman knew everything about wool and flax. It says she sought them out and worked willingly with her hands. Seeking is the part that is yours to do. The knowledge follows the hands, not the other way around, and there is no substitute for handling a great deal of cloth.

One practical caution while you experiment: keep your scrap snipping away from small children and keep shears closed and pointed away when you set them down. A pair of good fabric shears is genuinely sharp, and a curious four-year-old moves faster than you do.

Reading the Grain of a Woven

A woven fabric has a direction, and if you cut a garment without respecting it, the garment will twist on the body no matter how carefully you sewed the seams. Grain is not a fussy tradition. It is a description of where the strength lies.

The three directions

Straight grain, sometimes called lengthwise grain, runs parallel to the selvages, along the warp yarns. These are the yarns that spent the whole weaving process under tension, so they are the strongest and the least willing to give. Nearly every pattern piece carries a printed grainline arrow, and that arrow is meant to lie parallel to the selvage. Skirt panels, trouser legs, and bodice fronts are almost always cut this way so the garment hangs straight down and holds its length.

Cross grain runs from selvage to selvage, along the weft. It has a little more give than the straight grain, usually enough to notice under your hands but not enough to build a fitted garment on.

Bias is any direction diagonal to the two yarn sets. True bias is exactly forty-five degrees to the selvage, and that is where a woven gives the most. Bias-cut strips are what you use for binding a curved edge, because bias will bend around a neckline or an armhole without wrinkling. Bias also drapes beautifully and hangs long over time, which is why bias-cut skirts want to be hung for a day before hemming.

Finding the grain on unmarked yardage

If the selvages have been cut off, you can still find the crosswise line. On a loosely woven cotton, snip into the edge, catch a single crosswise yarn with a pin, and pull it gently while easing the fabric along. The yarn will draw up a puckered line clear across the width. Cut along that line and you have a perfectly on-grain crosswise edge. Some fabrics let you simply tear across, which follows a single weft yarn all by itself, though tearing distorts an inch or so on each side of the rip and can stretch a soft fabric out of shape.

With the crosswise edge established, the straight grain is at right angles to it.

When the fabric is off-grain

Lay your yardage on a flat table and fold it selvage to selvage. If the cut ends refuse to line up while the selvages sit smooth, the fabric was rolled onto the bolt crooked. This is common and it is fixable in mild cases: dampen the fabric, then pull firmly on the two opposite corners that need to move, working the whole length, and press it back into square with a dry iron. If the fabric was heat-set crooked at the mill, it will not come back, and the honest answer is to cut small pieces from it and use it for something forgiving rather than fight it.

Cutting a bodice off-grain guarantees a side seam that spirals toward the front. There is no altering your way out of it afterward, which is why five minutes of squaring up before cutting is worth an evening of unpicking.

Press, and press safely

Squaring up almost always involves an iron. Set a cotton on high heat with steam, but test on a scrap first, because a hot dry iron on polyester or a poly blend will glaze the surface or melt it outright, and that mark does not come out. Keep the cord away from the table edge where it can be caught, stand the iron on its heel every time your hand leaves it, and never leave a hot iron in a room with a small child, not even for the length of a phone call.

Seamless, and made with care

John records a small detail at the cross that a sewer notices: the Lord's coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. Someone had made that garment on a loom in one piece, patient work with no shortcut in it, and the soldiers thought it too good to divide. Scripture keeps noticing garments. Exodus 28 says the priestly garments were made for glory and for beauty, and the same chapter names the exact colors and materials.

Grainlines are part of that same care. Nobody will ever see the arrow you followed. They will see a skirt that hangs plumb, and they will not know why it looks right. That is usually how good work shows.

Wales, Courses, and the Curling Edge

A knit has no warp and no weft, so strictly speaking it has no grain. What it has instead is a column and a row, and you need to be able to find both before you lay a pattern piece on it.

The wale is your grainline

A wale is a vertical column of loops, one loop stacked on the next, running the length of the fabric as it came off the machine. Look at the face of a jersey scrap in good light and you will see the wales as fine ribs of little V shapes marching in parallel lines. A course is a horizontal row of loops, running across the wales at right angles.

When a pattern tells you to place the grainline arrow on the straight grain, on a knit you place it parallel to the wales. That is the whole rule. Get it right and the garment hangs plumb. Get it wrong by even a few degrees and the finished shirt will slowly rotate on the body until the side seams sit somewhere over the front of the hips. No amount of careful stitching rescues a piece cut crooked to the wale, and unlike a woven, a knit gives you no selvage-to-selvage squaring trick to fall back on.

Which way does it stretch

In most jersey and interlock, the greater stretch runs across the wales, along the course direction. That is deliberate. A T-shirt needs to stretch around the body more than it needs to stretch up and down, so the crosswise stretch is placed around the chest.

Before you cut anything, pull a scrap both ways and confirm which direction gives more. Some knits, especially certain ribbings and some athletic fabrics, behave differently, and a garment cut with its stretch running the wrong way will simply not go on. Ten seconds of pulling saves a yard of fabric.

Reading the curl

The curling that annoys everyone is actually free information. A single-knit jersey has a face and a back that are structurally different, and the fabric relieves that tension by rolling.

Cut across the courses and the edge rolls toward the face, the right side. Cut along the wales and the edge rolls toward the back, the wrong side. If you have a scrap and cannot tell which side is the right side, cut a small square, watch which way the edges roll, and the fabric will tell you. Interlock and double knits are built as two layers locked together, so they lie much flatter and give you less of this help.

To work with a curling edge rather than against it, press the edge with steam and let it cool flat under a ruler or a clapper before you handle it, and cut with the fabric fully supported on the table. A knit that hangs off the edge of the table stretches under its own weight, and everything you cut from it will be a little longer than the pattern piece.

Handling and cutting

Lay knit yardage out and let it rest for a few minutes before cutting; fabric pulled off a bolt is often stretched from handling and needs to relax. Use pattern weights and a rotary cutter rather than pins and shears if you have them, because lifting a knit to get shears underneath distorts it. Keep the rotary blade retracted the instant it leaves the fabric. That blade is a circular razor, it will open a finger to the bone without any sensation of resistance, and it has no business being left open on a table where anyone might set a hand.

Curiously wrought

The psalmist says he was curiously wrought, which in the King James English means intricately embroidered or skilfully worked, the language of a craftsman at a frame. It is a startling thing to say about a body, and it is meant to be. God does not assemble; He works, with attention to the interior structure that no one will ever see.

That is a good posture to carry to the cutting table. The wale line is interior structure. Nobody at church will ever inspect it. But the garment either hangs true or it does not, and the reason is decided before the first seam is sewn.

Measuring Stretch and Recovery

"Stretchy" is not a measurement, and a pattern that calls for a knit is telling you something specific about how much the fabric must give. You can measure it in under a minute with a ruler and two hands, and once you have done it a few times you will stop guessing.

How to take the measurement

Cut or fold a strip of the knit at least four inches wide so your hands have something to hold. Work across the wales, in the direction the garment will need to stretch around the body.

Lay the strip against a ruler and mark ten centimeters with two pins or two fingers. Now stretch that ten-centimeter section along the ruler using firm, comfortable pressure, the amount of pull a garment gets from a body moving normally, not the amount it takes to distort the fabric. Read the new length. If your ten centimeters reaches twelve and a half, the fabric gives twenty-five percent. If it reaches fifteen, it gives fifty percent. The arithmetic is simply the extra length divided by the original length.

Do the same test lengthwise, along the wales. A fabric that gives well in both directions is often described as a four-way stretch; one that gives mainly across is a two-way stretch. Athletic and swim fabrics are usually the former; ordinary cotton jersey is often closer to the latter.

Recovery matters more than stretch

Stretch tells you whether the garment will go on. Recovery tells you whether it will still look right at the end of the day.

Test it deliberately. Stretch your sample firmly, hold the tension for a slow count of ten, then release it and measure again against the ruler. Good recovery snaps back to the original ten centimeters almost at once. Poor recovery leaves the strip visibly longer, and the fabric feels limp where you pulled it. That fabric will make a shirt with baggy elbows by supper and a skirt that seats out after an hour of sitting. It is not a defect you can sew around, and the honest use for such yardage is a loose, unfitted garment where nothing depends on it holding shape.

High-cotton knits with little or no elastane commonly recover less well than blends containing elastane. Test rather than assume, because the same fiber content can behave very differently at different weights.

What the woven does instead

Run the identical test on a piece of quilting cotton. Ten centimeters along the grain stays ten centimeters, however hard you pull, until the fabric tears. Now turn the strip to the diagonal and repeat. Suddenly it gives, sometimes a great deal, and here is the important part: it does not come back. Bias stretches and stays stretched. That is why a bias-cut hem drops, why bias binding must be handled gently, and why you cannot substitute a woven cut on the bias for a knit in a pattern. Bias has stretch without recovery, which is only half of what a knit gives you.

Choosing weight and coverage

The test also tells you something about coverage. A knit that stretches a great deal usually thins as it stretches, and a fabric that seemed opaque flat on the table may not be over a body in motion. Hold the yardage up to a window, then hold it stretched to the amount you measured, and look again. If it goes sheer, that fabric wants a lining, a heavier weight, or a different garment.

This is ordinary good sense and it is also a kindness. Scripture asks that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, and Proverbs says of the worthy woman that strength and honour are her clothing. That is a picture of dignity, not drabness. Well-chosen fabric lets a woman dress with real beauty and never have to think about her clothes again for the rest of the day, and that ease is worth planning for at the cutting table.

Write it down

Add two numbers to every sample in your reference box: the crosswise stretch percentage and a note on recovery, good or poor. When a pattern envelope asks for a knit with a certain amount of give, you will be able to walk to your box and answer the question instead of standing in a shop pulling on a bolt and hoping.

The Needle Decides More Than You Think

More beginners blame the machine than blame the needle, and the needle is usually at fault. It is a two-dollar part that determines whether your stitches form at all.

Reading the numbers

Needles are sold with two numbers, such as 80/12 or 90/14. The first is the European size, the diameter of the shaft in hundredths of a millimeter; an 80 is eight tenths of a millimeter through. The second is the American number for the same needle. Bigger number, thicker needle. Match the needle to the weight of the cloth: a fine lawn or voile wants a 70/10, ordinary quilting cotton and poplin a 80/12, and denim or canvas a 90/14 or heavier.

A needle that is too thick punches visible holes and can distort a fine weave. A needle too thin for a heavy fabric flexes, drifts off the hook, and skips stitches or snaps.

Sharps for wovens

A universal needle has a slightly rounded point that is still, in practice, sharp enough to pierce. On a woven fabric this is exactly what you want. The point splits its way through the yarns of the grid, and because the yarns are locked at right angles by hundreds of neighboring crossings, a pierced yarn causes no lasting harm. For most household woven sewing, an 80/12 universal handles the great majority of the work.

Ballpoints for knits

Put that same universal needle into jersey and you will see the trouble at once. The sharp point strikes a loop and cuts it. A severed loop cannot hold, and you get two failures at the same time: skipped stitches, which look like little gaps or pinholes in an otherwise continuous seam line, and cut loops that can start a run travelling up a wale.

A ballpoint needle, sold as a jersey needle, has a distinctly rounded tip. Instead of cutting, it noses its way between two loops and pushes them aside, then the loops close again behind it. Jersey needles are commonly available from 70/10 through 90/14, and again you choose by fabric weight, a 70/10 for a fine drapey jersey and a 90/14 for a heavy sweatshirt fleece.

You may also find needles marked stretch. Whether a stretch needle will do the same job as a jersey needle depends on the particular knit and the brand, so treat one as a substitute for the other only after you have sewn a test seam on a scrap of your actual fabric and inspected it.

Diagnosing a skipped stitch

Sew a six-inch test seam on doubled scrap before every project, then hold it up to the light and run your thumbnail along it. A good seam is a continuous unbroken line of stitches on both faces. If you see gaps at irregular intervals, work through this order:

1. Change the needle. A needle blunts after roughly eight hours of sewing, and a blunt one behaves like the wrong type.
2. Confirm the needle type suits the fabric: sharp for woven, ballpoint for knit.
3. Confirm the needle is fully seated up into the clamp and turned the right way, flat side to the back on most home machines.
4. Rethread the whole machine top and bobbin with the presser foot raised.

That sequence solves the great majority of skipped stitches without a repair bill.

Handle them with respect

Change needles with the machine switched off, not merely stopped, because the foot pedal is easy to nudge with a knee. Keep fingers well clear of the needle path while sewing; a machine needle passes through a fingernail as readily as through denim, and that injury usually means a trip to the emergency room. Drop used needles into a lidded jar or a metal tin rather than a wastebasket, especially in a house with children or a dog.

The Spirit and the workmanship

When God appointed Bezalel to build the tabernacle, He said He had filled him with wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all manner of workmanship. The chapter goes on to include the cutting of stones, the working of metal, and the making of the holy garments. Skill in a trade is not a lesser thing in Scripture; it is spoken of as a gift.

So it is not fussiness to know your needles. It is the ordinary content of a craft, and learning the small things well is how anyone becomes a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.

Stitch, Length, and Thread That Will Not Fail

A seam has to be as elastic as the fabric it joins. That single sentence explains every stitch recommendation you will ever be given, and it is the reason a straight stitch is right in one place and a guaranteed failure in another.

Wovens: the straight stitch, and how long

On a woven, the fabric does not move, so the seam does not need to. A plain straight stitch is correct, and for most household sewing the length lives between 2.5 and 3.5 mm. Lighter and finer fabric takes the shorter end of that range; heavier cloth such as denim or canvas takes the longer end, because a long stitch rides better over bulk and does not perforate a heavy weave into weakness.

Basting to hold a fitting, and topstitching meant to be seen, sit outside that range on purpose, but for ordinary construction seams 2.5 mm is a sound default and 3.0 mm is a friendly one.

Knits: a stitch that can grow

Sew a knit shoulder or side seam with a straight stitch and the thread becomes a rigid rail down a fabric that wants to give. The first time the wearer reaches, the thread has nowhere to go and it snaps, usually in the middle of the seam where the strain is highest, and the seam opens.

Use instead a stitch that has slack built into it:

• A narrow zigzag. Set the width low, around 0.5 to 1 mm, so the seam reads almost straight to the eye but the thread travels a longer path than the seam line and can straighten out under stretch.
• The lightning bolt stitch, marked on many machines with a small jagged symbol. It is a very narrow zigzag designed for exactly this and it presses flat nicely.
• The triple stretch stitch, which sews forward, back, and forward again over the same line. It is slow, it uses a good deal of thread, and it is a misery to unpick, but it is strong. Reserve it for seams that take real strain.

For these, keep the stitch length in the neighborhood of 2.5 to 3.0 mm. Too short and the seam gathers itself into a puckered ridge. Too long and the seam goes wavy and lies badly, and it will fail early when the garment is worn and stretched.

Thread

Use polyester thread on knits, without exception. Polyester has a small amount of natural give, so it can stretch a little with the fabric and return. Cotton thread has essentially none; it will hold beautifully on the table and part the first time the garment is really pulled. Polyester is entirely at home on wovens too, so a beginner is well served by keeping good polyester in the common colors and not fussing about it.

Avoid the very cheapest thread on the shelf. Low-grade thread is uneven, sheds lint into the machine, and breaks under exactly the strain you were trying to sew for. Thread is the least expensive part of any garment and the part that fails first.

Tension, and how to find it

Machines differ far too much for anyone to hand you a number and promise it will work. What holds true in general is that knits usually want a slightly looser top tension than wovens, because a seam that will be stretched needs a little slack in the lock.

Find your setting the reliable way. Sew a test seam on doubled scrap of the actual fabric with the actual thread, then look at both faces. Balanced tension shows the same stitch appearance from top and bottom, with the two threads locking inside the fabric rather than on either surface. Bobbin thread visible on top means the top tension is too tight; top thread pulled through to the underside means it is too loose. Change one thing at a time and sew a new sample.

Threefold

The Preacher says a threefold cord is not quickly broken, and anyone who has watched a triple stretch stitch hold a knee seam under a boy's knee has seen the picture from the inside. Strength comes from more than one strand taking the load together. That is true of thread, and truer of households, and truest of a soul joined to the Lord who does not let go. Choose your seam so that it can bear what will be asked of it.

Curing the Wavy Knit Seam

You sew a side seam in jersey, lift the presser foot, and the seam ripples like a ribbon. It looked flat while you were sewing it. This is the single most common frustration in knit sewing, and the cause is mechanical rather than mysterious.

Why it happens

A home machine feeds the bottom layer with the feed dogs, which grip and advance the fabric in small steps, while the presser foot holds the top layer still against them. On a woven, nothing gives, so both layers travel the same distance. On a knit, that push-and-hold action stretches one layer more than the other as it passes under the foot. The seam is stitched at that stretched length. When you take it out of the machine and the fabric relaxes, the fabric shortens and the thread does not, so the surplus has to go somewhere. It goes into waves.

Anything you do with your hands makes it worse. Pulling the fabric through to help it along, or letting the finished portion hang off the table and drag on its own weight, adds stretch that the machine then sews in.

Six things that fix it

Support the whole piece. Keep the fabric level with the bed of the machine on all sides, before the needle and behind it. Bring a chair or a small table up to the left of the machine if you must. This one habit fixes more waviness than anything else.

Guide, never pull. Rest a hand lightly ahead of the foot and another behind, just enough to keep the seam line straight. Let the feed dogs do the moving. If the machine seems reluctant, the answer is a longer stitch or a walking foot, not your hands.

Widen the seam allowance. Feed dogs grip badly at the very edge of the fabric. Cutting knits with a 1.6 cm allowance, five eighths of an inch, instead of the half inch that patterns sometimes specify, gives the dogs a good deal more to hold and noticeably reduces both waviness and the fabric being pushed down into the throat plate.

Use a walking foot if you own one. It carries its own set of feed dogs on top, so both layers advance together and the differential simply does not occur. It is the most useful accessory in knit sewing.

Stabilize a lightweight knit. Slip a strip of ordinary tissue paper under the seam and sew through it, then tear it away afterward along the stitching line. A wash-away stabilizer does the same job and rinses out. Whichever you use, remove it completely; scraps left inside a seam break down later in wear and leave gritty flakes between the layers.

Steam it afterward. Even a good seam can hold a little residual stretch. Lay it flat, hover the iron and let steam soak in without pressing hard or dragging the iron along the seam, then let the piece cool untouched until it is dry. Much mild waviness disappears here. Test heat on a scrap first, since many knits contain polyester and will glaze.

Telling waviness from puckering

They are opposite faults and they need opposite fixes. A wavy seam is too long for its fabric; it ripples, and the ripples flatten when you stretch the seam gently. A puckered seam is too short for its fabric; it gathers into small tight bunches that do not flatten, and it is caused by too tight a tension or too short a stitch. Diagnose before you adjust, or you will chase your own tail all evening.

Test, then commit

Cut two rectangles from your actual fabric, about four inches by ten, and sew a seam under your intended settings before you touch the garment. Look at it, stretch it, press it. Change one variable, sew another. Ten minutes of scrap sewing is the difference between a shirt you wear and a shirt in the mending pile.

Paul tells the Colossians to do whatsoever they do heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. That is a striking word for handwork that nobody inspects. The inside of a side seam is not for men to see. It is still worth doing well, and doing it well is a form of worship rather than a form of pride.

Finishing Edges That Fray and Edges That Run

A seam holds. A seam finish decides how long it keeps holding through the wash. The two fabric families fail at the edge in different ways, so they need different answers.

What a woven edge does

A cut woven edge sheds. The short cut ends of the weft yarns are no longer held by anything and work loose a little more with every laundering, until in time the seam allowance is a fringe and the stitching line itself is exposed. Loose weaves shed fast; tight ones such as poplin or twill are slower but still go.

Four honest finishes, from quickest to best:

Pinking. Cut the raw edge with pinking shears. The zigzag edge does not stop fraying but slows it, because each cut yarn is shorter at the point of a notch. It is adequate for a tightly woven fabric in a garment that will not be washed hard, and it is the fastest thing you can do.

Zigzag. Set a medium zigzag, roughly 2.5 mm wide and 2 mm long, and sew so the right swing of the needle falls just off the edge of the fabric. This wraps the edge in thread. It is strong, it costs nothing but time, and every machine can do it.

A French seam. Sew the pieces wrong sides together with a narrow allowance, trim close, press, turn right sides together, and sew again so the first raw edge is sealed inside a tube. It encloses the edge completely and is beautiful inside sheer and lightweight fabrics.

Bound edges, or serging. Bias binding folded over each raw edge is the most durable and the most work. A serger trims and overcasts in one pass and is what factories use, but nothing in this course requires you to own one.

What a knit edge does

A knit barely frays, because there are few loose ends to shed, and that fact tempts people to leave every knit edge raw. Often you can. A jersey seam allowance left raw inside a T-shirt will last for years.

The risk is different. A cut or snagged loop can release the loop above it and start a run travelling up a wale. This is a property of the structure, not a fault in your sewing, and it is worth telling anyone you sew for: a knit garment caught on a splinter or a rough fingernail can run, and the sooner a small snag is worked back in with a needle, the less likely it is to grow.

So the practical rule is to leave interior knit seam allowances raw when they are stable, and to reinforce with a narrow zigzag or a serged edge on anything that gets hard wear or hard laundering: children's clothes, work shirts, and knees.

Hems are different from seam allowances, because a hem edge is exposed. On knits, a twin needle sewn from the right side gives two parallel lines on top and a zigzagging bobbin thread underneath that stretches with the fabric. A single straight-stitched knit hem will pop the first time it is stretched over a head or a hip.

Test it in the laundry, not on the table

Cut several four-inch strips of one woven and one knit. Leave one edge of each raw, pink another, zigzag a third, and bind or serge a fourth. Wash and dry the whole set the way you actually launder clothes, twice. Then look. You will learn more from that dried handful of strips than from any list, and the answer will be true for your fabric and your machine.

One caution with pinking shears: they are heavy and genuinely sharp, they cut through several layers before you feel resistance, and they should live closed, in a drawer, well out of the reach of children.

Garments that outlast us

When Dorcas died at Joppa, the widows stood weeping and held up the coats and garments she had made while she was with them. That is the whole account of her craft, and it is enough. The work of her hands was on the backs of poor women, and it was worth showing to an apostle.

A seam finish is not vanity. It is the difference between a coat that serves one winter and a coat that serves five, and if you are sewing for a household on a small income, that difference is real charity.

Building Your Own Settings Sheet

Everything in this unit reduces to a page you can tape inside the lid of your machine case. Write it out by hand tonight, in your own words, and you will stop looking things up.

The woven column

For a lightweight woven such as lawn, voile, or a fine shirting: a 70/10 or 80/12 universal needle, a straight stitch at 2.0 to 2.5 mm, polyester thread, and a French seam or a narrow zigzag finish because fine fabrics fray freely.

For a medium woven such as quilting cotton, poplin, or a light twill: an 80/12 universal, a straight stitch at 2.5 mm, polyester thread, and a zigzagged or pinked edge.

For a heavy woven such as denim or canvas: a 90/14 or a needle made for denim, a straight stitch at 3.0 to 3.5 mm because a long stitch rides better over bulk, polyester thread, and a zigzagged or bound edge. Slow down at seam intersections and let the machine walk over the bulk rather than forcing it.

Across the whole column: cut on the straight grain with the pattern arrow parallel to the selvage, square the yardage before cutting, and expect the cut edges to fray.

The knit column

For a lightweight knit such as a fine drapey jersey: a 70/10 ballpoint or jersey needle, a narrow zigzag or lightning bolt stitch at 2.5 mm, polyester thread, a 1.6 cm seam allowance, tissue paper or wash-away stabilizer under the seam, and a raw or lightly zigzagged edge.

For a medium knit such as cotton jersey or interlock: an 80/12 ballpoint, a narrow zigzag or lightning bolt at 2.5 to 3.0 mm, polyester thread, a 1.6 cm allowance, and a walking foot if you own one.

For a heavy knit such as sweatshirt fleece or a chunky rib: a 90/14 ballpoint, a stretch stitch at 3.0 mm, polyester thread, and a triple stretch stitch anywhere the seam takes real strain.

Across the whole column: lay the grainline parallel to the wales, check which way the greater stretch runs before cutting, keep the fabric supported and never pull it through, and reach for a stretch stitch every time, including the hem, where a twin needle is the usual answer.

Two first projects

Make a pillowcase from a medium woven cotton. Straight seams, no fitting, no curves, French seams if you want the practice, and something useful at the end of the evening. It teaches grain, straight stitching, pressing, and seam finishing with nothing at risk.

Then make a plain T-shirt from a medium cotton jersey. It teaches ballpoint needles, stretch stitches, the wale line, feeding without pulling, and a twin-needle hem, and if the first one is imperfect you have learned all of it for the cost of a yard of fabric. Do the woven one first. Every difficulty in the knit will make sense against the memory of how differently the woven behaved.

Sewing for modesty and for beauty

The fabric decisions you have been learning are also the practical means of dressing well. Paul asks that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, and Peter speaks of the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. Neither passage asks for shabbiness. Exodus says the priest's garments were made for glory and for beauty, in the same breath as the rules for them.

When you are the one choosing the cloth, you get to have both. A knit with good recovery holds its shape all day so nothing wants adjusting. A weight that is opaque when stretched keeps a garment from asking anything of the wearer's attention. A little more ease through the body, a hem where you want it, a fabric that presses well: these are ordinary craft decisions, and they add up to clothing that is comfortable, quietly attractive, and covers kindly. That is a gift you can give your household and yourself without ever saying a word about it.

Before you close the case

Run a scrap test at the start of every project, no matter how many times you have sewn that fabric. Write the winning settings on a slip and pin it to the leftover yardage. Empty the lint from under the throat plate, put a fresh needle in, and leave the machine ready for the next honest hour of work.