Basic Sewing Stiches

Of course, for hand sewing, you need to be able to hand sew. We've put together a tutorial on some of the basic stitches that are essential for hand sewing. We hope you find this useful.

Running Stitch

1. Go up through the back of the fabric and pull.
2. Go down through the fabric depending on how big you want your stitch to be.
3. You should have now created your first running stitch. Just repeat steps 1 and 2 to make more.

Backstitch

1. Come up through the back of the fabric and go down again on right side.
2. Come up again past the stitch you made on the left side.
3. Now go down through the fabric at the point of your last stitch as in picture 3.

Overstitch

1. Take two pieces of fabric and match the edges.
2. Push the needle through both pieces and pull.
3. Take the needle over and to the back. Push it through again as shown in picture 2.

How to Make Fabric Coasters

It's E here.
Last Christmas I was given a sewing machine. I have made some lovely things on it and I wanted to make a fabric coaster. I did, and it has been very useful, but the only problem is that they stain easily and mine has an ugly orange juice stain already. If you're careful though, you can wash them. Here I'm going to give you a tutorial on these wonderful coasters.

You need:

• 2 4.5" pieces of fabric
• 1 4" piece of felt
• Sewing machine
• Scissors

Steps:

1. Firstly take the fabric and place the pieces with right sides together. Then, put the piece of felt on top of them and pin them all together

2. Now, using the felt as a guide, sew around the edge of the fabric. Make sure to leave a gap in between where you are sewing and the felt. Before you get to the end, leave about a 2" gap so that you can turn it.

3. Next, very carefully clip the corners.

4. Now you need to turn the coaster so the patterned side of the fabric is on the outside. You can turn it with the felt on top or turn it and then try to get the felt inside. I personally do the second option because I find the first to bulky to handle.

5. Once you have turned it, take the raw edge of the hole and turn it in and pin. Have a look at the picture below to see what I mean.

6. You now need to do and edge stitch around the whole coaster making sure you catch the raw edge.

7. Once it's all sewn you can press it and you've made yourself a coaster!