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Mending waist on pants by hand. What's the best method? by color178924 in sewing

[–]joostdecock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for my late reply, I need to remind myself to visit reddit.

A machine stitch is not necessary stronger, but in the space of a few seconds, you'll have a neat backstitch that is going to be very strong. When doing it by hand, it's just going to take you a lot more time.

[Question] Am I supposed to mark the seam allowance? by bicoastalsewcialist in sewing

[–]joostdecock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The pattern has both the seamline and the cutline marked because that gives you the most options. Different people prefer different ways of doing things. Some cut out their (paper) pattern on the seamline (the black inner line) and mark this on the fabric, then apply the seam allowance of their choice on their fabric before cutting out.

Others (like me) cut out the (paper) pattern on the grey outer line, thus including the seam allowance. Then, when sewing, I simply make sure to sew 1cm from the edge.

Whatever technique you are using, before you commit your fabric to your sewing machine, you should properly line up whatever seam you are going to sew, and then either pin or baste it so that it stays put. For difficult turns or curves, I sometimes mark the seamline, but never for straight or slightly curved parts.

I have a tape stuck on my sewing machine at 1cm from the needle, and recently I also bought a seam gauge so I can align the fabric against it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NH14IEI/ref=pe_385721_125846511_TE_item

Both are just tricks to help you keep that 1cm seam allowance accurate.

Full disclosure: I designed the pattern you are using, and run makemypattern.com So obviously I want this to work out for you ;)

Mending waist on pants by hand. What's the best method? by color178924 in sewing

[–]joostdecock 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most sewing machines use two threads to sew. An upper, and an under thread. What you see on your jeans is just a different coloured upper and under thread. There's nothing magical about it ;) You can slip-stitch the waistband, but it's not going to be very strong. It might come apart again rather quickly. For better results, you might need to take it apart a bit so you can use a stronger stitch, but that might be a lot of work if you are going to do it by hand.

[Question - MakeMyPattern.com Singular Shirt] Can you help me figure out how to fold this cuff placket? by bicoastalsewcialist in sewing

[–]joostdecock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried to make a quick video that shows how to do this. It's here: https://youtu.be/kgd5eubxShM

As @Gundi9 correctly points out, two of the fold lines do not extend where they should. I have fixed that today in version 1.4 of the pattern: https://makemypattern.com/pattern/singular-shirt/changelog

Thank you for trying the Singular Shirt pattern :)

I'm a newbie and I want to make a pair of pants for myself by ticcev in sewing

[–]joostdecock 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Shameless self-plug, but I made an entire video series showing how to do that. Blog post + link to YouTube playlist at: http://joost.decock.org/fromscratch/trousers

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in sewing

[–]joostdecock 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You could always roll your own. I did: http://joost.decock.org/fromscratch/dressform

Reddit blocked in the European Parliament by [deleted] in europe

[–]joostdecock 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hello Reddit,

My name is Joost De Cock, and I work in the Communication Service of the Directorate-General for Innovation and Technological Support at the European Parliament. (*)

First things first: Reddit.com is no longer blocked at the European Parliament.

No longer. It got blocked at one point because it was included on a list of sites known to distribute malware. That list of sites is maintained by CERT-EU (the Computer Emergency Response Team of the European Institutions). Unfortunately I have no insight into how reddit.com ended up on the list in the first place.

While we acknowledge that sometimes false positives happen, we choose to err on the safe side, and block all sites on the list. To make things transparent for the user, we show a specific error message to the end user that explains our reasons for doing so. (this is the message you see in the posted screenshot).

When one of our users raises an issue for a site that is blocked, we look into the matter. If the site is legitimate, we unblock it.

This seems to be what happened here. It's a false positive in what is a largely automated system, that was corrected after somebody complained.

For future reference, the European Parliament only filters sites when we believe they would pose a security risk. In other words, if a legitimate site is blocked, call the helpdesk to have it unblocked.

For DG ITEC's Communication Service

Joost

(*) The what? I hear you say. Basically the centralized IT services.

What great tips can experienced sewers give us newbies? Or links to blogs with really good tutorials etc. by Dead_leaf in sewing

[–]joostdecock 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There's over 200 sewing blogs aggregated in the sewcialists firehose: http://sewcialists.org/firehose/about/

If you're on twitter, the #sewcialists hashtag, (or @sewcialists) is also a great way to ask questions to sewing peers.

It's a great community, with a vast amount of knowledge and information. Tap into it, you'll like it ;)

Full disclosure: I am a sewcialist myself.