Pound It
Life Saving Pointer When Sewing Thick Material
Last week, my brother and dad drowned me in mending. I have this little old crappy sewing machine which protested the whole entire time.
The jacket I got told to fix, looked as if it had gotten into a fight with a barbed wire fence or a bobcat. Both very probable with it being a disgusting (I've tried to chuck it with no success) work coat. This winter coat is canvas and is lined making it extremely thick, then, adding a jean patch to it makes it all the worse for a domestic sewing machine.
(my before and after of the sleeve patch)
If you've ever sewn thick materials you can imagine how my sewing machine was crying. Honestly, it cried looking at the project ahead, not at the actual stitching because the jacket was much too thick to fit in between the foot and dogs. It was the same as trying to sew a crotch and fly on a pair of jeans with a domestic, not industrial machine. When you see a pair of jeans (or take the ones off you're currently wearing off at the end of the day) just look how extremely thick these two places are. Imagine trying to put a needle threw that much material. Insane! The needle will want to brake and your machines will die, tangle, plug, or do something in protest, but, did you know there was a way to avoid this and still sew these items?
Hammers don't only belong in the shop. If the ones you're about to grab is in a garage, clean it up. Rust does not come off of fabric so wonderfully, but this jacket is so covered in gunk even after washing it, I didn't want to get anything on the hammer I normally use. And those little flowery hammers, they won't cut it. You need and actual manly hammer (lack of better word to get the point across). What you'll also need if you are inside or using fancy fabric, is two clean blocks of wood. When I say clean, I mean not covered in spider webs, oil or grease. One last pointer, don't do what I'm about to tell you, on a tile floor. The tiles will break, been there, done that.
So what you need to do is take the super thick seam (which the picture above is showing), put it between the two blocks, set it on the floor, and pound the hell out of it with the hammer. I personally do this outside on my wood deck without the wood blocks. You can do this if you have a dark, not fancy (so a very durable, like canvas or jean). You also want to use the blocks if your fabric is a light colour or you'll stain it with directly hitting it. And there you go! The seam should be able to fit in your sewing machine without too much of an issue.
As you can see, before pounding the fabric, this seam on the cuff was thicker than two pin heads (such an accurate measurement I know) and after you can see it's just about as thick as only one pin head. After doing this, it was so much easier to sew and did my machine ever thank me.
Oh! I almost forgot. If your seem is pinned, like you see with mine, push the pins out far enough so you do not hit the heads of the pins when pounding the fabric or you will smash them. Another way to get around this is use the solid metal pins without a plastic heads on them.
Watch your fingers and go for it! This will open up the range of items you can sew with your domestic machine without ruining it and making it suffer.
