Reply To: Right Side Of Fabric

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

Regarding your question about sewing on the right side of the fabric, it depends on what you’re doing. You’re right that there is a wrong side and a right side of the fabric. Some are easy to tell as one side will have a visible print or texture on one side (such as with velvet). Sometimes it’s hard to tell. If you look at the top and bottom finished edge of the fabric (this is called the selvage) you’ll notice tiny holes.  (These holes are caused by the pins holding the fabric when it’s created in the textile factories.) If you look at the holes and the holes appear neat and smooth, that’s the right side. If you look the holes on the wrong side, you’ll notice they’re not as neat and the fabric will sticking out on the edges of the hole, towards you. Some fabric like fleece and felt, look exactly the same on both sides. In cases such as this, it doesn’t really matter as both sides are equal. When sewing two pieces together, you always want to sew the pieces with the right sides facing each other. That way, when you’re done, you’ll have the fabric from your seam on the wrong side of the garment. Check out the video Sewing a seam to see a sample of this. If you’re hand sewing onto a single piece of fabric, have the right side of the fabric facing up towards you. You’ll take your knotted threaded needle and come up from wrong side up towards you on the right side. This is so the knot will not show on the right side of your project. You can see a sample of this on our tutorial hand sewing 101. I also go over patterns and fabric in my tutorials pattern layout and simplicity 2147 so that might help too.

Here is a video on the right side of fabric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJvHdp1KyH8