laminate tutorial

One of the hot trends at Market was laminated fabrics. Lots of the popular designers are releasing their latest lines in laminates as well as regular cotton. You can substitute laminate in any of your favorite patterns.  I love it with bags, aprons, jackets and baskets. However, laminates are a little tricky to sew with so here are a few tips and tricks.

- Once there is a hole in laminate it is there forever. No “self healing”

• Sew carefully

• Use fabric glue in place of pins

- No Ironing, this melts the laminate

• use fabric glue to hold fabric down

- Machine struggles feeding laminate through

• Use a Teflon foot or put masking tape on the bottom of your regular foot (make sure to cut out a needle hole or else you needle will get gunky)

• Use a longer stitch length.

- Thickness causes needle break

• Use a denim needle. I sewed several layers and didn’t break one needle



Even though lots of fabric will be available in laminate, your favorite piece might not be. But do not fret. Pellon makes a fusible vinyl that you can use to create your own laminate. Here are the tips and tricks for that product.

- Use scrap pieces of material to iron with. You will make a fabric sandwich. It will go Chosen fabric, laminate with sticky side down and then scrap piece of fabric. The scrap piece protects your iron from the vinyl.

- Take your time. You need to let the iron sit in each spot for 10 seconds in order for the vinyl to adhere. If you don’t “melt” it enough the Vinyl will start to pull away as you sew.

- For this melting reason I would suggest this method for small pieces only. To do yardage would take longer than actually sewing the project.

The project pictured is a bike basket from Hemma designs.  We have that and several other patterns in the shop.