The Little Guide to Mastering Your Sewing Machine by Sylvie Blondeau

For everyone who dreams of sewing but suffers from the common fear of how to use the sewing machine, your worries are over! Thanks to this step-by-step method, illustrated with nearly 200 photos and drawings, you’ll painlessly discover all the basic techniques, and even how to sew on a button. You’ll then very quickly be able to put your new sewing machine skills into practice with the 15 special projects designed for beginners.

This handy guide has a fold-out stand and is set up as a spiral flip book, ready to sit on your sewing table. Cheerful and encouraging, the guide walks you through the functions and accessories of the machine, along with the equipment you’ll use with it, the choosing and cutting of fabric, the different kinds of stitches, how to sew pieces together, and more. Train yourself to sew straight, to make a hem, to add bias binding, piping, and zippers. Then create a reversible hat, a sewing-machine cover, a table runner, a shopping bag…from there, the possibilities are endless.

This is a great little guide for anyone with a sewing machine sitting around that they are too intimidated to use.

It starts off with an easy breakdown of the sewing machine and what all the thingamabobs on the sewing machine are supposed to do.  Then we move on to threading the spool and the bobbin before moving on to the basic stitches you need to know.  Supplies and sewing basics such as what type of material and thread you will want to use is covered next.

Basic skills such a cutting material, using patterns, basting and pinning are all covered as well before we finally move into sewing techniques from installing zippers to creating pleats.

Once you’ve got all the theory under your belt we move into some easy sewing projects like these Cozy Cushions.  There are 15 projects in total and they are all easily sewn by the beginner and are designed to give you practical experience and build your confidence to move on to more difficult projects..

The Little Guide to Mastering Your Sewing Machine by Sylvie Blondeau is available to purchase from Schiffer Books.

Elizabeth Lampman

Elizabeth Lampman is a coffee-fuelled Mom of 2 girls and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She enjoys travelling, developing easy recipes, crafting, taking on diy projects, travelling and saving money!