Sewing Tip: Sewing Curves

Here’s the post where I tell you about the *aha* moment I had a few years ago when I figured out how to sew around curves.  At one point I almost gave up and thought I better just stick to straight lines.  I mean, you can do SO much with straight lines (blankets, quilts, bags, curtains, cushions, and a bunch of other things from the early days of this blog).  But once I figured out how to sew nice curves, there was no going back.  I started off making cupcake pincushions, then putting curves at the top of my bags, adding curves to the bottom of bags, and making round seat cushions.  All this because of one little trick.  It helped me tremendously and I hope it helps some of you, too.

First off, let me show you how I used to sew.  While sewing a straight line, I always focussed my attention on where the fabric was in relation to the 1/2″ line  on the stitch plate.  My eyes always went to where the arrow is, making sure the fabric was feeding correctly.

Then, when I was sewing curves, my eyes went to the same spot.
This was bad.  Very, very bad.  Where the curve hits the line is the key.  In the picture below, the curve meets the line too far toward the front of the stitch plate.  The arrow below shows where the fabric should meet the line.

Below, the circle doesn’t even touch the line until farther back on the stitch plate.  This is how it’s supposed to be.  Nice, eh?

And just for review, I’ve taken off the presser foot so we can all see clearly what is going on here.  This is BAD.

This is good!

Just a simple little tip for sewing around those curves.

Now go sew something round and let me know how it goes!