Sewing: Trim

Another Friday means another new Craft Tip. A new month means a new theme!

In case you’re new to our series, each month my friends Bev, Kara, Allison, and myself will be bringing you a new craft tip, with a different theme each month. We just finished up organization tips in June, and we are moving on to sewing tips for July!

I am certainly no expert seamstress. I’m self-taught and have only been doing it for a few years now. I don’t know all the “jargon” and certainly look up my fair share of “how to’s” on Google. I also like to try things my way which may seem outside the box to your average sewer. But, if it works it works, am I right?

This little bottle is my sewing secret. I know what you’re thinking… glue??? With SEWING??? YES!

I was recently trying to stitch some tiny little pom pom trim to a piece of fabric and things were just NOT going my way. Like I said earlier, I’m no sewing expert and this trim was on my last nerve. I really wanted to use it but not if it was going to frustrate me so.

I started searching my craft room for ideas to solve my problem and came across this bottle of Zip Dry. Like it says on the bottle, it is used mainly for paper crafts because, though it is a wet adhesive, it doesn’t wrinkle the paper when you use it. It also dries very quickly.

The precision tip on the Zip Dry allows you to place a thin line of the adhesive exactly where you want it. I decided to give it a try!

Now, two things: 1) I needed to fabric to remain flexible, and 2) I needed to be able to sew over the trim without messing up my sewing machine needle.

I wanted to add a row of blue, white, and red trim to this piece of denim. I glued on each row and gave it just a few minutes to dry.

Unless you put the fabric up to your nose and noticed the lack of stitches you would never know the trim was glued on! Using the adhesive gave me a lot more control over how the trim laid on the fabric as opposed to trying to stitch it in place.

Now, did it meet my two criteria?

Yes! I was able to easily bend the fabric (you honestly could not tell the trim was glued it was so flexible) and I was able to stitch over the trim as needed.

I did a Facebook Live video with my little trick when I first discovered it. You can see how pliable the fabric remained after gluing the trim down.

You don’t have to save this trick for just tiny pom pom trim. Use it on ric rac, thin ribbon, decorative ribbon, rope, or whatever you might be using that you find hard to attach to fabric by sewing.

I hope you found this useful! We’ll be sharing more sewing tips every Friday this month!

Got a craft problem? We’re always looking for new topics to provide tips on! Leave us a comment letting us know what you want craft tips about, and we’ll add it to our calendar.