Slide outline for Lesson 5.6, one day, twelve slides. Every technique gets demonstrated twice, large on the yarn rig and then real size, and the slides only hold the steps so a student can look back at them. Twelve minutes of this period belongs to threading and knotting; the slides should not eat it.
Your first stitch
- Lesson 5.6
- Three skills today: cut a thread, thread and knot a needle, sew a running stitch
- That is all. A student who can do those three can do everything else in this unit.
- Everything gets shown twice: once big, once real size
Teacher notes
Image: a big blunt yarn needle on burlap next to a normal needle on white muslin, side by side, to show the two scales.
Do now
- On your table: one needle, one threader, one piece of thread
- Do not cut anything
- Try to get the thread through the eye
- Ninety seconds. If you get it, hand flat on the table and wait.
Teacher notes
Image: a needle, a wire threader, and a short length of thread lying on a table.
Count the hands. That number tells you how many pre-threaded needles you will need parked in the cushion for the next nine sewing days.
Hand to elbow
- Pull thread off the spool from your hand to your elbow. About eighteen inches.
- Cut it with the snips, on an angle, so the end comes to a point
- Three reasons not to go longer: it tangles, it frays and snaps from passing through the fabric, and your arm cannot pull it all the way through
Teacher notes
Image: an arm with thread running from fingertips to elbow, and snips cutting the end on a slant.
The tip that fixes most people
- Hold the thread still
- Move the needle onto the thread
- Not the thread into the needle
- Hold the needle against your palm or a white page so you can see the eye
Teacher notes
Image: two fingers pinching a short standing end of thread, with a needle coming down onto it eye first.
Say this three times today. It fixes more students than the threader does.
The threader
- Push the wire loop through the eye
- Put the thread through the wire loop
- Pull the loop back out and the thread comes with it
- Three tries on your own, then use the threader. Using it is not asking for help.
Teacher notes
Image: a small diamond wire loop pushed through a needle's eye, thread lying in the loop, and an arrow pulling the loop back.
The quilter's knot, steps 1 to 3
- Lay the long end of the thread along the side of the needle, near the point
- Wrap the thread around the needle three times, tight, right below the point
- Pinch the three wraps between your finger and thumb and hold them there
Teacher notes
Image: three panels, thread lying along a needle, three coils wound below the point, and a finger and thumb squeezing the coils.
The quilter's knot, steps 4 to 5
- Keep pinching. Pull the needle all the way through the wraps.
- Keep sliding the pinched wraps down the thread until they tighten into a knot at the end
- If the quilter's knot will not land today, tie a simple knot and then a second one on top of it
Teacher notes
Image: a needle being pulled up out of a pinched coil, and the coil sliding down the thread into a small tight knot.
The knot has to be bigger than the hole
- Your needle makes a hole every time it goes through
- If the knot is smaller than that hole, the knot pulls straight through the cloth
- Test: hold the knot up next to the needle. If it is not clearly fatter, tie another one.
Teacher notes
Image: two knots side by side, one tiny and slipping through a hole, one clearly fat and holding.
The running stitch
- Up at dot 1, down at dot 2, up at dot 3, down at dot 4
- Every stitch and every gap the same length, about an eighth to a quarter inch
- Load two or three stitches on the needle before you pull it through
- Cloth flat on the table. Free hand behind the needle, never in front.
Teacher notes
Image: a side view of cloth with thread going over, under, over, under, like a dashed line above and below the cloth.
Two ways it goes wrong
- Pull too tight and the cloth gathers up. That is a pucker, and it means your tension is wrong, not your stitch.
- Sew off the dots and the line wanders
- Neither one means you cannot sew. Both are fixable in one minute.
Teacher notes
Image: two stitched lines side by side, one puckered and gathered, one straight and flat.
Demonstrate the pucker on purpose on the yarn rig, then flatten it out by loosening. Students remember what they saw fail.
Stop with four inches left
- When about four inches of thread is left, stop
- Do not squeeze out two more stitches
- Finish off: three tiny stitches in one place, then a knot, then trim close with the snips
Teacher notes
Image: a short thread tail with three small overlapping stitches in one spot and snips cutting the tail.
Five-minute warning, then the count
- Everything stops. Every needle and pin back in the cushion.
- Station Manager counts out loud and writes the numbers. I initial.
- While the count runs: rate your own line
- Even length. On the line. No puckering. Then one change for tomorrow.
Teacher notes
Image: a count sheet beside a finished practice cloth with a straight stitched line.
Practice cloths go in named zip bags and stay in the room. They become the sampler card base in Lesson 5.11. Exit card: the three setup steps, your three ratings, the one change.