Learn tips and tricks for sewing apparel with white denim fabric with Nikki Griffin.

Always Wash Your Fabric Before Cutting

When working with white denim fabric, wash your hands often as oils from your skin and lint and tools create dirt on your fabric. Avoid those smudges on your fabric to get a finished garment.

Use the Right Needle

Stretch denim is a yummy fabric to work with! Using the right needle: Depending on how much stretch – the denim has, it is always ideal to try a couple of stitches on a scrap. I always suggest asking your machine what it wants to sew this fabric, it will tell you. It is still ideal to try on small scraps of the same fabric to understand the stretch and its behavior with the machine. It is relatively easy to find scraps of the same material as you are cutting the patterns.

Use Straight Stitches

If you are sewing denim pants out of the white denim fabric - except the waistband - because of the stretch, use a tight zig-zag stitch to the attached waistband. Using a zig-zag stitch firm, the waistband and would not allow the stitches to ravel back if the fabric is too dense.

Use good interfacing on stretch denim

Specifically on areas that don't need to stretch as a function of the garment - you want to have a structure to make the garment pop! High-quality interfacing is recommended for stretch denim fabrics, as the cheaper ones would tend to.

Press Your Fabric With Care

When pressing seams during construction, be safe with your settings. The denim's stretch can be ruined by a too-hot iron or too much movement with the iron. Use a "cotton" setting and press up/down with steam, not back/forth movement. Another way to ensure denim doesn't stretch is place to a cotton fabric on top of the seams and iron; it helps the denim not to get the direct heat from the iron.

Shop all denim fabrics here!