Tutorial for how to make the skirt, but I also wanted to teach a tips for sewing with pleather and vinyl because this is one of those things that can be a little intimidating at first if you’ve never sewn with it before so we’re going to cover a couple tips to make sewing with vinyl a lot easier.
First you can make some modifications to your machine to make sewing through vinyl easier. We’re going to start by switching out the sewing machine foot for a non-stick or Teflon foot. As you can see the underside is very slick and this makes sewing vinyl a lot easier because vinyl tends to be very sticky and when you feed it through the machine it tends to get stuck and make the sewing sluggish. The next thing you can do is change your needle. Now the vinyl that I’m using for Morrigan it’s very soft, so I’m using a universal needle and that’s working just fine but if you’re using a very thick vinyl you can switch out for a leather needle- which is made for sewing through leather.
Next you can increase the length of your stitches. Now when you sew through vinyl or pleather you’re essentially making permanent holes in the material. And if the stitches are very close to each other, you’re ending up with a lot of holes that are very close to each other and you’re essentially perforating the fabric which makes it a lot easier to tear. So if you increase the stitch length you’re lengthening the distance between these holes and making it less likely to rip. Since pins can create permanent holes in vinyl (and also if the vinyl is very thick it can be very difficult to pin through) you can use hair clips or specially made sewing clips to hold two pieces of vinyl together while you’re sewing them instead of pins.
For designs that are far away from the edge of the fabric you can use plain clear tape to hold them in place. For example, for this Asuka top I laid the applique design where I wanted it to be, then I put clear tape along the edge of the applique design to keep it in place. Then I sewed through the tape and through the fabric. Once the design was secure I then peeled away the tape leaving just the vinyl. And those were some tips on how to make sewing with vinyl easier.