Ultimate Guide to Sewing with Clear Vinyl
If you’ve been wanting to learn to sew with clear vinyl, this Ultimate Guide to Sewing with Clear Vinyl is here to help! Clear vinyl is great for adding a special edition to your projects, like this Olivia Jewelry Case, as well as other sewing cases and quilty projects.
Sewing with Clear Vinyl Tips
Sewing with vinyl is easier than you might think! Here are some details to help you with your vinyl sewing:
- Vinyl is available for purchase at fabric stores in the home dec section, but I also repurpose the plastic packaging some bedding comes in, it works perfectly as well (Top Left Pic).
- Use clips instead of pins to hold the vinyl in place, any holes you put in the vinyl will stay, they won’t self-heal the way fabric does.
- Sew with a longer stitch length, I use 3.0 instead of 2.5 on my machine.
- Use a Teflon foot or put a piece of scotch tape or masking tape on the bottom of your presser foot to help it glide over the vinyl (Top Right Pic).
- Use a piece of tissue paper or notebook paper on the under side of the vinyl piece so it doesn’t get stuck on the machine side, then just tear it away after sewing (Bottom Left Pic).
- Cut a 2″ by width of the pocket panel piece and fold it as for bias tape, sew that on the top edge of your vinyl piece instead of elastic (you could also use bias tape)
- Sew over your vinyl as few times as possible, otherwise you risk perforating it and it tearing out.
- I really love sewing with printed vinyls, scroll to the bottom for links (Bottom Right Pic).
Sewing with Vinyl Video
If you enjoy videos, I also have an Ultimate Guide to Sewing with Clear Vinyl videos, head over to YouTube and watch to get an idea how to easily use any type of clear vinyl.
Where to Buy Clear Vinyl
There are may great sources for clear vinyl, including recycling, as I mentioned above. I have a few trusted sources for purchasing clear vinyl:
United States:
- Sassafrass Lane – I shopped here at Quilt Con and loved their vinyl
Canada
- Zipper Valley – Shipping is paused to the US during the Canadian Postal strike, but I love their vinyl
I’m still working on gathering more sources, as I often bought my vinyl for sewing at Joann, so please share your favorite place to get vinyl in the comments as well.
