Make your own pattern weights

I have recently bought myself an overlocker (or serger to those of you in the US)

I mainly wanted to be able to make myself T shirts and tops in knit fabric and despite buying a walking foot and stretch needle I could not achieve the finish I was hoping for with my sewing machine.

I have to say using the overlocker has been a bit of a learning curve. For all it’s similarities in appearance to a sewing machine I’ve found it tricky to get to grips with. A few things have been tricky. Corners for one! Not being able to unpick easily! Having to be very careful with seam allowances, the list goes on. I do love it though and after watching a few YouTube videos I feel I am getting to understand it better now.

Anyway I digress from what I was wanting to share with you in this post.
Because I have been working with knit fabrics I’ve struggled with pinning the fabric without it distorting so I thought I’d use up some scraps and make myself some pattern weights so I don’t need to pin!

And this is the result!

Don’t they look great and believe me they are SO EASY to make.

I used this YouTube video from Professor Pincushion and literally knocked 10 up in an evening.
The video calls for 8 inch by 4 inch pieces of fabric, but I used 6 inches by 3 inches and they are a great size.
The ribbon was some I had in my stash and you don’t need to use the ribbon if you don’t want to.
I’ve used an extra length threaded through each of the weights and tied it at the ends to keep them all together in one place, they are much easier to pick up like that. I guess you could just keep them in a box or bag. 

I sewed all 10 in about 20 minutes then sat and filled them with rice and stitched them closed whilst watching TV.

Haven’t used them yet but I’m sure they’ll make cutting out much quicker and easier.