Sewing Words and Phrases

The art and practice of sewing come with a huge vocabulary. There are many different kinds of sewing tools, stitches, fabric elements, and techniques associated with sewing.

Here are just a few more words and phrases to help you on your sewing journey, and expand your knowledge of sewing and fashion.

Appliqué: The process of sewing a piece of fabric onto another piece of fabric, sewing close to the edges of the shape that you attach.

Baste: Sewing, by hand or machine, with long stitches in order to temporarily hold together two pieces of fabric, so that they stay in place while you stitch them together.

Binding: Using a thin strip of fabric or bias tape in order to hide the edges of a piece of fabric.

Embroidery: A hand-sewing technique used to decorate fabric with needle-made designs. Sewists generally use colorful thread, and you can also embroider fabric with a programmable sewing machine.

Facing: Fabric used to finish raw edges of a garment to make the edges lie flat. You can see this on a neckline or armhole.

Gather: A gather is created by running a thread along the fabric, and then scrunching the fabric together along the thread.

Pleat: A fold created by doubling the fabric over itself, and stitching it together.

Ruche: A pleated or gathered strip of fabric.

Seam Ripper: A small tool with a pointed edge used to remove stitches from a piece of fabric.

Sewing Notion: an item that is sewn or attached to a finished sewing project, such as a button or snap. This term can also describe a tool used for sewing, like a pin or a seam ripper.

Yoke: A design element at the top part of a garment, to fit over the body.

Zig Zag: A stretchable sewing machine stitch that runs diagonally, back and forth (zig and zag).