Sewing on sequins one by one by hand takes time and patience.
It is doable for making appliques or decorating costume bras and belts, but if you want to add a little sparkles on the hem of a circle skirt, you can easily be sewing 6m worth…. I don’t have the patience for it! 😛
So here’s a quick tip on how to sew on pre-strung sequins with your sewing machine without using a special presser foot. Let’s get started!
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To sew on sequins with machine, you need:
Pre-strung sequins
Invisible thread or matching colour thread
Sewing machine that can do a zigzag stitch
Check out Resource pages for tools I use to make belly dance costumes.
How to Sew on Sequins Trim with Sewing Machine
First, smooth out the pre-strung sequins and make sure all sequins are facing up and you don’t see the thread holding the sequins together on the right side.
Take the fabric you want to sew the sequins on, and place the sequins right on top of it. To make sure the sequins are placed in the right direction, place it so that if you run your finger from the end, where you start sewing, towards you, it should feel smooth. If you run your finger in the opposite direction, it catches the edges of the sequins. Place pins to hold sequins and fabric together.
Now take it to your sewing machine, and set your sewing machine to do the widest zigzag stitch at a fairly long stitch length. I’m using the longest setting my machine can do for these sequins, and I recommend you experiment with scrap fabric to see what length works the best for your sequins. I’m using invisible thread for the top thread, and white thread for the bobbin thread.
Place the sequins right under the needle. Lower the needle so that it starts from just outside of the sequins, where 2 sequins overlap which is the narrowest part of the strand.
Now, I’ll show you 2 ways of doing this. 😉
The first way is to do it by turning the handwheel with your hand. Turn it slowly, and make sure the needle goes over to the next overlapping section and goes down right next to the sequins. Continue turning, and go over to the next section. If the needle goes too far or not far enough, adjust the fabric by lifting up the presser foot. This takes a long time, but ensures that the sequins are not punctured.
The second way is to use the foot pedal. This way is faster, but most likely the needle will puncture the sequins which can cause the sequins to break, although it hasn’t happened to me yet. So we use the same setting as the first one, and slowly press the foot pedal. Try to go over either side of the sequins. I use size 70/10 needle for this, and recommend using a fresh, sharp needle. Gently guide the fabric with your hands.
Here is how it looks in the end. It’s way faster than sewing sequins one by one, but the thread does show. I would use this technique for skirt hems or veils where people are not going to see very closely. But a little row of sequins goes a long way, giving a bit more sparkles to your dance costume. 🙂
Hope you liked this technique, and if you try it on your costume, please share a photo on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook page. And sign up for the newsletter from the below link to get updates and free access to the special patterns and resources only available to newsletter subscribers.
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Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling! 😀
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