Shannon,
Anything you can do with a sewing machine, you can do as well with a simple needle. Just check around on stitches. The main thing is keeping seams straight, so use lots of pins and even a good marker. Depending on your fabric and color, you can use chalk, tailor’s chalk, or a Sharpie. The Sharpie will wash off with alcohol.
With a little practice you will find that you can do things with a needle that are impossible with a machine… especially close work where several seams come together.
And your seams will be stronger than with machine stitching. Machine stitches bend the top thread around a loop of bottom thread. That cuts the thread’s strength IN HALF! Hand stitches keep the thread straighter with no kinks, so the same thread is TWICE AS STRONG compared to machine stitching.
Advice: Don’t ever use a stitching awl. The needles are too big, the thread is too coarse, tension is impossible to get right.
Learn a few simple stitches with a single needle. And like Grandmother, run your thumbnail down the seam as you complete several stitches to settle the stitches. The most useful hand stitchs are the ‘back-stitch’ (or ‘lock-stitch’), the ‘whip stitch’ and the simple in-and-out ‘running stitch’. Look for these in any sewing book. The running stitch is really good for long seams because you can keep them straight and the first run of stitching is almost like basting; it holds the pieces together. If it doesn’t look right, you can pull it out easily and try again. When it looks right, go over it again, stitching through the same holes but with the thread going in the opposite direction. That gives a solid stitch line and tends to lock the thread. If your stitch length is regular, it will look like machine work.
Uniform stitch length is the main thing that separates the experts from novices, but don’t sweat it. Most manufacturers use long stitches because they are stronger. You will find professional stitch lengths ranging from 6 to 16 to the inch. Most do-it-yourselfers use short stitcher because they incorrectly think it is stronger and they don’t know how to feed slick fabric smoothly. If you keep your stitches at 8 to 12 to the inch, they will work fine.
Hand stitching may be a little slower than a machine, but you can do it anywhere. I have rebuilt backpacks for people on long trails who found their whoopee-do packs were killing their backs – using nothing but the needles I carry and dental floss.
