I want to get into MYOG and have access to a Singer Brilliance 6180. What is a good stitch pattern for outdoor gear?

It depends on what you are making.

You can use a simple seam for joining two pieces of lightweight material that have little stress, like a baffle inside a sleeping bag. A simple straight stitch might work there. In other places, you might have two pieces under more stress. For that, you might run a straight stitch to baste the two pieces together, and then do a zigzag stitch over it. You may not have any use for the ornamental stitches.

--B.G.--

hi : stitch 00 (which we think is a normal default straight stitch) for nearly everything. do exactly as bob advised, you will want perhaps to zig zag (rather narrow) over the harder hit areas. use 03 with the feed (stitch length) turned to zilch, to nail down the endpoints. glue seam ends with mcnett.
order fabric (is cheap.. mostly) from OWC. DO NOT start with silnylon. use gutterman std wt thread. opinions vary as to ball point or sharp needle. needles are cheap, try both. buy a needle threader (2 for a buck). for your first attempts use 1.9oz coated nylon (cheap and infinitely easier to succeed with than silnylon). make a tote bag or two before you think you are going to make a tent/quilt/ museum quality item.
go on the net. look up, grasp, gronk, understand, the nature of both thread tension and "lower bobbin adjustment".
buy yerself a nice rotary cutting board (fiskars etc) At Least 2' x 3' from joann's when on sale (watch the discount coupons). also a 45mm rotary cutter. olfa's are ok, fiskars titanium uses the same blade and can be had $13.50. if your edges unravel, you will need to learn to heat cut.

all that is the easy way to do it ... i think.

cheers.
v.

Bob and Peter have some great advice here. My machine has very few stitches and you'll do fine with just the straight stitch and the zig zag.

Also understand that you'll probably make a few mistakes your first time around. So use some cheap/2nds fabric. I did my first project out of 70D silnylon before moving to the more difficult (IMO) 30D silnylon.

00 (straight) and 06 (3-stitch zigzag) are all you need.
The rest are software fancy-thats for baby clothing.

Footnote: I am willing to bet that very few domestic machines ever get used on anything other than 00 and 06.

Cheers

The machine I use - my grandmother's Singer 15-91 (circa 1948) - can only do straight stitches. Good thing that's all you need (00), except if you want to do some basting (06). Rather than baste, I typically use a flat felled seam or just roll a hem to cover any ragged ends.

As everyone else suggested, start with some cheaper fabric, like 1.9oz. You can get it @ Joanns for around $7/yd - they call it "utility fabric". You can sew all day long on this stuff, learning some various tips & techniques.

When you feel you're ready, you can make a tarp out of 1.3 sil and/or a quilt/bag out of .9 or 1.1 (OWF, Quest, TH, et al). Ironically, the packs I make use good ole' Joanns 1.9.

I use that sewing machine and the basic 00 straight stich is nice. The 74 button hole doesn't work on my machine, however. The 03 bar tack at a very low stich length is good for re-enforcements.

Not to threadjack, but am I to assume zigzag stiching is good for linear stress points (tarp ridgeline) as well as reinforcements? About to embark on my first tarptent.

> am I to assume zigzag stiching is good for linear stress points

I don't think that it is as simple as that. What initially matters is the number of thread locks in an area: the more threadlocks the greater the holding strength. This is pretty obvious.

But other factors intervene. If you are sewing Cuben then every hole weakens the fabric. That is why many turn to bonding Cuben instead. If the fabric has a poor weave then you may find the weave simply cannot support more than a certain load. The same applies to fabrics with a low over-all strebgth - DriDucks material is a good example of that. If you use a straight stitch back and forth and put multiple threads through one hole you may also destroy the fabric.

For webbing and other reinforcing we often turn to box patterns. They distribute the load over an area a whole lot better than a few back&forths with a straight stitch.

If the zigzag you are using is a single-step zigzag, you may simply bunch a light fabric up. That's not good. Yes, I know quite a few use such a zigzag in light fabrics, but it is a (very) poor choice.

If you use a 3-step zigzag you are getting lots of threadlocks and spreading the load across a fair area. Now make sure the basic fabric can support the load: you may need to add reinforcing over an area to spread the load out.

Cheers

"If you use a 3-step zigzag "

In the original poster's photo, which of those stitch types are 3-step zigzag?

--B.G.--

06 I think

Thanks guys, lots of good info. I got the machine out this weekend and cut up and resewed and bunch of old tshirts. I 'think' im getting the hang of it but i assume it will be more challenging with fabrics other than cotton

T-shirts => stretch knit fabric. If you can handle that with a neat result, you're doing OK!

Cheers

I use a straight stitch on all fabric with 4mm length the highest length stitch on most home machine[My Riccar sewing machine with the 5 mm stitch broke down] a 5 to 6 mm stitch length is the best if you have that setting. Then I sew another stitch next to the one I just sewed and then I bind both stitches with cross grain ribbon. I don't work work with silnylon or cuben.
Terry

Have the same machine here... Love #01 for frech seam. Really solid

Edited by jffortier on 01/30/2012 11:53:16 MST.