You can sew with a stretchy fabric on a domestic sewing machine. Some knitted fabrics aren’t very stretchy at all and you don’t need to make many adjustments to sew with these, others are trickier. 

+ Look at how stretchy your fabric is. Some is a stable knit – not very stretchy, think sweatshirt material etc. Some stretches just sideways – a two way stretch – some stretches every which way – 4 way stretch, this latter is great for swimsuits but rubbish for leggings! Some stretches and recovers easily – lycra and swimwear for example – and some stretch and don’t recover well – think baggy knees in your leggings! It’s is best to shop in person if you can as lots of online hops may bot have a clear description of what you are getting and it can be expensive to buy the wrong stuff!

+ Depending on what you are making, think about your fabric choices. A jersey dress is likely to get longer and wider as the day goes on, whereas a jersey t shirt is obviously super comfy as it shapes around your body easily. Some stretch fabrics are more substantial than others too, some jersey is almost see through! 

+ Cheaper knits are not always “on grain” and may twist as you cut/ sew with them. Pretty frustrating! Be mindful of fun prints as sometimes the print can break as the fabric stretches! 

+ prewash your fabric and dry it flat if possible. Line drying can distort it but if you have to don’t use pegs as those marks may not come out. Tumble drying can do awful things to fabric with elastic in it so use a low heat cycle and try a sample first. 

+ cut your fabric with a rotary cutter, Cutting with scissors will be near impossible to get accurate! Use weights to hold your fabric down

+ Do not start sewing too close to the top edge of your fabric, now even more than with wovens this can cause your machine to chew up your fabric! Start sewing with the needle down (turn the handwheel towards you to get the needle down). This is always good practice but vital for knits! 

+ Depending on how much elastic is in your fabric may determine how easy it is to sew with. When I first started making bras at home I was baffled why my stitches kept skipping especially on the zigzags, Turns out elastic slows down your needle as it enters your fabric and the needle may not be in time to pick up the bobbin thread. Turns out a microtex needle solved that. 

+ In any case any knitted fabric really wants at least a stretch or jersey needle as they have ballpoint points rather than a sharp point which can cut through the fibres and create ladders (like in tights. The ballpoint point goes in between rather than through the fibres. Test them both and see what works best for your fabric. A stretch needle is better for really stretchy fabric but experiment! 

+ You may need to stabilise your fabric to make sure it doesn’t stretch out of shape completely. You can do this by using a walking foot or sewing with tissue paper between your feed dogs and your fabric. Again, experiment! 

+ Usually on the seam which may stretch you would use a short ish,narrow zigzag stitch rather than a straight stitch. Straight stitches don’t have any stretch in them and can easily snap when used on a stretchy fabric. 

+ Try using a walking foot to feed the fabric through more regularly than a normal foot would. If your machine has the facility of reducing the presser foot pressure, try that first though. 

+ Press your seams as you would a woven fabric seam.  

+ Most stretchy fabric doesn’t fray easily so you probably won’t need to finish your seams.