Cutting & Sewing
Tips and tricks...
Sewing for dummies... :) It's not so difficult as you might think. Just keep some thing in mind
Cutting
Grain direction:
Before you draw the first line on your fabric, you have to find out about its grain direction. Especially fabrics like velvet or cord have a direction, in which all the mal fibers ar running. You can feel this when you just scratch over it. When you scartch in one direction, the fibers will stand up, in the oposite direction, they will lay flat. If you want to cut you fabric in or against th grain dirction is mainly a design issue and up to you. Just make sure, that when you decided for one direction, you stay with it and don't change it.
If you're working with elastic fabric, you have to make sure that the fabric can be strechted horizontally! (If not, you would perhaps not fit in afterwards) Here, also makr sure, that you dicide for one grain direction and stay with it.
Seam allowance:
Please keep in mind that there is NO SEAM ALLOWANCE included in the pattern. So you have to add this for yourself. I usually use 1.5 cm for normal seams and 2-3 cm for hemlines.
Seaming:
If you're dealing with frazzleing fabrics, you should think about seaming them first before you start sewing. Here, stiching the border of every piece with a zigzag stitch will prevent the fabric to frazzle out and make your life much easier. :)
Sewing
Which fabric for which pattern?
As always in life, not every fabric is applicable for every pattern. Some farbics are elastic (Jersey, knitware etc.) and so very usable for e.g. streching tops, others don't stretch even a millimeter like Jeans or Cord. Depending on what pattern you want to use, you have to make sure, that you have an appropriate fabric. To make this a little bit easier for you, all pattern are marked with this sign 
für stiff fabric and this one 
for elatic fabric. Depending on what is indicated, you can use a stiff or elatic fabric or both for the related pattern.
Which stitch for which fabric?
Once you know what fabric to use, you have to adapd the stich on you sewing machine. For elastic fabric, you should always use a zigzag or overlock stitch to preserve elasticity. For stiff fabric, a striaght stitch is ok.
Try, try, try...
What ever you do, it's always a good idea to try the piece on and to look if and how it fits and to adapt your cloth mainly to this, not to any dump pattern you downloaded on the internet... Everybody is different and all adjustments in the pattern can not replace a good fitting in front of a mirror to see how it looks like. :)