The Sewing Room

WillowMuse

Justamum wrote: »

I'm the opposite. The dress is lovely, but I'm so glad my son's school doesn't do year 6 proms! He's leaving primary this year too. My DD1 on the other hand will be having a prom near the end of year 11, which is less than two years away! :eek::eek: I'm going to have to start looking out for patterns with her soon I think! Why oh why do we have to adopt American habits? :cool:

I had ds leave year 11 this year, boys are so much easier:) I prefer to call it a leavers party for year 6 but I stood corrected by my dd;) Agree about the habits though:)

On another note, thankyou for all your kind comments, I am so critical about everything I do, so other opinions might just get through to me that I'm not that bad (so my Dh keeps telling me anyway:o)

Georgiabay

The dress is lovely Ladyshellda. There'll be no stopping you now!

sp1987

Hello lovely sewing people, I'm wondering if you could help me. I'm trying to do shirring on my sewing machine and the tension keeps going. I've tried upping and lowering the tension but I don't get far (more than an inch along) before everything bunches up and the cotton sags completely, rendering the material bunched up and tangled. I've tried machine winding the bobbin, hand winding the bobbin, doing it tightly and loosely and still it's shirring ability evades me!

Someone in my thread on the OS board suggested I try a zig zag stitch (I haven't found a specific shirring option in my sewing machine instructions). Have any of you had this trouble, any ideas?

I have only been sewing about a week so I'm sure I've just fudged it up a treat...I just cannot see how! There is no screw to tighten up the tension in the bobbin bit, incidentally (I've googled it and that seems an answer for some machines).

Any help gratefully received as it's spent two days driving me mad.

Bunny200

Dunno if you've seen these but here a couple of great tutorials on shirring
http://flossieteacakes.blogspot.com/2010/06/shirring-tutorial.html
http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2010/02/shirring-tutorial.html
http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/03/sweet-shirred-summer-dress-pattern.html

but basically they all say the same, don't adjust the bobbin tension, hand wind the bobbin with a little bit of tension on it, lengthen the stitch length and then try it on scrap of your fabric and then adjust the top tension if its needed. Also completely rethread the top thread as I find that sometimes sorts out the top tension. I do find that the top thead can be a little loose but it all comes right in the end. Maybe you could psot a picture and we could see whats going wrong!

hth

shirlgirl2004

sp1987 wrote: »

Hello lovely sewing people, I'm wondering if you could help me. I'm trying to do shirring on my sewing machine and the tension keeps going. I've tried upping and lowering the tension but I don't get far (more than an inch along) before everything bunches up and the cotton sags completely, rendering the material bunched up and tangled. I've tried machine winding the bobbin, hand winding the bobbin, doing it tightly and loosely and still it's shirring ability evades me!

Someone in my thread on the OS board suggested I try a zig zag stitch (I haven't found a specific shirring option in my sewing machine instructions). Have any of you had this trouble, any ideas?

I have only been sewing about a week so I'm sure I've just fudged it up a treat...I just cannot see how! There is no screw to tighten up the tension in the bobbin bit, incidentally (I've googled it and that seems an answer for some machines).

Any help gratefully received as it's spent two days driving me mad.

When I did it I used my fingers to keep the fabric stretched as it was moving under the foot. Obviously the idea is that it gathers and so after the first row or 2 you need to stretch it as you sew. Does that make sense? Sorry if it isn't the answer but I was unsure what you meant by the tension keeps going.

Tamster150

I am watching the shirring tips as I have a pattern yet to start which needs shirring elastic & I have never used it before either!

I have found this http://www.etsy.com/shop/luckykaerufabric
lovely seller on etsy and wanted to know what tips you have for buying from the US. If I order 7 yards (to fill postage envelope), that would come to approx $50 dollars which is too much for tax charges I am sure. Those of you that order from US, what do you do??

Georgiabay

r.mac wrote: »

georgia - fab dress. did you make the pattern yourself?

I used an old bridesmaid dress pattern for the bodice but made up the skirt part. I practised first using a duvet cover (pics posted further back).

danables

Bunny200 wrote: »

Its the quilting bit that always confuses me. Once you've got you pieces together to make the top and you've layered it with the padding and the backing I can't quite get my head round the sewing them together and how you get it through the machine. I've seen quilts with random stitching, parallel stitching all sorts of stitching but I can't understand how you get all that bulk under the sewing machine as the arm of my machine is quite small so do you end up with it all bunched up when you get to the middle area of the quilt?

You just roll up part of the quilt and pin it in place as you go and the wadding thins out quite a lot when you actually start sewing.

Bunny200

Duh, of course you do! Funny how you never think of the obvious unless you've tried it yourself. Maybe I'll get round to doing it at some point...... add to the ever-growing list

Bunny200

Bunny200 wrote: »

Duh, of course you do! Funny how you never think of the obvious unless you've tried it yourself. Maybe I'll get round to doing it at some point...... add to the ever-growing list

Or of course I could just read one of the blogs I subscribe to! Look what arrived today in Google Reader http://pickupsomecreativity.blogspot.com/2010/07/sewing-101-with-kari-quilting-basics.html

all questions answered!