Shirring - Plain and Simple! (Mini tutorial)

Basic shirring. Seems simple enough. I was excited to try this mainly to give elasticity to my fabrics, for more versatility. So I tried. I shirred 3 rows to a skirt, and it worked horribly.

I did some research, and found a lot of people saying the same thing. 'Wrap the elastic around the bobbin loose', 'wrap the elastic around the bobbin tight'...So which one is it? I tried both and saw no difference! I even got the old sewing manual out, now that's desperate!

So I kept trying. Then I remembered reading amongst the many tutorials I browsed through, something about spraying and putting the fabric on the dryer. So with one last ditch effort, before I summed it up to my faulty machine, I tried again.

This is how it went down:
- Wrap the bobbin with the elastic not too loose, but not too tight
- Keep your tension normal on our thread, but use a longer setting, like 3 1/2 - 4
- Shirr many lines, at least 8
- SPRAY with a spray bottle (Watch your material shrink in half! - This was key!)
- Stream Iron



Tada! I'm having a bunch of fun with this. I've made a couple baby dresses, and a skirt!