Friday, August 27, 2010

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!

Ah...Fresh Start!

....And i'm back! Wasn't ever really a fan of my last blog (Sweet Lil Melody), which made for a long hiatus.

So - this makes most sense. The name is tied to my sewing and my little Punkin, which is mostly sewing FOR my little Punkin!

I'm always learning and getting inspiration from fabulous bloggers, and want to share as well! I'm organizing my Flickr stream, and hope to add (when I remember!), and will edit those dead tabs on the top.

Thanks for visiting - See you soon!