I have been playing around all week with stretch fabrics on my sewing machine. I have been looking up how to, and I'm finding that it isn't as difficult as I thought. Earlier in the year, feeling inspired by some Ottobre sewing success, I got all excited and cut out a t-shirt pattern for Elka, I sewed on the ribbing and then it just sat there in the pile for 4 months. The Ottobre instructions were for an overlocker, which I have, but I have no idea how to use/no space to set up, and I started looking around the net to try and find instructions, and what I found all seemed rather baffling and discouraging of bothering to sew stretch fabrics with a regular sewing machine... but then I read this post by Yana, which led me to this book my Meg McElwee, and I started to understand what to do. I also found this great YouTube clip which explains about using twin needles, which led to me breaking a twin needle on the first stitch, but that was my fault, and nothing to do with the clip! And so, using zig zag, I have managed to make Elka her first homemade t-shirt, I was so excited that I used fold over elastic instead of ribbing because that's all I had on hand, and so it has a strange 'Star Trek' vibe going on, but it is completely functional, and stretchy and the stitches seems sturdy enough. Now I have some nice 100% cotton adult t-shirts that I picked up at the op shop, and I will be making some shirts and pants from them, and I have actual ribbing too, so I'm hoping that by the end of the week I will have conquered my stretch fabric fears. Fingers crossed!
B.
2 comments:
Nice work! The spots look so cute. This is something I really want to attempt soon for my little one. Did you follow along the series of posts on knits on Made by Rae? http://www.made-by-rae.com/knits/
Lots of good tips and tricks there too. Now, back to the machine for me while time allows!
great job! i'm glad you found my post useful :)
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