learning to sew necessary???

greenwitch
Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:48:58 +0000

Speaking of tricks… when thinking about my wedding dress, good friend A offered to sew me one. It was one of her dreams to sew a wedding dress, she said. Who am I to interfere with that???

We went fabric shopping and bought lots of Thai silk and organza. She knew someone in the fabric shop and asked her how she could elegantly hem the organza. This friend showed us (complete with demo) how to “burn the edge” or something like that.

It involved running the machine on the narrowest zig zag with the highest number of stitches per inch (or maybe it was the lowest?), very fast, and pulling the organza through on a diagonal. The needle just picked up that edge and rolled it tight, into this little 1/16th circular hem like you see on silk scarves. Very impressive! Friend A picked up the technique right away because she is so amazing. She’s not too shabby with a pasta machine either, I tend to be a bit hopeless with both. Thank goodness for friends!

It’s a great trick and one you can’t do on a machine that’s too automated, that may have 12,000 stitches but no manual override so you can’t combine the narrowest zigzag with the highest (or lowest) number of stitches per inch.