[with love Heidi]

Emliy, I have definitely done that to French seams (and more than once in the same garment, same seam!).

Today was my day for doing silly things. First while cutting the skirt of the Tea party I manage to cut through the bodice pattern piece that was under my material. I was carefully lining up the motifs on the side panels and ‘snip’ a cut line through the bodice piece. Thankfully fixable with a bit of sticky tape.

Then at the end I hemmed my two dresses together (I am making a reversible dress) and turned them inside out and . . . it’s not right. The dresses and attached at the top and the hem and form a nice LOOP!!! not the nicely hemmed dressed I was expecting. I should have followed Nicole’s tutorial! It’s fixable I will remove the hem and hem with with matching bias tape. But so frustrating!

On the upside I attached two skirts and bodices and didn’t have any tucks in the seam, first time (after 6 dresses!).

[Jennifer1568]

Or I have started the french seams with a 1/2 in seam allowance instead of 1/4 inch.

[Tamara]

Okey dokey girls (and our lovely male counterparts) I have a real beauty for you!

This scarecrow apple picking dress that I keep raving on about has just gone into the hazardous why-did-you-do-that pile!!

Thinking I was moving along at a great pace to actually finish something yesterday, I had attached the bias binding to the sleeve for the cuff and THEN did the bodice side seam (through gritted teeth) now I have to unpick and try and reassemble with a scant (overlocked) 1/4 inch seam! And to boot, I have just attached the skirt!!

I think I must be more tired than I think as this doesn’t happen very often. Note to self don’t go bull at a gate!!

[with love Heidi]

I’m not currently sewing Oliver and S but thought the mistake was worth putting in here. I am sewing a red and black pettiskirt for an important teenage birthday, this means ruffling approx 66′ (yes feet!) of nylon chiffon. I nearly sewed the presser foot into the bottom ruffle, but was able to rescue it before it destroyed the ruffle, but I didn’t notice that I had cut the thread as well as the little bit of fabric to release the presser foot. When I finally realised about 6″ later and went to rethread the machine I discovered that the thread had wrapped itself around the part where the needle bar attaches to the main drive shaft, behind the thread uptake leaver! Currently it’s still going but I’m now deciding if I take the top off and try removing the thread myself or take it to the sewing machine shop or just keep going. Not happy.

[Lightning McStitch]

For the not-the-first time, I’ve made a garment with a 100m reel of cotton and been too lazy to switch out the cotton to something leftover which doesn’t match for doing gathering stitches. Then, at the end, I run out of the co-ordinating colour cotton just before the very last bit of edgestitching where no other cotton will do.

What’s worse, I still have the pile of trimmed scraps next to me with all those bits of cotton that got pulled out and discarded from the gathering stitching. Aargh!

I’d like a local haberdashery shop, within walking distance from home that stays open until midnight, please.

[needlewoman]

Oh, I do sympathise, Lightning. Recently, I thought I could get away with the amount of thread left in the bobbin for top-stitching – and of course, it ran out. Result was a lot of stopping and starting, and a few threads that had to be tied off before I finally gave in and filled the bobbin. Motto for sewing: when in doubt, dont!!

[cybele727]

Oh I HATE that! A child’s dress needs at least 150 I feel like, especially after all the ripping and picking. GRRRRRR. I feel for you!

[Jane]

This afternoon I was sewing up my second book report dress. I sewed the first side of the pocket to the front top of the dress (per the direction, but being a smarty pants thought I knew what to do next since this was the second time making this dress) and proceeded to sew the second half of the pocket beautifully to back top half of the dress. As I was pinning the front and back together, so proud of my finishing technique, I kept thinking something was off. Seconds before I started to sew the front and back together it dawned on me that the pockets were to go on the top half and bottom half of the dress, not the front and back. At least I caught it before the entire thing was put together. It would have been an incredibly difficult dress to wear.

Jane

http://www.NotSewPlain.blogspot.com

[needlewoman]

Oh Jane, you did make me laugh; I have visions of P wearing the dress with her feet in the pockets! So glad you caught it before more unpicking was needed. Look fwd to seeing the dress – your fabric choices are great.

Fiona

[Lightning McStitch]

Hmmm… I just sewed a gathering stitch with very loose needle tension, then proceeded to construct the whole of the rest of the garment without altering the needle tension back again.

Luckily I was using my machines “knit” stitch where it pretends to be an overlocker and it just might be that the seams don’t all fall apart.

I’d love to be able to set an alarm, a bit like a reversing truck beep, so that any sewing done with a gathering stitch tension was very, very obvious.

[Liesl Gibson]

I’ve done that before! So frustrating.

[Maggie]

Here’s one for the hall of fame. Yesterday I was making a bucket hat for my niece. I top stitched the brim before sewing the edge of the brim together.

What was I thinking? I wasn’t. As soon as ripped it out I did exactly the same thing again. In the future I will listen to less interesting podcasts.

The final hat was a bit puckery. No pictures will be going into the Flickr pool for this one.

[with love Heidi]

Maggie, please do put it in the flicker pool! We all make mistakes and it helps others feel that their sewing is acceptable. If we only have the perfect specimines it can be very easy to get downhearted on our own sewing. And what you think is a disaster will probably get some positive comments on!

[pippi]

I recently made a sailboat skirt and made my own piping and carefully sandwiched it between front lining and facing and was quite happy with it all actually looking nice around the corners….until I got ready to start ironing and top stitching and realized that my main front fabric was wrong side out. There was no way i was picking out all that piping and it was a red twill so that back of the fabric wasn’t THAT bad, so I just sewed up the other pieces wrong side out too! 🙂 It was a brushed twill though so I figure maybe the inside was actually a little more comfortable in the end.

I also recently tried lining a tea party playsuit and thought I was really coming up with something neat and tidy by sewing up the front and lining of both leg holes right sides together (like you might for lining a tea party dress), only to realize that with the crotch sewn together there was no way to flip it back wrong sides together. Sometimes it takes a lot of spatial reasoning sewing things right sides together!!

[mrskanuckles]

I am sewing up the seashore dress (1 scissor mind you) and I sewed the front sides to the front panel and was heading for the back panel when I realized I had the side panels reversed, not only were they reversed, the pocket piece was correct. I had to unpick the serging and the seam, swap sides and reattach to the pocket and the front panel on both sides. Le Sigh. I contemplated just throwing it away and starting over. ha.