[sidewalkgoddess]

Okay, so I waited till the last minute, but when looking at the directions, I’m not sure if the long ribbon or the short ribbon should face outward. I get that it can be reversible since the raw edge of the tulle is enclosed, but does it matter! How would/did you do it?

I plan to start tonight, any help would be appreciated!

[meleliza]

The shorter ribbon is the inside of the waistband. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world if that part is out. It can be reversible, depending on how you want your colors to look.

[sidewalkgoddess]

Okay, great! In my mind, that’s how I visualized it, but it never explicitly said (that I noticed, anyway)

If there were no forum filled with awesome women I would have just gone with it, but since I had the opportunity to ask, I thought I would.

Thanks!

[sidewalkgoddess]

Erm, my tutu won’t gather.

I did everything right, I just can’t figure out why. I pull and pull and nothing (no tucks or gathers in fabric, nice big basting stitch, no back stitching…)

Any ideas?

[Mama_Knowles]

Did you also loosen the tension ? If the tension is too tight it will not gather either. I set mine at 9, the highest it will go.

[Sarvi]

When you say it doesn’t gather, what exactly is happening? Is the thread catching on something? Apologies if this stating the incredibly obvious, but you’re not by any chance pulling on both ends of the same thread somehow, such that you’re pulling it taut?

[sidewalkgoddess]

I couldn’t see any spots where it was catching, I did loosen the tension (only to 7 out of 9, perhaps that was my problem?) and no, I wasn’t pulling at both ends…

I still have no idea what I did wrong, but I pinned it into 8 sections and just hand fed it into the machine to gather. It looks amazing! But, for the future, I’d like to do it the “right” way.

For sure I’ll make the tension even looser next time! I almost want to bang out another tutu to test now lol.

[sidewalkgoddess]

Oh, to clarify, when I pulled the ends, nothing happened. It gathers maybe half an inch at the end, but nothing after that. I looked down the length to see if stitched were caught or puckered and saw nothing. This happened on both the tutus I just made (but even with that hiccup, I had 2 tutus done in under an hour each)

[Sarvi]

Yay for quick finishing!

[Nicole]

I wonder if your machine skipped a few stitches or ‘knotted’ itself…. I nearly went bonkers sewing the tulle for my daughters Fairy Tale dress.

Well done, I have not tackled the tutu yet but my girls are dead keen.

[with love Heidi]

Sidewalkgoddess, if you have found a way of doing this that works for you and your machine do it that way! Especially if you knocked 2 out in an hour.

[Mama_Knowles]

I glad you were able to finish them! That was fast too!

[scgoble]

Per Nicole’s suggestion, this is just what happened on my first tutu. I managed somehow to get the thread knotted up and there was just no way to pull it through. I had to pick it out and start over.

[sidewalkgoddess]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I have no way to check but I must have had some kind of knot in it then… I will be extra careful next time (I considered picking it out and starting over… But I was on a deadline!)

I need to put the pics on the Flickr pool… I actually have a backlog of projects I keep forgetting to add :p

[gailanncreates]

Have had this problem also; I do not adjust the tension on my machine at all, but if I happen to pull the top thread by mistake, it all jams. If I pull the bobbin, I’m fine. Try two slightly different color threads in top/bobbin.