{"id":82566,"date":"2024-06-10T08:49:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T12:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/?p=82566"},"modified":"2024-06-10T08:54:39","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T12:54:39","slug":"adding-heirloom-details-to-your-sewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2024\/06\/adding-heirloom-details-to-your-sewing.html","title":{"rendered":"adding heirloom details to your sewing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I posted a few photos of my new linen Verdun Woven Tee<\/a> recently and quite a few of you asked about it. Here are the details.<\/p>\n

\"Liesl<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a very easy but also impressive technique to use to embellish your sewing. I used two different techniques to do it. Faux pintucks using a twin needle and a pintucking foot. And I used entredeux, which is a special trim you can buy at heirloom shops like Farmhouse Fabrics<\/a>. (It’s also very popular in traditional trim stores like Pontejos<\/a> here in Madrid, so if you ever come to visit, stop and pick up some!)<\/p>\n

I’ve written about these techniques before when I added them to a Butterfly Blouse for S, so I’m going to repeat them and add a little more information here.<\/p>\n

Entredeux and hemstitching<\/strong><\/p>\n

By way of introduction, entredeux<\/em> translates from the French, meaning \u201cbetween two,\u201d which is a perfect description for this special trim. It\u2019s simply a row of fancy hemstitching<\/a> right down the center of a strip of lightweight fabric (usually batiste or organdy), so the hemstitching is literally positioned between two strips of fabric. When sewn, entredeux also joins two pieces of fabric, lace, or whatever else you want to join. Here is a strip of entredeux before sewing, shown with the fabric I used for S’s Butterfly Blouse. The solid edges that align the entredeux are the seam allowances, which will get trimmed after sewing. I’ll explain, don’t worry…<\/p>\n

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I’d also like to mention that, instead of using entredeux, you could<\/em> simply hemstitch directly onto your fabric. Years ago my mom and I hand sewed a linen baptismal gown for the grand kids, and it was a very time-consuming project that included a lot<\/em> of hemstitching. (My mom did most of the work; I think I contributed one sleeve.) To do traditional hemstitching, you pull a few threads from the warp or weft of your fabric and hand stitch the gap left behind to create little openings while pulling the remaining threads together in a pretty configuration. It\u2019s gorgeous when done correctly. It also take a lot of time and patience and, if you’re like me, you probably don’t have so much of either of those in your life right now. (Something to look forward to doing in retirement, perhaps? I don’t know; I have a feeling my retirement is going to be busy, too…)<\/p>\n

You can also \u201cfake\u201d hemstitching with a sewing machine and wing needle, but I\u2019ll admit I\u2019ve never really cared for the look. It\u2019s difficult to set your sewing machine tension and stitching just right, and it just doesn\u2019t look the same to my eye. Eventually I\u2019ll get around fiddling with this technique more and maybe I\u2019ll end up liking it, but in the meantime I prefer to buy prepared entredeux, which is how many heirloom sewists do it too. You can find entredeux at heirloom sewing stores and websites, and it looks great while also being really easy to sew. Like I said, you can order entredeux from the lovely folks at Farmhouse Fabrics<\/a>. I can also get it locally here in Madrid because it’s used for the traditonal Chulapa costume for our fiestas.<\/p>\n

So anyway, just as I did for S’s Butterfly Blouse, I decided to stitch the entredeux right down the center front of my Verdun Woven Tee, with several rows of pintucking and a second row of entredeux added on either side of the center entredeux. To get started, I cut a piece of linen several inches larger than the front blouse pattern. It\u2019s easiest to do these heirloom techniques before<\/em> you cut your pattern piece because you’ll lose some width due to the entredeux seam allowances and fabric uptake from the pintucks, so cut a piece of fabric large enough to leave yourself some extra room and you won’t need to try to calculate the exact amount of extra to leave.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Just as I did for the Butterfly Blouse (shown in these photos), I cut my fabric down the center and used a water-soluble pen to mark a 1\/2\u2033 seam allowance on either side of my center cut. Try to do this as on grain as possible because you’ll get much better results. I like to pull a thread to be as accurate as I can, but I’m a little finicky about things like this.<\/p>\n

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2.<\/strong> Grab a stick of fabric glue, because it\u2019s the easiest way to do this. Really! (I\u2019ve never used or liked fabric glue for any other sewing purposes, but it was great here.) Run the glue along the seam allowances of one fabric edge and stick the entredeux to the fabric, right sides together, so the edge of the entredeux abuts the line you drew. This is really easy with the white entredeux because you can see right through it. (When I use black entredeux on black fabric, I\u2019ll try using a white chalk line to see if it\u2019s also this visible. I suppose a row of basting stitches could be useful, too.)<\/p>\n

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3.<\/strong> Once the glue is dry\u2013and it doesn\u2019t take long\u2013set your sewing machine to a short stitch (2.0 is a good place to start) and stitch right along the edge of the entredeux, as close to the entredeux as you can. If you have an sewing machine foot with a stitching guide, use it here. Can you see the little guide right next to the entredeux in this photo?<\/p>\n

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4.<\/strong> Here is the stitching, very close to the edge of the entredeux:<\/p>\n

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5.<\/strong> Once that\u2019s taken care of you\u2019re nearly finished! Next it\u2019s time to trim the seam allowances to a scant 1\/8\u2033. Like this.<\/p>\n

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6.<\/strong> Next comes the fun part. I set my sewing machine to a small zigzag stitch and stitched over the seam allowances, rolling the seam allowances into a small bundle or almost a tube. To do this, you\u2019ll want to set your machine so one side of the zigzag stitches next to your first stitching line and the other side drops off the cut edge of the fabric. The zigzag will pull the seam allowances together to make them narrow so they won\u2019t show behind the entredeux. Like this:<\/p>\n

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See how the seam allowances sort of rolled together into a nice, neat finish? Easy, right? Fiddle with your machine settings until you get it right. My machine was set at 2.3 length and 1.0 length for this part. You may need slightly different settings depending on how wide you trim your seam allowances.<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong> And that\u2019s it! Press the seam allowances away from the entredeux, and sew and finish the opposite edge of the entredeux in the same way.<\/p>\n

Each time I do this I keep thinking it should be more difficult to do that it is. But it\u2019s not! Here is the finished entredeux down the center of the fabric. \u201cBetween two\u201d pieces of fabric, as it were:<\/p>\n

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Impressive, and so easy! Cool, right? Now, on to the pintucks!<\/p>\n

Pintucks<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve sewn our children’s Family Reunion Dress<\/a> or Music Class Blouse<\/a> patterns you\u2019re familiar with the basic pintuck. In essence, the fabric is folded with wrong sides together and stitched very close to the fold to create tiny tucks that look really pretty and delicate, especially when sewn in multiples. But it can also be really difficult to keep pintucks even and parallel, especially when you\u2019re sewing a lot of them or are sewing really long rows tucks!<\/p>\n

Enter the twin (or double) needle and the pintuck foot.<\/p>\n

The twin needle creates the seam effect as a traditional pintuck by pulling the bottom thread tension really tight so the fabric puckers, creating a little pintuck in the process. Magic! The best size twin needles this pintucks seem to be either 1.6\/70 or 2.0\/80, depending on the size of the tuck you want. Keep in mind that this technique works best on lightweight fabrics like lawn, voile and batiste. Results may vary if you\u2019re using a coarser quilting cotton.<\/p>\n

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You can also buy a pintuck foot for most sewing machines. The pintuck foot has a series of grooves along the bottom that you can use to evenly space the pintucks. By positioning a groove in the pintuck foot over a previous row of pintucking, the foot keeps the pintucks evenly spaced. Nifty, yes? Pintuck feet come in different sizes, meaning that the grooves are spaced in varying widths. They\u2019re also inexpensive, so they\u2019re worth the small investment. I bought a set of two pintuck feet for my Janome machine for less than $20.<\/p>\n

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\"heirloom<\/a>1.<\/strong> To get started with pintucks, I drew a line 1\/2\u2033 from either side of my entredeux. These lines will serve as the stitching guide for the first pintuck. All the other pintucks will build off the first pintuck, so be sure you draw a nice straight line wherever you plan to start your tucks.<\/p>\n

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2.<\/strong> I loosened the top thread tension on my machine quite a bit. Then I threaded my double needle and tested the double needle stitching on a scrap of fabric to be sure I was happy with the results. After a few trials I settled on a stitch length of 2.0 for my pintucks. (By the way, Bernina has a really nice downloadable worksheet about pintucks<\/a> if you\u2019d like to read more about them. They have lots of great tips that will help you to get good results, including how to thread the machine to avoid skipped stitches.) Once I was happy with my settings, I carefully stitched down the drawn line for my first pintuck, and then for each consecutive pintuck I positioned the previous pintuck under a groove on the pintucking foot to evenly the pintucks as I stitched. I skipped a groove for each pintuck so they landed further apart. In the photo below I was testing the pintucks on a scrap of fabric, and you can see how close together my first pintucks were. Close-set tucks would be really pretty too, but I decided I wanted them to be spaced a little further apart for this blouse.<\/p>\n

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Here is the finished fabric panel before I cut it.<\/p>\n

Here are a few additional tips to help you achieve this successfully:<\/p>\n