sewing fleece - needle, thread, etc

First off, relax: there's nothing that the machine can't cope with, but you need to give it some help.

Now, you need to change your needle to a ball point or jersey needle for sewing knits. Size 80 or 90 will do fine.

Then ditch the dual duty thread: it's horrible stuff, and useless for this. Swap to a good quality (Gutterman is fine) poly thread, and use that.

If you have one, use a roller foot or (even better!) a walking foot: fleece is 'sticky' stuff and needs help through the machine.

You may need to adjust foot pressure as well, but see what this does without first.

With this combination of the right needle, the right thread, and the walking foot, I have sewn fleece successfully on both my hand crank 1923 Singer 66, and on my 1930's 18-88 (treadle). The big modern HV Lily copes no problem either. Haven't yet needed to try it on the Featherweight or the 99... :)

Guess what! I found the answer and did a fleece panel in about 1/2 hour putting a hem around to save money. Found a Claire Shaeffer book, that's why. It was about fabrics, told the kind of needle to use (red band), light pressure, eight stitches per inch, type of thread (polyester cotton covered). We know what that latter brand would almost have to be for the thread. Voila! It worked.

Hope all your projects come out fine. Now I have about 5 or 6 more to do and I'm done, done, done. Like to sew, but it takes times.

Have a wonderful Christmas,

Betsy Phillips

Elizabeth M. Phillips ( snipped-for-privacy@FreeNet.Carlet> Hi there! Hope you're getting all your Christmas sewing done. I am NOT

I will take all this advice too......I am trying to work 1 step buttonholes on double layer artic fleece with some interfacing in between to help hold the stitching and having a terrible time getting the d@#m stuff to feed.

Should I try a piece of tear-away embroidery stabilizer next to the feed dogs?? Do you think that would help?? Also decrease pressure foot pressure a bit?? I have an old Kenmore that has a 4 step buttonhole.. maybe that would be a better bet.......

I am really in a mess............

G'day Pat and Elizabeth

Tearaway stabiliser will help, you can float it top and bottom if you wish. Most of the time I use Solvy (water soluble stabiliser) and give it a light spray with water for removal. Either will work OK.

Solvy is perfect under embroidery on fleece too!

Br> I will take all this advice too......I am trying to work 1 step

Glad to hear it worked well in the end. I too was a novice with fleece until earlier this year when I made my daughter a winter dressing gown. In spite of all my fears, it was a lot easier to sew than expected and the result was great.

Another possibility, since fleece doesn't fray: just a straight stitched rectangular box. No satin stitching needed, and a whole lot easier.

Kay

Wonderful! I highly reccommend any and all of Claire's books. She really is a tremendous teacher, and that ability rolls right into her books as well. (She's also a very sweet person. If she's ever teaching a class near you, and it's possible at all, go!)

Sharon

Oh good. So you did remember to cuss at it. That helps. ;)

Yes to all of that. When I sew heavy fleece I decrease the pressure foot pressure by one notch. Normal is 4, so when I do heavy fleece I set it to

1. It really makes a Huge difference. You might have better luck doing the

4 step buttonhole. Try on a scrap and see what you get. Do you have any Space Tape? It's the heavy clear plastic tape that has the buttonhole sizes marked off on it. It really helps to stabilize things too.

Good luck. And you know you can have a heart heathly drink later on. ;)

Sharon

I hadn't check out alt.sewing for a few days ... the Christmas rush and all, so I'm back and was pleasantly surprised to see a number of replies. What a friendly group. Thank you.

To let you know what happened ... well, I did about eight lap robes and / or panels. For some reason, the machine started working again and was fine until the very last long stretch on the last project doing the last side of a lap robe and then the machine stopped. Don't know if it died or what, but I have an ancient Necchi, too, and thought of getting that going. No basic directions, just the fancier directions. It was one of the first embroidery machines I think and came complete with cams, and the whole thing. It was given to me. It is a Necchi Automatica Supernova from the late 50's, believe it or not. AND, I had not used it since it was given to me, so I debated about firing it up. Was afraid if I ran out of thread I might thread it wrong or same with trying to refill the bobbin if necessary.

Then I thought better of all that. This was not the time to try that, so I did the last side of the last panel by hand. Haven't done that for a long time.

I do appreciate all your comments and have "saved" them for my files. Hey, you never know when you'll need a little help from your friends. Right?

Betsy Phillips

P.S. Hmmmm, the latter sounds "Beatlish ... " B-)

When you do have time, Betsy, you should get out that old Necchi and try it out, after a good cleaning, of course. You may be very pleasantly surprised at the ease of sewing with it. My old 1961 Singer continually surprises me with the ease when sewing the few pieces of fleece, I've sewn. I am not a fan of fleece, but I have some Malden Mills, a relative gave me and I have sewn a couple items for her as Christmas gifts. She loves anything made from fleece. Emily

Betsy Phillps you have a gem and don't know it. Bring out that Necchi, clean it and oil it. I have a 1956 Super Nova that has been sewing away all these years without a repair except for replacing belts which I did myself. You may decide to throw the other machine away since it is so tempermental. Dot in Tennessee