trouble with flat-felled seams ?

half its

and

trimmed

should

Thanks for help Teri,

I like trying any methods i have not tried to find a method that helps make my sewing more consistent.

thanks again, robb

Reply to
robb
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awkward at

keep

I'll try it out Teri,

the advantage of the felling foot *for me* are the grooves/channel on the bottom of the felling foot that are set at the width of the felled seam that helps guide the fabric ... at least that is what it is suppose to do ;)

i will try other standard feet for comparison. i thought some of the guided feet might work as well.

thanks again, robb

Reply to
robb

(waves at Teri)

Hiya! Where have you been? Great to see you back. :)

And good to see you recommrnd the method I use.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

at

at

of

well i mistyped and should have pointed out that i did try another presser foot before according to katexxx suggestions but had trouble keeping the seam straight but then i thought that if i could find some other guided foot i could probably get it to work better for me.. that is until i am alot better at guiding the material

robb

Reply to
robb

Gee, I don't know about that Terri. I'm a beginner too, and using the felling foot (as well as the rolled hem foot), and following David Coffin's video and book, I get great seams and hems with no problems. It feeds and folds the fabric so neatly that I'm amazed.

OTOH, I find it awkard and difficult to do a flat felled seam using a straight-stitch foot. I can only assume that its your years of experience that enable you to do a good job without one!

Reply to
Sparafucile

You're quite welcome. I'm glad I was able to help at least a little. I was intent to help you because I knew that once you got the hang of it, it would be so much easier and your finished product would look so much more professional. Writing all that out was a bit tricky. I had the distinct advantage of having a published expert teach right at my own machine. It is just so much easier that way.

Use of both the felling feet and the rolled hemmers are very different than almost all other sewing feet in that they require some different positioning of the hand holding the fabric as it feeds into the foot. This positioning will vary with each different fabric you use as well as when you are going around curved edges as with shirt tails. They also require somewhat of a drag on the fabric, as you said, which I forgot to mention. You get so used to doing things, it is hard to remember each thing that has become second hand. Anyway, I'm glad it's going better and I feel confidant you'll master it in no time.

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

Hi Kate,

I missed you, too. My husband has been very ill since November. He had a cancerous kidney, which was removed. But he was so ill with his other problems (heart disease, spinal stinosis, diabetes, dimentia) that he was confined to a nursing home until April. He hated it. We couldn't take him home because of the many stairs everywhere, so we had to move in with my daughter. She lives in the country, where internet access and cell phones are virtually unknown. We finally got satellite service. It's lovely here, but confining because I don't drive and have to depend on my daughter to get me around. She works odd hours (oncology nurse) and sleeps during the day, so getting around is chancy. But we have sold our house, and things are getting better. My husband is much happier here, surrounded by his family.

I just got my one-year-clear diagnosis from my doctor. I feel great, and think I'm going to beat the odds.

Most of my sewing lately has been by hand because we're not completely moved yet. I've made about a dozen dolls in various designs--eight Hittys and Friends (but my design from the book illustrations), a couple in the manner of Izannah Walker, and the latest one is a copy of a Lenci. She's waiting for hair; the IWs have their underwear, but I haven't been inspired to make the clothes yet. I did a smaller version of the IW dolls with a purchased mold, but didn't think it looked enough like the originals. She's cute, but not a replica. The other sewing I've done recently was for my daughter--she never has enough scrubs...

teri

Reply to
gjones2938

Dear Serge,

I'll be 71 next birthday. I learned to sew on a treadle machine. There were no such things as specialty feet. When one learns that way, newfangled things like motorized machines, are extraneous. I still love to sew by hand to get fine finishes on my things. My dolls' clothing will be heirlooms because they are embellished and mainly sewn by hand. That doesn't mean that I eschew all new technology. I learned to use a computer before most of my students. And I try all kinds of tools and supplies that make sewing easier. Except for my zipper foot, the remainder of my feet have rarely come out of the box.

I once had Berninas in one of my studios, and I did use the edgestitching foot.

And David Coffin's book on shirts is fine, except I would never in a million years use muslin for interfacing. I used his method for sleeve vents to teach my students, and aside from at least two every semester doing both sleeves the same instead of reversing for the second sleeve, they found the method easy.

Teri

Reply to
gjones2938

They come not in single spies bu in batallions... You had enough problems to deal with already without this. I'm glad to hear your husband is improving and that he's now happy.

I don't drive either, so I understand that one... We live out on the edge of a village, and the bus service is good, but built round kids and schools and grannies, noot working mums! Not surprizing really, as those ARE the major passenger groups, but it can be frustrating.

Luckily we get phone-line broadband here, and are well covered for mobile phones. We don't get cable or Freeview TV, and only 4 terestrial chanels, which is a bit of a bind at times as there are a few things I'd like to watch on chanel 5 and The History Chanel, but hey - there's always plenty of sewing to do, and I can catch up some of the telly with iPlayer or on DVD later (like Heros! Just had a Heroes-fest and watched the whole of series 1 in a week! :D )

Yay! And you will with that positive attitude.

I'll never understand that... Here scrubs are issued by the hospital laundry service. The nurses pay for and launder their own uniforms, but if they need scrubs, those are provided.

The dolls sound adoreable. I'm looking forward to a couple of doll projects myself this summer. A friend has a couple of this sort that are in dire need of clothing: >

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'll be different! Haven't done dolls for 35 years at least! I've got some super-fine silk chiffon left over from last summers bias cut layered dress project that I'm going to use for one outfit... Miniature hand-stitched flat felled seams may be in the offing! We're still debating the Historical/Fantasy dress code. I'm thinking 18th C sack back gown with panniers and fairy wings myself!

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

Me too! I always check with the instructions, but they are the easiest to follow I've ever found.

I too wondered about the muslin/calico for interfacing. I could never understand why he didn't just use industry standard shirt interfacing. I can get that easily from a tailoring supply place I use regularly. I've used an extra two layers of the shirt fabric in a historical shirt before now, where the stiffness was given by extreem starching (the old 'boiled shirt' fronts they used to wear with white ties and tails, and little gold studs rather than buttons. I remember my dad having shirts like this too, for use with his RAF Officers Mess Kit, like this:

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[though Dad's was made by Gieves & Hawkes, and looked MUCH smarter!}. These days they use the 'golf ball' type shirts - more comfortable but not as smart).

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

Standard scrubs come in a variety of "many sizes fits none". If you'd rather not look like a pile of dirty laundry you provide your own.

Reply to
Kathleen

THanks for your reply; I think your story is wonderful! I knew that you must be really experienced, because I've been sewing about seven months, and most of the tasks in Coffin's book, are, well, exasperating. But the specialty feet do help beginners like me!

At some point in the book - or perhaps the video - he actually does suggest using industry interfacing from American Sember Supply. To be perfectly honest, I'm not anywhere near that point yet....

I'd love to find a live class for shirtmaking with a teacher like you! It took me MANY viewings of the videotape to even understand what the heck he was doing with the plackets and cuffs! And mine still look, well, home-made! Not at all like his; it's very frustrating. I'm beginning to think that making a fine dress shirt as a first project is a bad idea.....

Reply to
Sparafucile

Wouldn't surprise me at all that they looked smarter; G&H makes lovely suits! Do you have any idea what bespoke shirts cost these days? G&H doesn't sell here in the states, but Poole and Huntsman do, and their RTW shirts are about $300.

Here in the States we're talking $500 to start for a bespoke shirt, minimum order of four, thank you! When I was a young lawyer, and much more foolish with my money, I ordered bespoke shirts and suits (they were MUCH less expensive then); thirty years later, I buy my clothing off the rack and have it altered!

Reply to
Sparafucile

Gee, ya' think??? I bet when you first passed the bar you were NOT handed the most important corporate clients to represent away, either. :-\

Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

Y'know, some things are obvious; others, not. For example, I could see that making a suit would be a tremendously difficult and complex undertaking (I watched the tailor carefully each time I was fitted for a bespoke suit, and it took many fittings); but as a beginning sewist, I really didn't think it would be *that* difficult to make a fine shirt.

After all, I've been wearing them all of my life and they don't look all that complex; and it only took two fittings before I was presented with a lovely bespoke shirt by my tailor. So to my beginner's eyes it seemed as if making one would be a somewhat easy task - not to mention that a book and videotape with instructions was readily available! And Coffin is bristling with confidence: he makes it *seem* easy as he chats to you on the video.

At this point, I think I'm going to put this project on hold, and go for a camp shirt....(six months ago, I didn't even know what a camp shirt was!)

And FWIW, I'm a plaintiff's PI lawyer in an ordinary middle-class firm; and yes, within a month or so of passing the bar, you're given your first case to try - for litigators it's trial-by-fire, not so, it seems for tailors!

Reply to
Sparafucile

You may not have had them, but treadle machines come with a selection of specialty feet and instructions for their use. I particularly like the Singer "puzzle box" fitted with various width hemmers, a tucker, ruffler, underbraider, etc., as illustrated here:

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Reply to
Pogonip

Here scrubs are usually only worn for theatre, high dependence, intensive care, and barrier nursing, and odd things like SCBU, and have to be sterile (or as close as possible), so are issued as such at the time of use. Theatre staff change to a clean set between operations.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

I made a three-piece suit for my DH. I have sewn for over 60 years, and feel very accomplished sewing women's clothing, including using some couture techniques. However, I bought several books on menswear tailoring (a different skill-set then the ones I already had), studied the text and pictures very carefully, then started in. I learned padding stitches for jacket interfacing for the first time. And I'm not at all sure I had ever made a back vent in a jacket before, so that was another bit of learning. The way the collar on a man's jacket is constructed is very different from a woman's. I loved the whole process, but I would NOT have wanted to do it as a *first* (or even twentieth) project. ;-)

Good choice. I would compare those two projects as the difference between assembling a bicycle and assembling a Ferrari: Both take pretty much the same skills, but the Ferrari takes more of them. ;-)

I omitted "right" in my comment ("right away"). I don't doubt that you were thrown right into the fire, but probably not with the firms MOST important client, correct? Same thing here, do your learning on simpler projects, move on to the more complex ones later, after you have developed more of the skills required. One does not start learning math with calculus....

Good luck!

Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

Here (on the west coast of America), practically everyone employed in a hospital wears "scrubs" but they are not necessarily sterile. For instance, my DD works in a hospital lab. She wears scrubs to work and puts on a white lab coat over them *at* work. I suspect it's the hospital's attempt to make all staff look "professional" without actually having to enforce a dress code.

Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

No idea what a bespoke shirt costs these days, but last time I asked G&H a two piece suit was £2000, an undecorated RAF officers No 1 uniform (Mess Kit is the No 5 uniform) was £1500. Dad bought his uniform shirts ready made (17 1/2" collar), and RTW 'every day' trousers and 'woolly pully' jerseys, but had dress uniforms made. He was an odd shape:

5'10", 44" chest, 36" waist, 29" inside leg... He used to say he was a 6'3" bloke on a 5'2" bloke's legs!

I make mine and get it even cheaper! DH's last suit cost me £70 in fabrics: 100% pure new wook Venetian cloth in a nice grey. I charge about £200 to make a jacket and £60-£80 for trousers. I'd love to do some work experience with both G&H and the Royal Opera House costume folk. My idea of heaven.

Our local branch of a national chain of gents outfitters usually does an off the peg suit, 2 shirts and a pair of shoes for £150, which is an ideal way to outfit your new sixth-former for his last two years of school (16-18), when they have job interviews and uni interviews and all sorts of occasions for looking smart. First time I taught there, I thought all these giant young men looked daft in school uniform (my school back in the 70's had a dress code for sixth form of 'office suit

- dress as thpough you worked in a solicitor's or a bank or somewhere like that: NO JEANS! TIE at all times for boys, and skirts had to be decent but not ankle length! Hard for us closet hippies... ). I do think the lads look very smart as they wander round town and through the school. I much preferred their look the second time I was there, and now that the lad is a student. He's only just ending his second year there (year 8), and already as big as half the male staff and a lot of the sixth form (nowdays years 12 & 13). I make him quite a lot of trousers and buy what I have to in the 'outlet' stores or through the school shop for uniform items I can't get elsewhere or are the same price elsewhere. The trouble with school uniform is that the little blighters turn into BIG blighters and grow out of the damned stuff! Or they jump over walls and rip holes in it and their knees... The good thing about most uniform items is that they are cheaper than I can make them for, especially if I cost in my time.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

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