Since I am done with monkey, #2 son has selected a dog - also blue. It's half crafting and half sewing.
As a picture is worth 1,000 words -
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I am pulling my hair out here! Problems:
The presser foot caches the yarn, so I took it off.
The feed dogs pull the yarn on the bottom through faster than top, so I dropped them down. (Maybe my problem might be solved if I had a more sensitive foot pedal? This one doesn't like to go really slow.)
No presser foot - no feed dogs = big knots and tangles.
This is pretty much how I made the fringes for the Redcoats I did a while back... Yes, it *is* difficult! I found that on my Lily 550 I got the best results with:
Feed dogs UP Increased presser foot pressure going slowly (I know this is hard for you, but persevere) Holding the yarn down firmly with my hands, like an extra big presser foot - really squish it down! Swearing a lot...
You could also try a layer of Stitch & tear stabilizer on the TOP of the wool, to stop it snagging the toes of the presser foot.
Throw away that stupid U shaped cardboard. That's the dumbest way to make hair I've ever seen in my life. lol
Here's what I do. Cut the cardboard like it tells you to do, but don't worry about that center cut. Wrap the yarn like it tells you to do. Now, what I then do is cut down one side of the cardboard, through the yarn. Then lay the yarn out on a piece of paper I yank out of the printer. Put a piece of tissue paper over the top of the yarn. (you can see through tissue paper and it tears off easily.) You will need a pusher stick. Scrunch the yarn together with the pusher (not a good idea to use your fingers, use an orange stick or something) as they pass under the presser foot. Slowly stitch through both layers of paper and the yarn with a fairly short stitch length. Don't try to backstitch at the ends of the seam. You can reduce your stitch length to zero and take a couple stitches if you like. However I don't usually do that. I just leave long thread tails that I knot. Then I dab the knots with a bit of fabric glue. Do that before you tear it off the paper.
What you end up with this way is "hair" with a part in the middle. If you need loops of hair (the only reason I can figure they are telling you to use that stupid, stupid U of cardboard) then just wrap the yarn very loosely around the cardboard and slide it off rather than cutting. Only reason I cut the yarn is it's usually too tight to slide off.
Yes. Now I haven't had much coffee yet, but I think this will leave me with a slightly different product. In my pattern, the loops are cut, but along both edges of the cardboard, leaving fringes of about 4"" (sorry UKers - too lazy to convert) with a part down the middle. And, according to the directions, I do not cut the length of yarn. I stitch it up the middle, cut both sets of loops, then wrap more loops. So I end up with a 7' foot length of hair. But, Looking at the directions, I don't think that will matter when I am attaching the hair though.
I got the cardboard thing working last night. 1 glass of red wine, no presser foot, feed dogs up and a short stitch length seemed to produce a decent result. But I am going to try your way tonight so I can compare the results to see which I like better.
I'm leaving the threads long and knotting them. I didn't worry too much about glue, because they're going to get another round of stitches when they get attached to the fabric.
The worst part was DS2 fussing - "You said I could help!!!!" Grrrrr....I'll let him sew, but this part isn't something for a 6 year old beginner.
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