Elastic Shirring with Kenmore 1803 (To Be Continued)

 

Kenmore 1803 sewing machine sewing rows of elastic shirring, for my granddaughter's sundress. At first, I thought I wanted them spaced further apart, shirring 4 or 5 rows,  before deciding to also shirr between the rows.

I serged the top rolled hem, first, before shirring, on the BabyLock Evolve combination coverstitch/serger, using 2 thread rolled hem, with dark yellow heavy Signature Tex 120 thread in my lower looper, regular serger thread in the needle.

My rows would probably have been straighter, and more even, if I had drawn chalk lines, but I just "eyeballed it". Here, I am shirring in between my first, further apart rows of shirring.

Shirring completed! Now to decide how I want to add the yards of ruffles, with rolled hems! Possibly adding ruffles to the shoulder straps, in addition to the hem!

Yards of elastic shirring, can be sewn quickly, and easily, even on vintage sewing machines. I sewed 9 rows of shirring on a very lightweight, soft cotton batiste fabric, to create a sundress for my 4 year old granddaughter.

BOBBIN- Wind the elastic thread on the bobbin, by hand, but do not stretch it, while winding it. Load your bobbin in the bobbin case, the same as usual. 

UPPER THREAD- Use regular sewing thread on the top, it will show on the right side of your fabric, so either contrasting thread, or thread which matches your project. Choose your needle according to the weight and type of fabric you are sewing. 

Turn your handwheel by hand, to pull up your bobbin thread, as usual, just remember not to stretch the elastic thread, or it will spring back down, under the needleplate.

LOCKING YOUR SHIRRING ROWS- To avoid the elastic thread getting caught in the bobbin hook, I discovered that stitching 2 or 3 stiches forward, raising the presser foot, and scooting my fabric back 2 stitches, lowering the foot, then shirring, worked best, at both the beginning, and at the end of my rows of shirring. 

Reverse works, too, but I did have my elastic thread get caught in the hook, twice, causing a thread jam. So I so used the locking stitch method described above, at the beginning, and end, of each row of shirring.

TO CLEAR THREAD JAM- just snip needle thread above the eye of the needle, flip the bobbin hook levers apart, and pull out the bobbin hook, bobbin case, and the bobbin race cover out, then remove bobbin from bobbin case. The elastic thread, after being stretched, whenet go, it can relax back into the bobbin tension spring area, basically thickening under the flat spring, so it is hard to pull it. Disassembly, and reassembly of the bobbin hook and bobbin and case, solves the problem. 

Shirring stays even best, when guided by BOTH hands, lol! To make my video, I only took a few stitches, because I wanted to keep it straight, and needed both hands, one on each side of the needle!

Yards of ruffles to attach to the hem, and possibly shoulder straps, laid on top to help visualize effect.