Elastic Shirring with Kenmore 1803

 Shirred Sundress with rolled hemmed ruffles! Batiste is perfect lightweight fabric for shirring and ruffling a soft, summer sundress!

I FINALLY finished it! My granddaughter grew so fast, and I'm so slow, I had to redesign the dress, to make it wider, and shirring doubles the amount of fabric required, so I had to make a complete center panel that provided more shirring top, and a center skirt panel, so you can see I had to cobble together 5 rectangles of fabric, more shirring, then French seam them together, to make the center panel, and French seam it in place.

The center panel tuck, mimics a peplum, just below the waist, which I really love! 

Completed shirred sundress! It looks like a summer ballgown.

I did not do any ironing, during this project, I am just not always up to the extra effort, so yes, it would have looked even better, if I had ironed it.

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.

I FINALLY finished my granddaughter's sundress! There is no pattern, I was just practicing elastic bobbin thread shirring (some people call it smocking, but real smocking is pleats with embroidery, creating the stitches to hold the pleats.)

I did not embroider this, just sewed parallel lines of the longest straight stitch, with an elastic bobbin thread, which elastic thread is wound by hand, not stretched, onto the bobbin, then inserted the normal way, in your sewing machine.

Because I had a very limited amount of fabric, and my granddaughter grew taller, and bigger around, over the time from when I started, I had to piece together 5 scraps, to create a front insert.

All seams are French seams, or serged (the ruffle attachment to skirt bottom is serged) due to how easily light batiste frays.

BabyLock Evolve serger 2 thread rolled hem
Stitch setting D
Stitch width R
Stitch Length rolled hem setting

Differential feed N 

Lower looper heavy thread 

upper looper subsidiary looper engaged

serger thread in needle

 

Straps 18" long piece of 2.5" wide rolled hem on one long side
12" strip of 3/8" wide elastic secured at beginning of strap, fold fabric raw edge over elastic, leave a gap of 1/4", fold 1/4" under, and straight stitch the fold. This allows the elastic to be gathered slightly, giving a ruffled sleeve effect to strap.  I sew about 3/4 of the strap length, then pull elastic, to gather sewn area, so I can sew flat.  At end of strap,  stitch elastic end, to secure it, with the gathers along the middle of strap.

I used my BabyLock Evolve serger to rolled hem the gorgeous edges, with a heavy gold thread (Signature 120), a 2 thread rolled hem, with subsidiary looper engaged.

I love how it looks like a summer ballgown!