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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Preparing to pintuck

On the tote bag pattern I showed 2 days ago there is a bag with pintucking. To do it you need the right equipment. You have to have a double needle. The pattern calls for a 3.0 which means there is a 3 mm space between the points of the needles. A lot of my packages were purchased back when Pfaff was still putting their name on packages. You can see they come in lots of different sizes and even a triple needle is available, but not for pintucking. The 6.0 is for doing the double row of stitching when hemming a T-shirt, to look like the stitch from the manufacturers. The one shown is a regular one; I also have a ballpoint one somewhere. The tote bag pattern also called for a 3 groove pintuck foot. I see I have a 5 groove and a 7 groove which means the pintucks wouldn't stand up as tall. I also have the foot at the bottom that is a single groove with a side panel that will ride on your previous pintuck so you can have evenly spaced tucks. You can also do fancy stitching down between 2 tucks with this foot. It looks like I may need to buy a 3 groove foot.
I do a lot of playing on little samples that sometimes just stay as samples, never made into anything. The next 2 pictures are my playing with a double needle and no pintuck foot. You will still get a tuck without the foot, just not as tall. These are hand dyed fabrics from Cherrywood.

On this next sample I also did not use a pintuck foot, just a double needle and tension tightened a little. Then I wanted to see if I could do a machine embroidery over the top of the pintucks.
I think it worked pretty well.
A long time ago I gave classes on making quilts from old blue jeans. I took one of the softer pairs of jeans, cut a square and started playing with the double needle again. Then I came back and couched down some hand dyed thread with a clear monofilament zig zag stitch.
Now I just have to decide what fabric I am going to use for the tote.

14 comments:

  1. I love the butterfly on top of the crosshatch. So beautiful.

    Good heavens, woman - you're amazing!

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  2. Wow! This makes me want to get out my double needles and start playing a little bit. I love the bottom sample, too, and the butterflies over the pintucks was really neat.

    I vote for some old blue jeans for your tote sample and use the same pintucks and colorful threads that you did on the bottom sample. Everyone has old jeans and if you want to sell some patterns, this is a beautiful way to do it.

    Have a good day, Wanda!

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  3. Wow -- this is like having sewing lessons!!
    I love the last sample -- if I saw a tote bag like that, I'd want to buy it!

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  4. I used a double needle on polar fleece and the results were amazing. I decorated kids sweaters that way. Maybe it's time to pull out those needles again.

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  5. Wanda, you constantly challenge me to move from the ordinary and use my imagination. Ruts... so easy to fall into. Thanks again!

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  6. Wanda, this is great! I haven't used a double needle in sooo long. I really love all your samples but especially the one with all the COLORS. Blessings to you.

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  7. Wanda,
    Beautiful work on all of your samples. The embroidered butterflies almost look like appliqued lace.
    Question: You mentioned the pintucks are taller when the double needle is used with a pintuck foot. Is that true even when doing the tightly curved pintucks?
    Vicky F

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  8. My brain is boggled! I had no idea that pintucks could be 1. so complicated re: needles and feet and 2. so beautiful! The butterflies over the pintucks is gorgeous! And I too love that bottom photo. It looks so bright and joyous! Your "playing around" looks better than most peoples' "trying" - you are amazing. Thanks for the mini-tutorial!

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  9. Vicky F
    I don't think you would want to use a pintuck foot for tight curves. The grooves would restrict your movement. Most of my samples are made without the foot.

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  10. Wow! You have now gone warp speed beyond what I can do! I do love the results. blessings, marlene

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  11. Another GREAT lesson you have shared with all of us. I Printed this one out also. Is there anything out there you have not attempted yet?

    J~MT

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  12. How cool! You'll have us all looking through our sewing machine feet and trying for ourselves. Thanks again for inspiring us!

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