Three hours to sew a straight seam, are you kidding me

I spent all Sunday afternoon trying to get a straight stitch on some linen for a summer dress pattern. Three hours, three hours of ripping out threads because my machine kept pulling the fabric crooked. I checked the tension, I changed the needle, I even oiled the bobbin case twice. Turns out I had the presser foot pressure set wrong for lightweight fabric. A three minute fix after I watched a five year old video from some retired seamstress in Ohio. Now I have to re-cut the front panel because I mangled the original piece. Has anyone else dealt with a machine that just decides to fight you on simple stuff like that?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

butler.abby3mo ago

Had a friend who spent two hours fighting her machine on cotton lawn before realizing she'd threaded it with the spool upside down. Ever done something that painfully small to fix a big headache?

4

wright.kevin3mo ago

Honestly, I used to be one of those people who rolled their eyes at stories like that. I'd think "come on, it's just threading a machine, how hard can it be?" but then last month I spent a good 45 minutes fighting with a tension issue on some really nice linen, tweaking everything, getting more and more frustrated. Turns out I had the presser foot up while threading (you know, the thing you're not supposed to do) and the thread wasn't seating properly in the tension discs at all. Felt like a complete idiot when I finally stopped, took a breath, and just rethreaded it from scratch with the foot down. It's amazing how these tiny little details can snowball into a whole afternoon of sewing misery.

1