Spent 3 hours trying to fix a seam that kept twisting on my dress form...

I was working on a simple A-line skirt pattern last Sunday and the side seam kept twisting no matter what I did. I tried re-pinning it, adjusting the grainline, even re-cutting the panels twice. After about 3 hours of frustration, I realized the issue was that my fabric had a subtle bias stretch I wasn't accounting for when I laid out the pattern pieces. I usually cut everything on the straight grain but this cotton blended had a little give that pulled the seam off center. What finally fixed it was letting the fabric hang overnight on the form before sewing the side seam again. Has anyone else run into this with softer cottons or jersey blends where the fabric moves on you like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan27121d ago

Hate when fabric pulls that sneaky move. Had a similar thing happen with a rayon blend last month, drove me nuts until I remembered to let it rest before sewing. The hang trick is gold though, saves so much re-cutting grief.

joseph_bailey21d ago

Got a similar story but with a different twist. Almost threw a whole table runner project in the trash last fall because the seams kept pulling to one side. Turned out I was cutting the fabric with the pattern pieces facing the wrong way on a nap, not even a stretchy fabric. I just had the grainline arrow slightly off and it messed up the whole drape. Took me two days of staring at it before I noticed my own dumb mistake. Now I triple check those arrows every time, even on plain cotton.

maryr4321d ago

Happened to me with a jersey knit last spring and I nearly lost my mind. Three hours in and I kept thinking why does this seam keep twisting on me. The hang trick is the only thing that saved it, letting it settle overnight made a night and day difference. Fabric can be so stubborn sometimes, you think you have it figured out and then it pulls something new. I swear softer cottons and any kind of stretch blend are the worst for this, they just do what they want. Once you learn to let them rest before sewing it saves so much time and fabric in the long run.