Thread: Sewing slippery fabrics

I'm hoping some of you sewing ladies can help me with this dilema. I'm making a trumpet skirt that has a stretch satin body with organza godets. These two fabrics are very slippery together. I'm serging the seams with my serger. How can I do a better job of keeping the fabrics from sliding all over the place? I have pinned the crap out of it and it still keeps slipping. Would it be best if hand basted the seem together before running it through my serger?

pins are what I would do. Another trick I would try is the hand basting idea. Do a wide fast stitch about 1" in from where you are serging (selvage edge) that way when you are done you can just cut the knots and pull it out. use a fine needle though. Stretch satin has a way of showing holes.

on your sewing machine, sew as close to the edges as possible to hold the fabric pieces together :)

Then use your serger over the stitches, then you don't have to remove the stitches :)

The problem with sewing further out is that the cutter cuts the fabric before going through the serger needles and the fabric can still move.

It's all about the Walking Foot (also called an EvenFeed Foot) for your sewing machine. Pick one up at your local sewing store and make sure you bring you sewing machine model and make to get the right one.

The culprit seems to be the Organza. At the top of the skirt where the satin is together, it isn't giving me much trouble. But where the Organza godet goes in is giving me fits. I tried hand basting and that seems to help some. Some of the trouble is that the bias on the organza is stretching more than the satin.

Maybe I need to stay stitch the organza, then hand baste to the satin, then serge. Oh Lord it's going to take me forever to sew this stuff. I'll never buy fabric like this again.

Do you think adjusting the differential feed on the serger would help? I tend to think of making that adjustment when sewing the same fabrics together, but maybe it would help with the two different ones?

Originally Posted by Hala Jamal

It's all about the Walking Foot (also called an EvenFeed Foot) for your sewing machine. Pick one up at your local sewing store and make sure you bring you sewing machine model and make to get the right one.

Sounds like a good investment. I'm going to go over to the sewing machine store I bought my serger at and see if they've got one.

I have a simple process that works for me. First I use a regular straight stitch along each side of the area that will be used to attach the organza godet to the skirt fabric. It creates a bit of stability - a frame for the next stitching. Organza fabric will not be as difficult. Then I stitch the godet into the body of the skirt. Of course the skirt will need to hang at least 7 days prior to trimming and hemming the lower edge in order for the organza to stretch. Otherwise you could step on the irregular lengths.

The walking foot is a bonus. Until you locate the foot the parallel stitched lines along the seam line might be an easy option.