I have two peices of just cotton wovens... I layered it so the top was lined... and now it won't shir at all. Ugh... I am not sure what I did wrong on this... anyone try to shir something that was just too thick to shir??? I have seen posts on here where people shirred terry... Why can't I shir through two layers of wovens??

Love Val

What are your machine settings? I have shirred denim before. :( Do you have your bobbin wound tight? Do you have your tension tight? What is your stitch legnth? Have you tried steaming? I find that scrunching and scrunching helps too.

I couldn't get shirring to work without winding the bobbin through the machine, hand winding didn't work. I pulled the elastic thread by tieing on regular thread putting that in the needle and pulling it through

It must be something having to do with the tention on my machine... it is on Auto... what should it be on? It is working OK on the jersey... but still not like what I see you guys doing... So it must be something I am doing wrong with my machine... Hey Heather? Will you answer all your questions for me so I can copy you and then we will see if it is me, or my machine having the issue. ;) THANKS!!

What are your machine settings? I have shirred denim before. Do you have your bobbin wound tight? Do you have your tension tight? What is your stitch legnth? Have you tried steaming? I find that scrunching and scrunching helps too.

Of course :) My shirring settings are usually: Tension: 9 (or the highest it will go...i have done it at like 7 or 8 as well). Stitch length: usually 3 I will usually scrunch and then steam afterwards. Remember, you won't see too much going on til you get a few rows stitched. And sometimes even after I am done all my rows I won't get the full effect until after I scrunch or steam. From what I have seen, some machines have problems with it. I am only going by what my machine does...LOL. I hope you can get if figured out. I will answer all that I can.

It may be how tightly you have the elastic thread wound on the bobbin. SOmepeople need to have it wound loosely and some need to have it wound tightly (like me). I think that depends on the machine. SO I guess my sugesstion would be to rewind the bobbin tighter if you have it loose or to wind it loose if you have it tight

I hand wind my bobbin and also slightly loosen the tension on the bobkin. :)

Automatic tension machines are a bit more difficult to get this to work I think. I've done it once, but it required some tinkering with how tight the bobbin was wound and the top tension.

Thanks guys... I will check it out today and see what I can figure out.

Love Val

Don't feel to bad, it doesn't work on either one of my machines. I have tried tightly wound bobbins, loosely wound bobbins, loosening tension, tightening tension, loosening and tightening bobbin tention, lengthing the stitch length, shortening the stitch length, all I get is rows and rows of straight stitching. That's it. Kind of lame, but I guess I have wasted enough time messing with it, so on to things that I know my machines can do :)

Even with my tightest tention setting (9) the top thread does not pull the elastic thread into the fabric AT ALL... in fact it loops around the elastic thread so I can take the elastic thread and pull it right out... Meaning when I cut the elastic thread at least 25 stiches get pulled out because the thread retracts. It should not be pulling that tight should it?

I redid the bobbin and wound it REALLY loose by hand... and no change at all.

I have tried it on two different fabrics: with one I backtracked my stiching with going backing up a few stitches and then going forward... it started to work a little bit, but it is not tight at all. This was on Jersey. I am trying again on another woven and it gathers it SO tight that I can't get the elastic thread to stay in the fabric... I have tried every tention I can think of. I even released the bobbin tention. UGH!

This is really frusterating! Anyone want to trade Shirring? I don't think my machine can do it. The stupid thing can do EVERY thing else! I have been working on this for about an hour..... So frusterating! :wah:

Love Val

It seems like something with my machine... all of a sudden no thread will work. I happened last week, but I reset the computer and it worked again. Now that is not even working. I want to cry... I can pull all of my seams right out by pulling the bobbin thread. Nothing I do helps. I think I need to take my machine in. :wah: :wah: :wah: :wah: