Does anyone know how to sew sateen fabric without having it slide out of place??

Question

HELP...I NEED ADVISE FROM A MASTER SEWER...I am a beginner sewer, and decided to take on a task that I thought would be simple...sewing sateen fabric (feels like satin on one side and is a little more rough on the other). The problem is that when I start feeding the material through the sewing machine the feed dog is grabbing the fabric and making the material pucker and slide out of place, making it extremely difficult and frustrating to sew. BTW I have already loosened the tension on all possible areas of the machine. Any advise?

Answer 1

either roughly hand sew it first before using the machine or use fabric tape (a two sided tape) before using the machine.

Answer 2

This is mostly a fabric handling problem -- I'd suggest trying to get Jeffrey Diduch's article on sewing without pins (Threads #87, February/March 2000) or watching Margaret Islander's videos (http://www.islandersewing.com) to learn how to keep fabric pieces lined up during sewing.  (the Islander videos may be available on interlibrary loan or from Smartflix).  That's the long term cure for the problem.

In the short term, get out the sateen scraps and start playing.  The skidding is probably due to too little presser foot pressure -- feed dogs are supposed to grab and move the fabric.  Your challenge is to keep the top and bottom fabrics moving at the same rate -- you may need to use some stabilizer under the fabric, and/or stop every once in awhile with the needle down, raise the presser foot, lower the presser foot and continue to sew.

Be sure to start your seams correctly -- work under presser foot, use handwheel to drop needle into seam, lower presser foot, hold thread ends, take a few stitches, drop thread ends, continue sewing.

The tension on your thread may be off, also, probably too tight, or you may have wound the bobbin too fast (especially if you're sewing with polyester or nylon threads) or your stitch length may be too short, causing "thread jamming".  I'm guessing you're going to want 3-4 mm

stitch lengths with most cotton sateens.