Bowing of my striip sets

[Keith D.]

I thought I had this problem licked but now it is happening all over again..... I am ready to scream... I do not know what is wrong but my fabric is bowing...

I am sewing long strips of two WOF (width of fabric) 2-1/2 inch wide strips. ( About 40-42 inches in length) I am being very careful to maintain and accurate 1/4 inch seam.

Yesterday my strips lined up and remained square... today they seem to bow / curve ... at first i thought this was just visual illusion but I double checked using rulers and the fabric strips are bowing as I sew them together...

I need to connect more strips together but that will not work if the first two strips are wonky to start with....

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening? Or what I can do to correct the problem?






.

[Keith D.]

Hi Anna, how was your cutting technique? Did you walk your fingers down the ruler, was there a crease in the fabric? How many thicknesses did you cut through?

About repairing it, do you have enough fabric to rip the bowed strips and replace?...

[Keith D.]

Mom's fix: sew one up and then one down and then one up and then one down - the bowing balances out.

I'd just add the quick fix for seemingly everything: starch, starch, starch. =) Having some body to the fabric helps them feed evenly for me - especially when both fabrics have the same body. I often get wonky when I put softer fabric with something more firm.

[Keith D.]

Most likely you are curving in a bit as you end the seam. I have a problem with this myself and have to be REALLY careful to avoid it. In other words, I find that I seem to "push" my fabric towards the right side a bit as I end a seam. You won't notice this on short pieces, but it becomes quite apparent on long seams.

Created by CJ

[Keith D.]

Crosswise cut fabric strips will stretch, so it's important that you first measure the strips to ensure that the strips are the same length. Do not use the selvedges--cut them off. I'm not a starch lover, so I'd suggest that you carefully pin the strips together ensuring that the strip centers match and that the strips match at all other points in between.

[Paula D.]

There are so many terrific tutorials about this all over the web. You have to square up your fabric and line it up carefully along the horizontal line of your cutting mat so you are cutting at a precise 90 degrees. I know both Ricky and Alex have given us lessons on this over the years.

[Judy B.]

I've found that I can do a lot of damage with my iron -- ironing rather than pressing. I've resorted to using a permanent marker to draw long lines on the ironing board cover and then make certain to line up the fabric edge along the line.

[Myra U.]

I agree with the previous post -- the iron is not our friend if we don't use it correctly. I had a LOT!!! of trouble learning that pressing is not ironing. Putting the iron down flat, picking it straight up without moving it -- all so important. We can literally iron ourselves out of true and cause tons of problems.

[Judy M.]

It might help to straighten your fabric with the grain every six strip cuts.

[Judy M.]

While sewing some strips together yesterday, it dawned on me that sometimes a curve will result because of the way the two layers of fabric are being "fed" together. The pressure foot and the feed dogs are moving the two pieces at different rates.

Try using your walking foot, or even-feed foot when sewing strips together.

Also remember to let the machine feed the strips through. Many sewers like to pull the fabric under the pressure foot and needle, rather than letting the feed-dogs (or walking/even0feed foot) do the work for them.