SEWING FOR LITTLE FAIRIES & ANGELS

I am the go-to person in my family for all sewing …… unfortunately, for my family, mending is my least favourite of all but I can have my arm twisted to get mending done if the right incentives are offered!

But when it comes to my little ones…..oh well, Nanna’s heart just melts. This was not really mending anyway! It was more of an addition to an existing garment. My daughter bought  this cute little T-shirt and wanted me to add a row of gathered tulle to make it look a bit like a ballet tutu and certainly fit for the little fairy or angel in our lives.

Setting up the machine: I used a pale blue INVISAFIL thread as I wanted the stitching to be as unobtrusive as possible. When using this type of thread, I definitely like to stand it at the back of my JANOME sewing machine on the (optional) SPOOL STAND so that it feeds smoothly and evenly into the machine. This way I don’t get many surprizes like breaking thread. Remember that Invisafil is 100wt thread – VERY fine – so can be tricky if not treated properly. Having said that, it is a polyester thread which is pretty durable & strong so was a good choice for my little angel’s play clothes!

BTW: we highly recommend you purchase the applicable Janome spool stand for your machine. For many applications it really is the best and most successful way to deliver thread to the machine to minimize or avoid thread breakage and other problems such as tension issues caused by incorrect feeding of the thread into the machine. There is a thread or spool stand available for many of our machines. Please ask your Janome dealer today which is the one for your machine model. 

After cutting strips of tulle (+ joining them together), I ran a gathering stitch along the top edge & gently pulled up the threads to achieve the fullness of gathers that I required. I then pinned the tulle onto the T-shirt so that the bottom edge of the frill was more or less in line with the bottom edge of the t-shirt. I did not want the tulle to scratch her if it hung below the t-shirt!

I then sewed the tulle onto the T-shirt with a narrow zig-zag stitch. I think SW 3 and SL2.5.

Voila – my little angel can run around at home & playschool feeling like a little fairy princess!