Thick wool and sewing machines?

[kellid]

I tried to sew a pair of recycled wool longies that were felted and thick. They are soooo cute, but boy did I have a time with trying to fit it under my machine. I'm sure this is not good, but there was a lot of shoving and pulling, and I'm just positive this isn't what is supposed to happen. Do I need a different machine, foot,....something. I'm can't go through all that trouble again, no matter how cute they are. And not to mention how terrible it was on the machine. What's the answer?

[Ruthla]

When sewing really thick stuff, sometimes it helps to not bother closing the presser foot, and moving the fabric through manually.

Another option would be to sew it by hand.

[kellid]

wow ur quick. it was thicker than the pressure foot lifted. does mt pf adjust?

[Ok]

Recycled longies are easy to make.

[kellid]

Originally Posted by ZenSizzled

I ended up doing the recycled longies by hand for those very reasons. Thankfully it didn't take long. Good luck.

i'm new to sewing......did yo blaket stitch, whip, straight? Regular thread? Needle?

Somethind I frgot to ask....Elastic top or drawstring?

[Ok]

I really like home-made pants of wool or fleece, knit or sewn.

[kellid]

Originally Posted by ZenSizzled

Ok, I'm a homegrown, teach-myself type for the most part. So, I will say: I used nylon thread (non-wicking). I bought wooly nylon, but its a pill to work with. Just regular nylon or polyester should be fine. I actually used 2 kinds of stitching, but don't know what they're called. 1 style is to have the 2 right sides together and from the bottom put the needle in and then it loops over the outside and back in from the bottom again. The other is to insert needle from front to back and then back to front and front to back and back to front.

I did a fold-over at the waist and had 3/4" (I think) elastic inside the casing.

Needle? I dunno. One from my sewing box. But it was moderately long. You don't need a thin, delicate one b/c even felted the wool is still pretty easy to sew through.

I also knit shorts and longies and do drawstrings for them.

Fleece is easier to sew on the machine and you can whip up some fleece pants nice and quick. Plus, fleece doesn't unravel (neither should deeply felted wool).

Good luck.

Thank you so much, and while I have your "expertise", for the short and the longies fro that matter did you use a pattern? The fleece is and excellent idea.

[Ok]

heres one that looks like the same process I used.

You can google recycled longies pattern or buttsweater longies

[EricaLeigh]

It may also help to use a "walking foot" which actually helps feed the fabric from the foot!