Okay, I'm a relatively intelligent woman...top of my class in high school, magna cum laude in college, fairly high I.Q. (not that that matters or anything....) And yet I CANNOT cut a straight line in chiffon! It's driving me crazy! I'm trying to make these pretty shibori-style scarves I saw on Martha Stewart, and I can manage to cut one straight line, and the rest end up looking like my 21-month-old daughter cut them! I'm using a rotary cutter on a cutting board with a clear plastic ruler-type guide, and I've tried scissors (even worse), but I just can't get it right! I've even tried chalking a line for a guide, and every time I lay the chalk down, the @#$# stuff pulls out of line. Is there some magic doohickie I can buy that'll solve all my light-fabric woes? It's like I just breathe on the fabric and it moves! What am I doing wrong? Please help!!!

Would it ruin the fabric if you used double sided tape and stuck the edges down to the mat?

Chiffon is seriously crazy to cut, that's why it's usually designed in big, flowing things. If you are just making squares (or rectangles), you should rip the fabric, you'll get the most accurate lines that way (and can just trim the little fringey part on the edges). If you need to cut curves or angles, try layering it between sheets of tissue paper and cut it all together, this usually keeps it fairly straight.

can you starch it at all??

otherwise i'd try some sort of water soluable stabilizer


i know there's some sort of trick to ironing fabric onto freezer paper, i do not know if you could do that to chiffon or not

Ironically, I just saw a little video clip on threadsmagazine.com where this person who hosts a show and wrote a book on how to work with every imaginable fabric recommended that to cut silk, you put it on a piece of paper to prevent it from slipping! So, just put a piece of paper under your silk, then cut through both the silk and the paper. Hope that works for you. Let us know, would you? I have a gob of georgette that I'm going to use someday ...

fraya, which video clip did you see???

Here it is. http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/tvt022.asp

From the Threads homepage, click on Fabric from the left side of the page. Then scroll down for the silk tips, click on that, and then you'll get the above site. Then you need to click on whichever video you want, depending on whether you have quicktime or realplayer.

goodluck