"pin tuck"?

Pin tuck is when you fold the middle line where it is indicated on the pattern so that the two dotted lines join up, and then sew along the dotted lines on the right side of the piece, so that when you're done you have a little fold/tuck which works as a decorative detail. The dress that Anais 2 came with has a lot of pintucks on the front of the chest.

Sorry if my description isn't very easy to understand, hopefully somebody else can add to it and make it useful.

- Therese

 

A pintuck is a decorative fold in the fabric that's stitched down. It adds visual interest.

On that pattern, I believe that you fold the material on the solid line, then stitch on the dotted line (the ones above and below the solid line should meet when you fold and press on the solid line). After sewing, press the tuck so the material hangs downward.

Of course, if you don't want to sew in the pintuck, just cut on the "no pintuck" line, and ignore it :-).

Marcia.

 

Tucks are folded & sewn as the other posters in this thread have described.

Why this is a "pin"tuck is because it is very narrow, a pin's width.

If you are really lucky, your sewing machine will do this with a fancy pair of needles that get inserted in the machine together, and playing around with tensions will get the pintuck to form.

Ann in CT

 

Pin tucks are done before you cut out your pattern ( sometimes). I find this is easier. Also most sewing machines have a pintuck foot that you can get for your machine.

 

Sorry for bringing up an old issue, but I would like to know how to pin-tuck using my machine (not the old fashion way), which foot do I use? and what tension, stitch length and stitch should I use also?

Thank you in advance!
Mon x

 

I'm far from an expert seamstress, but in this tutorial there is a dress with pintucks on the skirt :

http://www.biscuitshouse.com/sd/sewing.html

 

Thank you so much for the link to your tutorial biscuit bear =)!!

 

A lot of the "French Hand Sewing by Machine" fanatics use a "double needle" in their sewing machine to make what They call a pin-tuck. By tightening up the bobbin thread tension you can make the bit of fabric between the 2 rows of stitching stick up into a little ridge. There are even machine feet w/ multiple rows of grooves on the bottom so you can track over your previous "tucks" to make many perfectly parallel tucks.

In traditional fine stitching, a pin tuck was just like any other tuck but only a pin-width in size. Pin tucks are so tiny that they really can't be pressed over to one side after stitching. My Mom used to make exquisite baby dresses (all hand sewn!) so I learned lots of teqniques that are seldom done any more. :wink:

 

genie - thanks for your help I ordered a double needle foot thingy for my machine today your so lucky you had your mom to learn all the techniques from!!

 

erm, what exactly is the "traditional way" of making pintucks?

I was looking through the tutorial and on page 3, it says to draw the lines on the right side of the fabric to sew the pintucks? do you do the same for white fabrics? ops: one problem I had was I couldn't completely wash away the markings on the fabric even after I drew on the wrong side

 

It is really good idea to get a pen in the sewing stores (JoAnns) that washes out with water. They aren't expensive and are a great item to have.


I got a pintuck foot a while ago, but haven't used it yet. I did some pin tucks on a Pocket Fairy Blouse I made, but I did them by hand. I just couldn't see my machine making that tiny of a pin tuck.

 

Well, I don't know the traditional way, in the tutorial it's "my way". I use as was said above a purple pen whose markings disappear by themselves after a couple of days. I couldn't sew without these pens.

 

thanks for the help and the tutorial was really useful! I'll probably go check out those pens soon!

 

The traditional way to mark a pin-tuck on very fine fabric, to sew the tuck by hand, is....to pull a thread . It is assumed that all tucks are sewn on the straight of grain. So at the edge of the fabric, you pick out the end of the woven thread that goes along your fold-line . You pull on it very slightly and you will find that the fabric WANTS to fold along that slightly-drawn-up line. So fold it and crease it w/ your fingernail, and as you are creasing it w/ your fingernail, you smooth the pulled up thread back out to the edge. This is easy for short tucks like on a yoke or sleeve. But if you need to pull and crease a long tuck around a skirt, you have to start the same way as described above to crease the first few inches, but instead of using your fingernails to smooth the pulled thread back out, you move the gathered place a bit further along the fabric so you can crease a few more inches.

Then you hand-sew a very fine running stitch close to the fold.

Yeah. Like anyone wants to do that anymore. Give me my blue and purple marking pens any day :grin:

Genie

 

Thats a lot of work. I just mark my line and sew. Then Iron.