Pintucks are a great way to add texture to a fabric. This post is about a variation of pintucks that results in creating beautiful wavy pintucks on your fabric. To start, you need to thread the machine with two spools of thread, a double needle, Pintuck Foot #30, Pintuck Cording Attachment, and s 30 wt. thread, such as Mettler Cordonnet thread. For threading directions to stitch corded pintucks, see the video at the end of this post.
Selecting the Stitch
Usually pintucks are sewn with a straight stitch. To make wavy pintucks, select a serpentine stitch. It is also a straight stitch but instead of sewing a straight line, it moves from side to side creating a serpentine stitch. I sew on a BERNINA machine and used Stitch #1397 on the Quilt Menu. It makes an elegant, curvy double line of stitching when sewn with a double needle. Pintuck Foot #30 has a needle opening of 5.5 mm and I reduced the stitch width to 4.5 mm
Stitching the Waves
When starting a pintuck, bring the bobbin thread to the top of the fabric and hold the needle and bobbin threads as you begin to stitch. At the end of each pintuck, pull the fabric to the back of the machine, leaving about 4″ to 6″ of the cord before clipping the threads and cord. Stitch the wavy pintucks across the fabric, spacing them as desired.
Click here to see the process of stitching wavy pintucks.
As always,
As editor of "The Big Book of Feet: A Guide to BERNINA Presser Feet and Accessories," Susan created Sewfeet to provide Educational Courses, Content, and Resources to help you with all your sewing projects.