I was asked to shorten the shoulder straps of a lovely white summer dress. The material is an extremely light white cotton batiste and the straps are wider in the front, gathering into the back strap as they meet at the shoulder (rather like the dress Marilyn Monroe has on on that famous picture of the air vent!). I had to take out the incredibly tiny hemming on each side of the straps, then cut the straps off at the shoulder, press, run gathering lines on the front and sew the new seam between the gather lines as I gathered.
Then redo the side tiny hem along the edges. I have to tell you I was nervous about this. There was no room for error on my part. I planned ahead: I used the straight stitch foot for the gathering and seaming, I used a #10 sharp needle, I used the regular zig-zag foot for the edging so I could see what I was doing, and I used regular tissue paper as a stabilizer on the gathering stitches and the seam itself.
I think it took me as long to finish this as it would have to zip up a tee (not counting the finishing edges on the tee). I did this all on the Kenmore 19233, which behaved marvelously, and only had a minute or two of impatience with me when I managed to break a needle - you guessed it - when I forgot to change to the zig-zag foot fast enough. Thankfully, the machine, the dress, and I are all fine, and so is the straight stitch foot!
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