How do i sew jersey/t-shirt material without wanting to kill myself?

[jenniepanda]

I've just made a dress for my 3 year old DD out of an old t-shirt of DH's and some jersey material for the sleeves and a ruffle at the bottom. It was a nightmare! The material kept stretching as it went under the foot and moved around and basically did whatever it liked. I've finished it, but the quality is appauling. I've got a couple more dresses with similar material planned and I need to know what I did wrong. Any advice would be gratefully received!

It's a pain and quite difficult. The only way I can do stretchy material is to pin across and sew over the pins.
This horrifies my son's mother-in-law who bales me out when I get into trouble with my sewing and it may not be suitable for your machine. It was a trick I was taught by the chap who sold me the machine.
The other way is to tack with fairly small stitches

Its a while since I did this but pinning and oversewing is one good way (make sure the pins lie vertically so the sewing machine needle is hopping over them rather than running alongside).

Use a new sharp needle.

Also try adjusting (probably loosening) the tension on the sewing machine foot. Practice with scraps to get the tension just right.

Finally try using a small v stich rather than a straight stitch

hth

When I sew jersey I use a jersey needle (or ball point) and set my machine to the lighest presser foot setting. My machines has a 'stretch' stitch (looks like ^ on my machine sorry it hard to do stitchs or a pc) which I use around the inside of arm holes and some time on the seam if Im sewing some thing that is likely to pulled about(childrens clothes etc).
If Im sewing some thing in jersey that is important to get very neat then I use an iron or sew on fabric meduim on the back stop the stretch (just along where I want to sew).

I may be wildly wrong. But, I think I have read somewhere that you pin the seam to tissue paper or similar as the paper doesn't stretch. Once sewn, you just tear the paper out.
Definately pin across the seam.

That's great, thanks for the ideas. I'll have to try the sideways pinning and probably tacking too, grrr. I did use a stretch stitch which sort of went backwards and forwards for the main seams and then a V one for the sleeve and neck hems. I also used a new ball point needle, I thought I'd got it all right before I started!
The tissue paper is interesting, but I thought that was for vinyl and plasticy fabric.
I think I need to do some more practising before I tackle the next dress.

i have done the tissue paper thing in the past for some things. it does work but you can end up using a lot of it.

as said previously get the riht needle and try some adjustments one at a time.