Fear of more repair bills kept me from trying the twin needle for a couple of weeks. Plus I had a summer skirt project to get finished. I finally gave the twin another shot and decided to shorten a t-shirt (cotton, no lycra, mini rib). After temporary success I ran into the same problem: skipped stitches and the threat of a bobbin case tangle. This also confirmed that the earlier disaster had been caused, at least indirectly, by the twin needles.
I tried the usual suggestions, threading each spool through opposite sides of the upper tension wheel and keeping one thread outside of the last lower threading loop, but the same problematic result. Finally, in an archived sewing discussion, I found the answer–at least the one that worked for my old Bernina–tissue paper.
I placed a strip of left over (orange!) gift wrapping tissue paper underneath the fabric and the resulting twin-needle hem was perfect. Flat. No waviness. No skipped stitches. No tangled thread. Apparently there are commercial tear-away stabilizers that do the same thing. I had no idea before, but I will have to look for that before my next double hem (or just use the orange tissue again).
Tags: bernina, sewing with twin needles, t-shirt hem, twin needle disaster, twin needle solution, twin needles
