Pintuck sachet tutorial

Pintucks are deceptively simple, and they are a great way to make a plain piece of fabric into something detailed and fancy. Make the pintucks before you cut out your pattern pieces. The method I’ll show you is how to make them using a specialized pintuck presser foot. You can also make them by creating and stitching folds into the fabric, which has a different look.

As I did this technique tutorial, I realized I wanted to make something with the pretty pintuck pieces, so I stitched them into simple lavender drawer sachets.

Supplies

(Click fabrics for direct links for purchase at Warehouse Fabrics Inc.)

Dupioni silk - antique gold

Dupioni silk - butter cream

Dupioni silk - ivory

Dried lavender

Twin needle

Pintuck foot
I mixed my lavender with dried rice to get the same wonderful scent at a lesser cost. You can play around with different pintuck designs and then use these scented sachets in your closet, drawers or suitcases.

The process

This is a pintuck presser foot. The little grooves help you line up your presser foot for each row. You’ll see what I mean below.
This picture is a little dark, but what I’m trying to show you is that you need two spools of thread to use a twin needle, one for each needle. I used a bobbin for my second spool. My sewing machine came with this little spike that I can insert (right) when I need a second spool. It can accommodate a full sized spool of thread, too.
You can click for a bigger view. There are two needles. According to my Kenmore’s instructions, I threaded the main spool as normal and into the left needle. The second spool threaded most of the way as normal, but there is a guide to the right just above the needle for the thread from the second spool, and then that thread goes into the right needle. Lower and grab the bobbin thread as you normally would.
I put my presser foot pressure on level 2 and increased my needle tension to 8. The picture shows where my presser foot pressure lever is. It’s the black lever near the hinge of the door.
Start off by sewing a straight line. Then cut the thread, go back to the top and do another line, noting where your presser foot is lining up against the previous line. That way, all of your lines will be evenly spaced. I did fairly wide lines on this one. Then I turned it and went the other way, creating squares.
On my white fabric, I did lines that are closer together.

If you click the center picture to enlarge, you’ll see that I lined up each previous line with a certain groove on the presser foot to keep them even.

I cut a square of the white silk for a backing for my sachet and used a tiny piece of thin white ribbon to make a little handle and sewed it to the corner of the backing piece, right sides together.

Then I placed this piece, right side down, against the pintucks I just did. I just went ahead and sewed around it before cutting out the pintucks piece to avoid the threads unraveling. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much if I had cut out my square from the pintucked piece beforehand, though. I sewed all the way around except for a few inches to turn the square right side out. After sewing, I trimmed around the square and trimmed the corners. Then I turned the whole thing right-side out.

Next, I stuffed it with rice and dried lavender and stitched the hole closed by hand.

For the other sachet, I used a different color of silk for the backing and made it in the same way as above, but without a handle. And that’s it! I turned a plain fabric into something neat, with just simple lines of stitching.

Other views

(Click for bigger views)