How do I find a straight line down when sewing voile curtains?

The cutting line I have is not straight. I cannot achieve a straight line down the leading edges and also it is puckering and therefore pulling up at the edges and therefore my hem is not straight. I think it is straight on the table but when I sew it, it clearly isnt straight. I am making a pair of voiles to meet in the middle and they are crooked. PLEASE HELP

Are the threads in the voile actually at 90o to each other, or is the fabric not squarely woven? If that’s the case, I would pull a thread and follow the lengthwise grainlines.

If the problem is that the fabric is not off-grain, but the cutting line is wobbly, the best thing you can do is to stabilize the fabric and recut.

Here’s how: Find some paper as long as your curtain fabric — I use endrolls of newsprint, but the backside of a roll of Christmas paper does as well. Lay the paper out flat on a table, and start at one end, fluff the fabric up in the air and then let it settle down onto the paper in a relaxed, flat manner. If you get lumps and bumps, you can pat them out with a nylon pancake turner held loosely by the handle… the motion you’re going to use is like bouncing the end of a pencil on a table, you’re not going to smash the fabric flat like a hamburger, nor are you going to trowel the fabric flat. You want the fabric both flat, and relaxed. Then pin the fabric edge to the paper edge so that it lies nice and flat — no buckles or pulls. (Typically, with dress fabrics, you’d fold the fabric in half, and pin the two selvages along the straight edge of the paper, and pat.)

If the fabric is longer than your table, do not let the fabric droop off the end of the table…. just put a puddle of excess fabric at the end of the table, and when you get one section papered, roll up the fabric and paper together and do another section of fabric. If the fabric hangs off the table, it pulls and distorts the edge you’re going to cut.

Now mark your seam line with tailor’s chalk or disappearing pencil or the edge of a sliver of soap, and cut away the selvage (or edge) with a nice, straight cut, cutting both fabric and paper.

Puckering is often due to leaving the selvage on the fabric (tempting, but don’t!) or may be due to winding the bobbin too fast with synthetic threads (they stretch and then contract after they’re sewn) or using too short stitches, or needing to loosen the stitch tensions.

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