We all ooh and aah when someone posts a photo of her fabric stash. What does your interfacing stash look like? Do you use your coupons to buy it by the bolt? Do you just buy what your pattern calls for? Do you skip that step? Do you only use patterns designed by people who never use it?
My Interfacing Stash
Come on, now. Oooooh! Aaaaaaah!
The first and foremost reason for finishing a seam is to keep it from fraying or raveling. Fabric cut on the true bias (a 45 degree angle from the selvages) and knits won’t ravel or fray so there is no need to finish those seams unless you want to for the second reason we finish seams, and that’s to make the inside of our garments look better. The third reason we finish seams, and this is very important for those of us who sew for children, is to make our clothes more comfortable. When we select a seam finish, all three reasons should come into play.
Hemming by Hand
The Classic Hemstitch
I said in the introduction to hemming that my mom could hem by hand like a little French nun. Her stitches were tiny and barely visible on the outside of a garment. Inside all of her knots were hidden and her work was neat and tidy. In contrast her machine sewing sometimes looked sloppy. She and my grandmother, who could make her old treadle sing but wouldn’t touch my mom’s electric Singer, traded tasks with each other. Nana did the machine stitching, and Mom did the hand stitching. Fortunately for me, I had both of them to teach me. Continue reading
The Twin Needle Hem on Knits
You can sew knit garments with a regular needle on a sewing machine, and from the outside they will look just the same as if you sewed them on a serger except for one place, and that’s at the hem. When I worked for Stretch and Sew way back in the 1970’s, we either sewed a ribbed band around the bottom of the garment or just did a narrow zigzag stitch to make a hem. A zigzag stitch was the only “stretch stitch” most home sewing machines had at the time. My colorful work history includes a couple of summers working in a sweater factory so I had experienced using an industrial serger, but they hadn’t made it into the home sewing market yet. A lot of home seamstresses who were not satisfied with the zigzag hem used an early version of Heat and Bold to “glue” their hems. That wasn’t a very satisfactory solution because Heat and Bond wasn’t as good a product then as it is now. After a few trips through the wash, the clothes had FDH. (Falling Down Hem)
The Narrow Rolled Hem on a Sewing Machine
This is the task that gets a lot of seamstresses off to the serger store, but there are times when a serged narrow rolled hem just doesn’t cut it. So to take our sewing up a notch we just have to learn how it’s done on our machines. Or hire those little French nuns my grandmother always told me would put my hand sewing to shame. I don’t know why but she always compared my sewing to theirs and my eating habits to the starving children in India. (She was a terrific Nana.) Continue reading
The Shell Stitch Hem
I learned how to do a shell stitch hem in a silk lingerie class. If you’ve never treated yourself to a silk slip or nightie, put it on your to do list. Nothing feels sexier than soft silk on bare skin. But silk either needs some lace on the edge or a pretty hem, When I got home from the class, I decided to try the shell stitch hem on some other things because I needed some practice getting it right, and silk is too expensive to just bugger up.
There is nothing that’s screams “homemade” quite like a bad hem. Even a well-executed hem can ruin a garment if you don’t choose the right style for the fabric and garment. One of my neighbors went to K-mart and bought some inexpensive sheer curtains for her dining room. They were too long to be safe with a baseboard heater running under them, and she asked me to hem them shorter for her. Normally, I would have given her my “you wouldn’t ask Picasso to paint your doghouse for you” response, but she was a talented hairdresser who cut my hair for free so I owed her a couple of hems. Continue reading
Update – This blog has taken off beyond my expectation so I’ve bought my own domain name. The old links still work, but if you’ve bookmarked the site and would like to update the blog address, it’s http://www.takingitupanotchsewing.com .
I’ve been sewing a long, long time. I’ve sewn for pleasure, I’ve sewn for profit, and I’ve sewn because it was the only way I could afford to have nice clothes for me and my family. When I look at old photos of us wearing things I made, which I thought were pretty darn nice at the time, I see things I would do very differently if I made them today. I’m not just talking about never being caught dead in stretch stirrup pants again. I see collars that don’t have a nice roll, lumpy hems, facings that are peeking out, decorative stitching that is a little lopsided, and stripes and plaids that almost match, but not quite. While my sewing got better over the years from just practice, a lot of improvement has come from snippets picked up in sewing groups, new products hitting the market, and a good part of it from classes I’ve been fortunate enough to take. I’m still learning. Continue reading
Taking It Up a Notch 