How to sew a fine hem without a hemming foot

Have you ever wondered how you can achieve a very fine hem on delicate fabrics such as chiffon, georgette and fine satin?  These are all fabrics that beginners dread working with and can even be difficult for the most accomplished sewers.

There is a special sewing machine foot called a “Rolled hem foot” or “Fine rolled hem foot” which can be purchased for your machine to do exactly this job and will create a very narrow hem, especially useful on fine fabrics.

Not only do you have the cost of purchasing the foot (probably around £15), but  unless you are very experienced this is a very tricky thing to master and takes a lot of practice.  It means that you need to cut your fabric within less than a centimetre from your final hem line and it can be very difficult to maintain a correct line, especially if you have to curve it around the fabric grain. If you encounter any problems during the sewing it can leave you with quite a wobbly hem line.

Here is my tip on how to sew a fine hem without using a hemming foot

I have to admit that it won’t be quite as fine as what can be achieved with a hemming foot, but with a little practice you can achieve a hem that is less than 0.5 cm (or around 1/4 “) and I find that it is much easier to control and you can still get a very professional finish.

So here goes and the secret is to do one thing at a time and be patient.

Firstly turn your hem up (wrong side to wrong side) and press the fabric at the exact hem line you want to create.

 

 

 

 

 

You do need to be careful to get your iron to the correct iron setting, I normally use a wool setting but you must do your own testing to your satisfaction, so if you can cut off a small piece first to practice.  I can’t express practice enough in this post as there’s no going back once the hem is cut.

Press the hem carefully and make sure that the fabric is smooth and the press line can be easily seen as you will be using it to guide your stitching.

If you are taking a lot off the hem as I was in this instance, trim off the excess to leave around 2” of fabric as this will make it much easier to handle and give you a bit of fabric to practice on.

If you are hemming a long dress it is often appropriate only to take up the front of the dress so you will have to consider how to join your new hem to the existing hem.

About 3 inches from where the new hem will meet the existing hem, un pick the existing hem line from the trimmed hem to just beyond where the new hem will join and trim the excess.

Now it’s time to start stitching.

TIP

If you have a practice piece of fabric, PRACTICE NOW.  You don’t need to use a small stitch, a medium length stitch will do fine, but you do need to get your sewing machine tension right so that it doesn’t pucker and stretch the fabric while you are stitching.

Also at this point I would always use a new sewing machine needle and for fine fabrics like this I recommend a size 70 point needle. 

Method

With the right-side of the fabric uppermost, fold under your excess so that the fold line is approximately a quarter of an inch (0.4cm) from the pressed hem line. I have made it a little bigger in the pictures to make it stand out more.  The smaller you can make this line, the narrower your hem will be. It will depend on your skill, confidence and possibly your machine.

Start from just before where the new hem line will be created and finish just before where the new hem line will finish.

The next stage needs a lot of patience and care as we are about to cut off ALL the excess.

My advice to  you is don’t hurry this part, don’t do it if you have any distractions or it’s the “I’ll just do this and finish for the day” or if you are tired and can’t concentrate. This is where you trim the fabric and this is how I do it. You may with practice find your own method though. TAKE YOUR TIME.

With the right side of the fabric towards your hand, and the turned up hem uppermost, hold the hem in between your fingers and very VERY carefully cut away the excess fabric as close as you can to the stitched line. I use a very small pair of embroidery scissors and literally work one inch at a time. I can’t stress how important it is to take your time to ensure that you only cut off the excess and don’t cut through both layers of fabric.

From the start of trimming and the at the end of the trimming where the existing and new join, trim so that a neat line will form when you turn over the hem again.

Now you will make the final line of stitching.

With the right-side uppermost, fold under your hem using the original pressed hem line as a guide and stitch.  Make sure that your stitch line is close enough to the new hem line to allow smooth stitching and a really neat stitched line,  but far enough away to keep the hem from rolling open.  This is something that you will learn with practice.

At both ends, tease the new hem and existing hem to roll the fabric round and make a neat finish.

Now you can press your hem and you are finished.

Your new hem will show one line of stitching on the right-side and two on the wrong-side.   If you want to, you can now go back and pick out the first line of stitching which you can see from the wrong side. I don’t normally bother unless the fabric is extra fine or you have used a colour that does not match and can be seen from the right side.  It’s up to you.

So my advice is with PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, you can still achieve a very professional finish without a fine rolled hemming foot.

I’m sorry about all the shouty words in capitals, but this is one of the most difficult hems to create and as you trim the fabric to within a quarter of an inch from where you want the hem to be there is no room for error and once you have cut off the fabric excess, or even worse, snipped into the wrong piece of fabric you can’t make the hem longer. I always err on the side of making the hem too long rather than too short, but even then it is very difficult with this hem to just take off a very small amount.

Best of luck and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

If you have any feedback or comments, please feel free to leave them  below.

Thank you for reading and see you again soon.

How to tie up a lace back on a wedding/bridesmaids dress

You’ve probably tried on many dresses and have decided that a lace-up back dress is just what you have always dreamed of.
You’ve chosen your dress for your special day, and love the feature of the laced back, but has anyone actually spent the time with you advising you on how you can show it off to it’s best?
How to do the lacing is something that I was always being asked when I used to make and alter wedding and bridesmaids dresses. So I thought I’d share with you my advice on how to achieve that stunning professional finish to your special dress.

It is after all, the special feature that you wanted to have so why not show it off to it's best


Above are some of the dresses that I have made with laced up backs to show you exactly what I mean.
The photos below show a zoomed in image of the lacing of the same dresses.

As I’ve recently been asked to make some alterations to some gowns I thought I’d take the opportunity to photograph the technique used above and share it with you. So here’s my free instructions:-
1.  Never try to get the dress on or off with the laces in place, you will never get a really beautiful finish with this as they will get twisted and it’s really difficult to get twists out when the laces are in place.
2  With the dress already on the bride or bridesmaid, thread the lace through the top holes on each side, passing the lace from under the loop and through the loop. Unless the lace you are using is a piece of ribbon, it is likely that there will be a stitched seam to one side.  Make sure that this seam is to the bottom edge of your lace. Then check that you have almost exactly the same length of lace on each side.

3.  Take one side of the lace, it doesn’t matter, left or right but be consistent with your start point.  This demonstration starts with the right side lace.  Bring the lace across the top of the top loop on the right and under and out of the second loop on the left so that you have both lace ends on one side (the left).

4.  Now take the top lace on the left-hand side and pass it over the top left loop and under and out of the second loop on the right side. Then taking the same lace pass it over the top of the same loop and then under and out of the third loop on the left-hand side. In effect you are going across and back with the same lace.  Make sure that you straighten and twists at this stage as it’s much more difficult to get them out later. After this stage you will have both lace ends to the same side.

5.  Repeat point 4, building up the lacing until you get to the bottom loop.



6.  Once all the loops have been filled, you can now go back and tighten up the lacing. Remember that if you can, you should leave a “V” shape in the back, obviously how wide or narrow the “V” shape is will depend on the fitting of the dress.  If the dress meets in the middle then I would suggest that you think about getting the dress taken in at the sides so that you can show the “V” off to it’s best.  I have altered many wedding gowns so that the “V” is wider, after all, it’s the very attractive, shape slimming  “V” at the back that makes so many brides choose a gown with a lace-up back.

7.  Finish off the lacing with a neat bow and leave the lace tails hanging.  You might wish to tuck-in the ends, in which case, don’t tie a bow but tie a loose knot so that you don’t get any bulk under the dress.  My own personal opinion is to tie a bow and leave the tails hanging.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to help.

Coming soon:-

How to make a fine rolled hem without a hemming foot.

How to shorten a dress with an attached lining.

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Which type of sewing machine to choose?

Before reading further, please understand that this is my opinion alone and I have based my choice of machine on my own selection criteria.
However you may be looking for a sewing machine and wondering what all the different types are and what the advantages and disadvantages are.
I have put together my own views but before making your choice, you may want to do some more research and decide what your own selection criteria is. 
I take no responsibility for your own choice.
The images used are for illustration only and are not machines that have been reviewed.

My Decison

I already had a wonderful Husqvarna Designer 1 embroidery and sewing machine which was getting a bit old and a replacement would cost around £4,000.  Just to update it from floppy disc to USB input would cost over £300.  This machine did almost everything that you could think of, from full embroidery to putting the presser foot down automatically when you depressed the pedal and tie off the thread at the end of stitching.
However I had a special project in mind which involved a lot of leather sewing and I didn’t want to risk putting too much strain on the Designer 1. So I started looking for another machine to do the “donkey” work.
My quest was to find a machine that:-
1.  would last a long time (Longevity).
2.  would do heavy work (Durability).
3.  would be light-weight machine so that I could take it on extended holidays and light to move around (Weight).
4.  would be good value for money (Cost).
So I started doing my research and some of this might help you if you are selecting a new sewing machine.
The types of machines available seem to fall into four categories and I have put some salient points into a table for you.
Please note that a mechanical machine is not a manual machine.  It runs on electricity but does not have any computer technology.

Machine Type	Computerised	Industrial	Mechanical	Portable
Advantages	Lots of fancy stitches Lots of different settings Quiet	Very strong motor designed to last for a long time	Not much to go wrong and easy to repair	Super light-weight Some have battery and electricity power.
Disadvantages	Computerised and therefore potential to be expensive and need specialist  repair	Very heavy, not really portable.  Quite expensive. Basic stitches	No fancy stitches Basic settings ”Clunky”.	Basic stitches. Basic settings. Not really for the serious sewer. So light that may not give good stability in use. Basic machine.

So the question now was how do these meet with my selection criteria.  Again I have marked these with 1, 2 and 3 against each type of machine – 1 being best meets my selection criteria and 4, least meets my criteria.

Type	Computerised	Industrial	Mechanical	Portable
Longevity	3	1	2	4
Durability	3	1	2	4
Weight	3	4	2	1
Cost	4	3	2	1
Overall Score	13	9	8	10

The cost of a computerised machine machine starts at around £1,000 and goes up to around £5,000.
An Industrial machine is around the £1,000 mark but can be more.  Good second hand ones can be found as they have great longevity.
Mechanical machines cost from around £100 upwards
Portable are generally under £100.
There are of course other categories of specialist machines such as quilting machines, embellishing machines, overlockers/sergers to mention some but I already knew these were not what I was looking for so I have not included these in my detailed research.
So based on the above table a mechanical machine was what I was looking for. Although the mechanical machine only came out one point better than the industrial one, the cost  and the portability elements weighed heavily for me and the difference was actually a major factor.
So a mechanical machine was for me – now which one?
My post on my choice will follow shortly.

Sewing tip–removing blood spots

Here’s a quick tip to get us going.

How annoying is it when you are sewing a beautiful piece of fabric only to prick your finger with the needle and get blood on your creation. We all know how difficult it is to get blood out of fabrics.

Here’s a quick tip to remove the blood mark but don’t forget, it only works with YOUR blood and only with fresh blood.

I know it sounds ghastly and I’m sorry there are no pictures, I’m afraid that I can’t bring myself to actually bleed for my art.

So here goes.

If there is a lot of blood, dab it quickly with a clean piece of tissue to soak up as much as possible.

Thread a needle with a similar colour to your fabric, double it up but DON’T put a knot in the end.   Never use red thread for something like this as the red fibres often get intertwined in your fabric fibres and you can’t get them out (same goes for tacking – so this is now two tips in one).

Now run the thread through your mouth, getting plenty of saliva on the thread. Obviously don’t do this if you’ve just had a cup of coffee or a bar of chocolate (of glass of red wine – hic) – you don’t want any colour residue on your saliva.

Pass the needle through the blood spot and pull the thread all the way through.  Do this several times, in fact as many times as needed until the colour fades.  The enzymes in your saliva will dissolve the blood and you will remove all the red colouring.  Now if the fabric can take it, dampen a clean piece of cotton with water and gently dab at the spot.  Allow to dry and hopefully you won’t see any mark.

Remember this only works with YOUR blood. 

I used to make and alter wedding dresses and I used this technique many times – glad the brides didn’t know!!!!!!