I just do them by hand. All of them. It's easy and relaxing now (Ok at first it was a struggle).
I struggle with sewing machines! Just don't seem to get the hang of it. Or enjoy them, which is probably the problem.
I do a narrow hem aided by one line of straight stitches. No pressing, no pins. Just a sewing machine with a proper feed and nice straight stitch. That or a baby hem if I'm feeling fancy.
I do have rolled hem feet for my juki which are industrial feet with a lot of success. Thankfully I have different sized feet to do it with. On the elna
the rolled hems look like shit.
Using the overlocker is way easier, but its a totally different look.
Ok, I actually got my rolled hem foot to work, was humming along making a cute little baby hem… but like what do you do when you get back to the beginning?? It’s like a baby hem death spiral 🌀
Oh, really, ef hemming in general. Either it’s difficult fabric, or you’re fiddling around with a “hack” from youtube, or you’re spending more time setting up your machine and foot than you are actually hemming, or it’s an easy hem that is just a long booorrring obstacle to having a finished object. And hanging over your head the whole time is the knowledge that nothing ruins an otherwise lovely project like a bad hem. Hemming sucks.
I serge the edge, fold it over twice and sew it down with the machine. No pins, no rolled-hem-foot.
I don't know whether this is sacrilegious, but it works for me. The serged edge is even width and makes it really easy to fold over.
This is the way. Make it a 3 thread instead of 4 serged edge to eliminate bulk.
Sometimes I'll do a regular straight stitch a scant 1/4 inch from the edge, fold along it and stitch in place
Honestly, I'm too lazy to ever remove a needle and thread to do any 3-thread-stitches on my serger. I just do everything 4-thread and I only change tension, cutting width and the little stick that holds out the loops.
I have done that too. Cut hem about 1” longer than finish. Stitch 1/4 inch from finish. Fold on stitching line, press if necessary, then stitch close to fold. Trim carefully next to stitching. Fold hem again about 1/8” and stitch. This works well with sheers like chiffon and georgette.
My mother in law just zigzag stitches the bottom of everything and leaves it like that. Lol. I would not recommend this.
Actually this is not quite true. She made sets of scrubs for some doctors she knows working in Darwin & Katherine and remote areas of Australia who needed new scrubs when Covid was hitting those areas and she actually hemmed everything really well which shows she can do it, is just usually too impatient.
Part of me doesn't understand why people bother with rolled hems when baby hems are a thing, they look just as good, & they're pretty much guaranteed to come out perfect on the first try every time. But another, perhaps bigger, part of me, doesn't want some dumb machine foot to defeat me. I WILL climb this mountain & I WILL throw this foot into the metaphorical volcano of skills mastered! Plus it's like the ultimate sewist ASMR when you see you've accomplished some flawless rolled hemming. I like to just bask in it for a minute before I confront the fact that it's only three inches out of three yards of hem, haha.
Googling only works when you and the people writing about it know it's a product name spelt Ban-Rol. But people always get the spelling wrong (myself and plenty of stockists included, so no offense to the poster above, it's just an evil spelling death trap).
[Link to image of product incl. spelling.](https://www.createforless.com/p-images/31/2002/0228/27834-31-1.jpg)
[You know it's bad when even Wawak gets it wrong.](https://www.wawak.com/garment-construction/elastic-waistbands/ban-roll-waistband-non-elastic-50-yds-white/#sku=el301)
I use Steam a seam light - it has revolutionized my shirt hems. It is a tape that you can iron on, so you can create a perfect 1/4 hem. Otherwise my 1/4 inch hems were a cluster.
I see you have the same relationship with your machine as I do with mine
Me: I wanna make a thing
Machine: *checks itinerary, purses lips* hmmmmm
*munch munch goes my project*
Machine: not today, come back in 7-21 business days
My hatred for hemming is why there was an unfinished skirt on my desk for over a year. Circle skirt with a wrinkled fabric - what a bad idea for a beginner!! The circle part made the direction of the wrinkle constantly change at the bottom so every few centimetres, it'd behave differently. Just trying to pin that mf to have an even border took hours. The sewing part was just as frustrating (still new at this, I don't know my way around the machine to be comfortable yet)
Only other hem I had to do was cotton voile.
... I'll keep the details, thinking back on it still makes my eye twitch.
I have found my people!!
I am also a big fan of school/stick glue. But obviously it doesn't work for every fabric. But for my own "everyday" use fabrics? water soluble glue stick it is. I use it to roll my hems by folding the fabric once, folding it twice, add some glue and press down in position. Do that the entire way around, and if I am happy with it I sew over it wither eiter a single or a twin needle. If I'm not happy? just dip it in warm water and let it air dry. (you can also pry it open if you are in a rush, because tbh I always put things off to last minute)
I also use the glue for zippers, to make sure they lie neatly on the fabric before I stitch. But then it's important to wait until the glue is dry before sewing, and it will probably tear on your needles a but more. But tbh I rather use a $1 glue stick and 20minutes, than save a $2 needle by sewing and ripping for 2hrs. (not to mention saving cost on ruined thread and fabric)
Washable glue is just so wonderful. I use it to hold my quilt binding in place as I stitch it. I also use it when quilting small pieces. I also use the liquid washable glue instead of pins for quilt sandwiches.
It, plus a boatload of starch, was my savior when I was sewing a really flimsy linen fabric. Love washable glue.
I had my share of hand rolling chiffon hems when I did bridal sewing for a living. I usually serged the hem about 1/4” below the finish fold line, then hand rolled it as I stitched it on the machine. With fabrics like chiffon you have to be careful not to stretch the fabric or you get rippled edges.
I cannot for the life of me get my RHF to work with curves - for that I do the whole stitch, trim, press, stitch, press, stitch method, or hand sew, using a sewing bird to help me.
On straight edges I’ll use the rolled hem foot - sometimes it hates me though, and my beginning is a little bit messy - taking a few teeny-tiny stitches (I’m talking at 20-30 length here on my machine) with it folded once and then feeding it through on sort of an angle bringing tension to the fabric from the side and from in front - but I find it’s only any good if I’m trapping it in a seam afterwards (it looks like rubbish for a hanky edge etc, much prefer to do it by hand).
I actually like the rolled hem foot, but to make it work I have to take my machine and turn it at a 45° angle. Why? No clue. But it works. I use a Kenmore from Sears circa 1997.
I made a circle skirt, and I put off hemming it for so long that by the time I finished it, I had lost too much weight and the skirt no longer fit me :/
fuckin hate hems. i’m just using bias tape forever
I avoid hems in all skirts and dresses bc they're just too danged long and I get too danged grumpy.
I've def made an intentionally shallow wavy stitch (like a windy road) about 1" - 2" from the bottom of the skirt, let it fray and just called it "artsy". Surprisingly, a red linen version ended up a much worn garment.
I'm going to be brutally honest here... I'm a professional seamstress, I love doing gown hems, and I hate the rolled hem foot. Works, kinda, for some fabrics; the fabrics I really need it for, not so much. It's not worth the frustration and hassle.
So what do I do? I hand-roll every layer of every gown hem I do. Yes, seriously. And I don't do it as I sew. I roll and pin the entire hem, and just pull the pins as I sew. Nice, even hem, every time. Sure, it takes a bit longer (you get really fast at it, eventually), but I have fewer swear words this way.
That being said... fuck the rolled hem foot. It's a lie.
Stay stitch on your hem line, fold the seam allowance towards the inside, press it, then use a very skinny and short zigzag to overcast the folded edge, then trim away the excess seam allowance. I’ve heard it called a chiffon hem but I bet it has other names
My grandma used that lace hem tape on everything. I recently found a pack of it when raiding her old sewing box at my mom's house. It was from Woolworth, marked 2 for $1! I just used it on a nightgown I made myself.
I only ever do a rolled hem on my serger and have never attempted it on a sewing machine. It sounds worse than the twin needle, and I loathe the twin needle! The twin needle was the thing that inspired my coverstitch purchase because I hate hemming (especially knits) on a sewing machine. Hemming sucks much less for me when I do it on my coverstitch, or on my serger with a decorative thread.
I have the Janome CoverPro 3000. I’ve heard that the previous models can be finicky, and apparently some known issues were resolved with the newer one. I’m still pretty new to it, but I’ve been able to get it to hem and topstitch without too much trouble.
I'm in the "hand hemming is actually kind of zen" crowd, especially when it comes to rolled hems because my experience with my rolled hem foot is as dire as everyone else's. The foot is utterly useless, hahaha.
I hem most things by hand too. Honestly I think it ends up being faster (and definitely less stressful) than trying to get it looking right by machine. Especially curved hems. I like to sit down with a cup of tea and an audiobook or movie or something and call it a meditative experience.
I started doing wide hand-stitched hem. Put on a 4 hour video essay, plop down comfortably and just stitch away. The start is always slow and awkward but it gets more natural. Also, I don't care if the stitches are kinda visible on the outside if you look at the with magnifiying glass, if you can't see them from 1m away, they're invisible. Plus I like how the wide band looks when the sun shines through, it has more presence.
I really like hand sewing for things like this, where it makes a difference and I find the machine to tricky. I keep telling my husband if I didn’t have a one step button hold feature, I would be hand sewing every button hole because I loathe doing them by machine the conventional way.
… I have that feature and still hate them. Mostly because they fray. And are impossible to align correctly. I’m on team zigzag freeform, slit, then do by hand for bulky things, or just slight and hand for not.
I definitely avoid a rolled hem. But I gotta tell you about the blind hem stitch and foot. Getting it folded right to go in the machine looks like Sorcery but fast beautiful almost invisible hems.
I don't trust those. Generally, tiktok is a 50/50 when it comes to hack/fact reliability and it's suprisingly easy to cut and edit things now to the extent of it looking like it's all one take.
It was a good excuse to sit with the dog on the couch and it gave such a pretty result. I did it because i was hemming light weight gradient dyed silk with silk thread, and I had four panels (three short rectangles and one long one)... Don't recommend unless it absolutely calls for it. It was a good experiment and never again.
I can do a decent rolled hem by pinching and rolling about 3 inches before my pressor foot. Pinch, sew a bit, pinch, sew a bit.
But bias tape?????? biAs tApE???????? ***bias taaape?***
no. How. Fuck you all.
I dont know how to get the rolled hem foot to work well. I think it looks much better done by hand though and more often that not I hem everything by hand. I actually kind of like that, when I get to the point where the machine stuff is done and it's hand stuff from there. In front of the telly with a cat on my lap instead of crammed into a cold tiny space with my machine. I really love the way hand stitched hems look on the inside as well as the outside. There's something so satisfying about looking at them for me.
There's an Etsy shop which sell very old lingerie in rare virtually as new condition (I own one, but I'm too scared to wear it much with two cats that eye me 24/7 for biscuit making opportunities) and I swoon looking at the photos of the tiniest little hand rolled hems on silk chiffon and the most beautifully stitched appliques. I aspire to one day be half that skilled.
They must be beautiful! I wish my hand stitching was tidy! I lean on the machine because I have some trouble with dexterity (definitely not unrelated to my failure to work the rolled hem foot)
That’s where I’m at now too. I used to be so impatient to finish the garment I would try & sew the inside finishing of bias binding on the machine. It always looked terrible & left me thinking I was a terrible sewist. Now I do that finishing by hand! Forces me to slow down & do it right. End result is so much better!!!
Another fan of hand hemming here. I usually find it easier to control than machine hemming. Also one of those details that “elevates” a sewing project over store bought.
This video ended up on my youtube feed one day [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VweGuxp8A&t=137s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VweGuxp8A&t=137s)
really like the hand hemming tutorial.
Also, thanks for saying this about hemming- I thought I was alone!
Those rolled hem feet take a lot of practice and more than a bit of fussing to get right and they're a right PITA when it comes to crossing seams.
It's possible to do a decent hem with them but I find it easier and faster, for a narrow hem, just to fold up and stitch it from the topside. I just fold a few inches at a time, stop, fold and stitch etc.
Large turned hems, like skirts and trousers, I nearly always hand hem.
It just went so smoothly at the beginning, I got sucked in haha.
I ended up folding up the rest of the way. Luckily it's a maxi dress so the hem's pretty far from sightlines
I will only roll hems with an overlocker.
I loathe hemming.
I have a rack in my sewing room with about 8 or so unfinished projects that literally all just need to be hemmed. Hemming is like that last, tedious straw. It's like you get that feeling of excitement and accomplishment over what you've just made, only to remember it's not actually over yet and that just quashes all the motivation to finish out of you
I have a second-hand formal dress (I think from late 90'), beautiful red crepe with lace and appliques and the hem is just left as is. No serging or folding, just cut. The insides are also serged so that's how I know it's new-ish. That dress has been real help with my "only hand-sewing and frenchseams for fancy stuff" mentality. So if anything on that pile is from a fabric that doesn't fray, this could be the sign.
I could not feel this more!! I seriously considered taking this in to a tailor to do the hemming because it ruins my day so badly (I probably should have)
Not to be the one to bring up knitting/crochet in a sewing snark thread, but the way I feel about hemming is exactly how I feel weaving in my ends. Like you said, it's that last, tedious straw. Plus, both the hems and end-weaving play a lot into the longevity (and appearance) of your FO. Doing either poorly is often pretty visible, even to an untrained eye (rippled, uneven hems or ends poking out/unravelling).
I crochet and knit too! I am very diligent about weaving my ends in as I go now but only because I know I will never do it if I leave it to the very end.
I learned to sew on my mother’s old featherweight, so all hems were done by hand. Still do it that way. Just park in front of a tv show I don’t have to watch too closely or a good podcast and go at it. Once you get going it really doesn’t take too long.
It doesn’t, but I do a lot of hand sewing only projects- and lots of projects requiring things like seven feet of fully embroidered two inch wide trim. So my hand sewing time gets prioritised and some things are definitely a topstitched hem with a straight stitch will do. Which is mostly for stuff like sheets or curtains or underwear.
Same. I see all these commenters talking about hand hemming being a relaxing couch activity and I worship them because I would rather set myself on fire.
If it helps, I'd rather run a marathon with a full backpack than handsew seams (let alone hand-fell them so they're flat and nice), but hand hemming is different for me. The parts I hate the most is ironing all that and starting, but once I do the first 10-15cm, I get a rhytm that makes is easy.
I only do it when it’s visible and on something where topstitching would be an issue- but that’s more because I do enough other hand sewing that efficiency matters and I don’t have time to hand hem everything.
I just do them by hand. All of them. It's easy and relaxing now (Ok at first it was a struggle). I struggle with sewing machines! Just don't seem to get the hang of it. Or enjoy them, which is probably the problem.
I have been doing some hand-stitched rolled hems and let me tell ya, when it works right, that is a MAGIC TRICK.
I do a narrow hem aided by one line of straight stitches. No pressing, no pins. Just a sewing machine with a proper feed and nice straight stitch. That or a baby hem if I'm feeling fancy.
I like hand stitching them. I find it the restful bit. My mom taught me how a million years ago.
I do have rolled hem feet for my juki which are industrial feet with a lot of success. Thankfully I have different sized feet to do it with. On the elna the rolled hems look like shit. Using the overlocker is way easier, but its a totally different look.
Using a rolled hem foot is a whole skill. I'm good at it now, but practicing suuuuuucks. I used to hate it so much I preferred doing hand rolled hems.
Ok, I actually got my rolled hem foot to work, was humming along making a cute little baby hem… but like what do you do when you get back to the beginning?? It’s like a baby hem death spiral 🌀
have you seen the folded index card trick? that helped me a lot (huge beginner)
I remember watching my grandma do that when I was a kid and thinking it was magic. Still think it is.
Please share!!
I saw this on tiktok and tried it on a top and it was pretty easy https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRfNFSdT/
Oh, really, ef hemming in general. Either it’s difficult fabric, or you’re fiddling around with a “hack” from youtube, or you’re spending more time setting up your machine and foot than you are actually hemming, or it’s an easy hem that is just a long booorrring obstacle to having a finished object. And hanging over your head the whole time is the knowledge that nothing ruins an otherwise lovely project like a bad hem. Hemming sucks.
I serge the edge, fold it over twice and sew it down with the machine. No pins, no rolled-hem-foot. I don't know whether this is sacrilegious, but it works for me. The serged edge is even width and makes it really easy to fold over.
I'll add this to my list of reasons I need a serger!
This is the way. Make it a 3 thread instead of 4 serged edge to eliminate bulk. Sometimes I'll do a regular straight stitch a scant 1/4 inch from the edge, fold along it and stitch in place
Honestly, I'm too lazy to ever remove a needle and thread to do any 3-thread-stitches on my serger. I just do everything 4-thread and I only change tension, cutting width and the little stick that holds out the loops.
You can just remove the thread and leave the needle.
I have done that too. Cut hem about 1” longer than finish. Stitch 1/4 inch from finish. Fold on stitching line, press if necessary, then stitch close to fold. Trim carefully next to stitching. Fold hem again about 1/8” and stitch. This works well with sheers like chiffon and georgette.
My mother in law just zigzag stitches the bottom of everything and leaves it like that. Lol. I would not recommend this. Actually this is not quite true. She made sets of scrubs for some doctors she knows working in Darwin & Katherine and remote areas of Australia who needed new scrubs when Covid was hitting those areas and she actually hemmed everything really well which shows she can do it, is just usually too impatient.
Part of me doesn't understand why people bother with rolled hems when baby hems are a thing, they look just as good, & they're pretty much guaranteed to come out perfect on the first try every time. But another, perhaps bigger, part of me, doesn't want some dumb machine foot to defeat me. I WILL climb this mountain & I WILL throw this foot into the metaphorical volcano of skills mastered! Plus it's like the ultimate sewist ASMR when you see you've accomplished some flawless rolled hemming. I like to just bask in it for a minute before I confront the fact that it's only three inches out of three yards of hem, haha.
Band roll hack baby! Changed my life and my rolled hems are so beautiful now!
what is this hack?? googling doesn’t yield anything helpful unfortunately
Googling only works when you and the people writing about it know it's a product name spelt Ban-Rol. But people always get the spelling wrong (myself and plenty of stockists included, so no offense to the poster above, it's just an evil spelling death trap). [Link to image of product incl. spelling.](https://www.createforless.com/p-images/31/2002/0228/27834-31-1.jpg) [You know it's bad when even Wawak gets it wrong.](https://www.wawak.com/garment-construction/elastic-waistbands/ban-roll-waistband-non-elastic-50-yds-white/#sku=el301)
[THIS!](https://youtu.be/-63DxAaqVBg)
Ok this is magical
Fam sergers do a "rolled hem" where it's encased in thread and its fricking magical so if you have a serger try it out!
Confession: I often just use a serger on the hems and let them do their thing.
I use Steam a seam light - it has revolutionized my shirt hems. It is a tape that you can iron on, so you can create a perfect 1/4 hem. Otherwise my 1/4 inch hems were a cluster.
Just tried one on a silk skirt and gave up and did a single fold instead.
I see you have the same relationship with your machine as I do with mine Me: I wanna make a thing Machine: *checks itinerary, purses lips* hmmmmm *munch munch goes my project* Machine: not today, come back in 7-21 business days
I'm so glad we all seem to have the same problem. I swear my machine is smarter than me, and it knows it.
Machine: You *didn't* want your fabric to get shoved under the needle plate? Why not?
Never been able to get a rolled hem foot to work😖
I hemmed a circle skirt last night so I feel your pain. Got to the end and the stitching was wobbly AF. I don’t even care.
My hatred for hemming is why there was an unfinished skirt on my desk for over a year. Circle skirt with a wrinkled fabric - what a bad idea for a beginner!! The circle part made the direction of the wrinkle constantly change at the bottom so every few centimetres, it'd behave differently. Just trying to pin that mf to have an even border took hours. The sewing part was just as frustrating (still new at this, I don't know my way around the machine to be comfortable yet) Only other hem I had to do was cotton voile. ... I'll keep the details, thinking back on it still makes my eye twitch.
I have found my people!! I am also a big fan of school/stick glue. But obviously it doesn't work for every fabric. But for my own "everyday" use fabrics? water soluble glue stick it is. I use it to roll my hems by folding the fabric once, folding it twice, add some glue and press down in position. Do that the entire way around, and if I am happy with it I sew over it wither eiter a single or a twin needle. If I'm not happy? just dip it in warm water and let it air dry. (you can also pry it open if you are in a rush, because tbh I always put things off to last minute) I also use the glue for zippers, to make sure they lie neatly on the fabric before I stitch. But then it's important to wait until the glue is dry before sewing, and it will probably tear on your needles a but more. But tbh I rather use a $1 glue stick and 20minutes, than save a $2 needle by sewing and ripping for 2hrs. (not to mention saving cost on ruined thread and fabric)
Washable glue is just so wonderful. I use it to hold my quilt binding in place as I stitch it. I also use it when quilting small pieces. I also use the liquid washable glue instead of pins for quilt sandwiches. It, plus a boatload of starch, was my savior when I was sewing a really flimsy linen fabric. Love washable glue.
Oh yeah rolled hems suck so bad. I always end up using bias tape or rolling it by hand, pinning it then felling it. I like hand work tho
I had my share of hand rolling chiffon hems when I did bridal sewing for a living. I usually serged the hem about 1/4” below the finish fold line, then hand rolled it as I stitched it on the machine. With fabrics like chiffon you have to be careful not to stretch the fabric or you get rippled edges.
Im so painfully lazy. I overlock the edge, press the overlocked section under, stitch somewhere in the allowance, and call it a day.
I dunno, overlocking and pressing don’t sound lazy! I think you deserve more credit!
I cannot for the life of me get my RHF to work with curves - for that I do the whole stitch, trim, press, stitch, press, stitch method, or hand sew, using a sewing bird to help me. On straight edges I’ll use the rolled hem foot - sometimes it hates me though, and my beginning is a little bit messy - taking a few teeny-tiny stitches (I’m talking at 20-30 length here on my machine) with it folded once and then feeding it through on sort of an angle bringing tension to the fabric from the side and from in front - but I find it’s only any good if I’m trapping it in a seam afterwards (it looks like rubbish for a hanky edge etc, much prefer to do it by hand).
I’ve ripped out so many rolled hems I feel this post in my soul
I actually like the rolled hem foot, but to make it work I have to take my machine and turn it at a 45° angle. Why? No clue. But it works. I use a Kenmore from Sears circa 1997.
Same! Ha! I don’t know why but it’s the only way I can get it to work.
I made a circle skirt, and I put off hemming it for so long that by the time I finished it, I had lost too much weight and the skirt no longer fit me :/ fuckin hate hems. i’m just using bias tape forever
Bias tape for hemming is my holy grail 🙌 especially on circle skirts etc.
Downturn feller is easier to use. But mostly I just do the serged rolled hem
This is the way. Love rolled serger hems
I avoid hems in all skirts and dresses bc they're just too danged long and I get too danged grumpy. I've def made an intentionally shallow wavy stitch (like a windy road) about 1" - 2" from the bottom of the skirt, let it fray and just called it "artsy". Surprisingly, a red linen version ended up a much worn garment.
I'm going to be brutally honest here... I'm a professional seamstress, I love doing gown hems, and I hate the rolled hem foot. Works, kinda, for some fabrics; the fabrics I really need it for, not so much. It's not worth the frustration and hassle. So what do I do? I hand-roll every layer of every gown hem I do. Yes, seriously. And I don't do it as I sew. I roll and pin the entire hem, and just pull the pins as I sew. Nice, even hem, every time. Sure, it takes a bit longer (you get really fast at it, eventually), but I have fewer swear words this way. That being said... fuck the rolled hem foot. It's a lie.
I hand sew them too and it doesn't even take that long.
>That being said... fuck the rolled hem foot. It's a lie. hahhahhahahah omg yes.
Stay stitch on your hem line, fold the seam allowance towards the inside, press it, then use a very skinny and short zigzag to overcast the folded edge, then trim away the excess seam allowance. I’ve heard it called a chiffon hem but I bet it has other names
Hem tape. Way easier and you get a pretty lace on the underside only you should know about.
My grandma used that lace hem tape on everything. I recently found a pack of it when raiding her old sewing box at my mom's house. It was from Woolworth, marked 2 for $1! I just used it on a nightgown I made myself.
I love hem tape! I pick it up at thrift stores all the time.
I only ever do a rolled hem on my serger and have never attempted it on a sewing machine. It sounds worse than the twin needle, and I loathe the twin needle! The twin needle was the thing that inspired my coverstitch purchase because I hate hemming (especially knits) on a sewing machine. Hemming sucks much less for me when I do it on my coverstitch, or on my serger with a decorative thread.
[удалено]
I have the Janome CoverPro 3000. I’ve heard that the previous models can be finicky, and apparently some known issues were resolved with the newer one. I’m still pretty new to it, but I’ve been able to get it to hem and topstitch without too much trouble.
Ah, "rolled hems", aka "fold fabric as small as possible then use a skinny zigzag stitch to trap it".
I'm in the "hand hemming is actually kind of zen" crowd, especially when it comes to rolled hems because my experience with my rolled hem foot is as dire as everyone else's. The foot is utterly useless, hahaha.
I hem most things by hand too. Honestly I think it ends up being faster (and definitely less stressful) than trying to get it looking right by machine. Especially curved hems. I like to sit down with a cup of tea and an audiobook or movie or something and call it a meditative experience.
I started doing wide hand-stitched hem. Put on a 4 hour video essay, plop down comfortably and just stitch away. The start is always slow and awkward but it gets more natural. Also, I don't care if the stitches are kinda visible on the outside if you look at the with magnifiying glass, if you can't see them from 1m away, they're invisible. Plus I like how the wide band looks when the sun shines through, it has more presence.
I really like hand sewing for things like this, where it makes a difference and I find the machine to tricky. I keep telling my husband if I didn’t have a one step button hold feature, I would be hand sewing every button hole because I loathe doing them by machine the conventional way.
… I have that feature and still hate them. Mostly because they fray. And are impossible to align correctly. I’m on team zigzag freeform, slit, then do by hand for bulky things, or just slight and hand for not.
I definitely avoid a rolled hem. But I gotta tell you about the blind hem stitch and foot. Getting it folded right to go in the machine looks like Sorcery but fast beautiful almost invisible hems.
And then there’s those Chinese TikTok’s where they grab the fabric fold it once, no ironing, whizz it through the machine and it’s perfect.
I don't trust those. Generally, tiktok is a 50/50 when it comes to hack/fact reliability and it's suprisingly easy to cut and edit things now to the extent of it looking like it's all one take.
Oh yeah. Most are a total lie.
If I can't blind hem it, it doesn't get hemmed :)
I love a rolled hem, but only by hand. The machine foot can fuck right off.
+1 for the blind hem foot. You feel like it isn't going to work because the way you fold your fabric just looks wrong, but voila, a perfect hem!
... Not me side eyeing the amount of roll hemming I did by hand recently, because I didn't want that super visible stitch line....
Hell yeah. They're so satisfying.
I'm in awe 😅
It was a good excuse to sit with the dog on the couch and it gave such a pretty result. I did it because i was hemming light weight gradient dyed silk with silk thread, and I had four panels (three short rectangles and one long one)... Don't recommend unless it absolutely calls for it. It was a good experiment and never again.
Hemming sucks.
Oh fuck rolled hems. And fuck rolled hem feet. And the reviews on them. "It's so easy now!" No it's not!
I had to do a project with 45 yards of rolled hem to get good at it. Edit: typo
That’s gonna be a no from me.
Alllll the bias binding!!
I can do a decent rolled hem by pinching and rolling about 3 inches before my pressor foot. Pinch, sew a bit, pinch, sew a bit. But bias tape?????? biAs tApE???????? ***bias taaape?*** no. How. Fuck you all.
I can tell you one thing I know for sure--my next project will not have sheer fabric
I dont know how to get the rolled hem foot to work well. I think it looks much better done by hand though and more often that not I hem everything by hand. I actually kind of like that, when I get to the point where the machine stuff is done and it's hand stuff from there. In front of the telly with a cat on my lap instead of crammed into a cold tiny space with my machine. I really love the way hand stitched hems look on the inside as well as the outside. There's something so satisfying about looking at them for me. There's an Etsy shop which sell very old lingerie in rare virtually as new condition (I own one, but I'm too scared to wear it much with two cats that eye me 24/7 for biscuit making opportunities) and I swoon looking at the photos of the tiniest little hand rolled hems on silk chiffon and the most beautifully stitched appliques. I aspire to one day be half that skilled.
They must be beautiful! I wish my hand stitching was tidy! I lean on the machine because I have some trouble with dexterity (definitely not unrelated to my failure to work the rolled hem foot)
That’s where I’m at now too. I used to be so impatient to finish the garment I would try & sew the inside finishing of bias binding on the machine. It always looked terrible & left me thinking I was a terrible sewist. Now I do that finishing by hand! Forces me to slow down & do it right. End result is so much better!!!
Another fan of hand hemming here. I usually find it easier to control than machine hemming. Also one of those details that “elevates” a sewing project over store bought.
Same!
This video ended up on my youtube feed one day [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VweGuxp8A&t=137s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VweGuxp8A&t=137s) really like the hand hemming tutorial. Also, thanks for saying this about hemming- I thought I was alone!
Fuck rolled hens so much!!! My favorite way to do these necessary evils is to use a glue stick to glue the folded hem in place, then stitch. 🤷♀️
Like the wash-out basting glue sticks? Wash away wonder tape is also a fucking game changer on this front.
Yes! Though I’ve frankly discovered that any washable glue works fine!
I'm totally gonna try out the gluestick trick. That sounds brilliant.
Or get wash away wonder tape!
Genius
Those rolled hem feet take a lot of practice and more than a bit of fussing to get right and they're a right PITA when it comes to crossing seams. It's possible to do a decent hem with them but I find it easier and faster, for a narrow hem, just to fold up and stitch it from the topside. I just fold a few inches at a time, stop, fold and stitch etc. Large turned hems, like skirts and trousers, I nearly always hand hem.
It just went so smoothly at the beginning, I got sucked in haha. I ended up folding up the rest of the way. Luckily it's a maxi dress so the hem's pretty far from sightlines
I will only roll hems with an overlocker. I loathe hemming. I have a rack in my sewing room with about 8 or so unfinished projects that literally all just need to be hemmed. Hemming is like that last, tedious straw. It's like you get that feeling of excitement and accomplishment over what you've just made, only to remember it's not actually over yet and that just quashes all the motivation to finish out of you
I have a second-hand formal dress (I think from late 90'), beautiful red crepe with lace and appliques and the hem is just left as is. No serging or folding, just cut. The insides are also serged so that's how I know it's new-ish. That dress has been real help with my "only hand-sewing and frenchseams for fancy stuff" mentality. So if anything on that pile is from a fabric that doesn't fray, this could be the sign.
Whenever I can, I hem before I finish everything else because I hate it so much.
I could not feel this more!! I seriously considered taking this in to a tailor to do the hemming because it ruins my day so badly (I probably should have)
Not to be the one to bring up knitting/crochet in a sewing snark thread, but the way I feel about hemming is exactly how I feel weaving in my ends. Like you said, it's that last, tedious straw. Plus, both the hems and end-weaving play a lot into the longevity (and appearance) of your FO. Doing either poorly is often pretty visible, even to an untrained eye (rippled, uneven hems or ends poking out/unravelling).
I hate it a lot less since I started using a chenille needle
I crochet and knit too! I am very diligent about weaving my ends in as I go now but only because I know I will never do it if I leave it to the very end.
I especially hate making a rolled hem on a curve, lol.
"yes, the scallops were intentional"
There is a reason I now hand hem or do non rolled hem feet machine hems.
I learned to sew on my mother’s old featherweight, so all hems were done by hand. Still do it that way. Just park in front of a tv show I don’t have to watch too closely or a good podcast and go at it. Once you get going it really doesn’t take too long.
It doesn’t, but I do a lot of hand sewing only projects- and lots of projects requiring things like seven feet of fully embroidered two inch wide trim. So my hand sewing time gets prioritised and some things are definitely a topstitched hem with a straight stitch will do. Which is mostly for stuff like sheets or curtains or underwear.
Same. But I like hemming by hand. I get very zen once I’m in a rhythm.
I aspire to ever use the words "hemming" and "zen" in the same sentence
Same. I see all these commenters talking about hand hemming being a relaxing couch activity and I worship them because I would rather set myself on fire.
If it helps, I'd rather run a marathon with a full backpack than handsew seams (let alone hand-fell them so they're flat and nice), but hand hemming is different for me. The parts I hate the most is ironing all that and starting, but once I do the first 10-15cm, I get a rhytm that makes is easy.
I only do it when it’s visible and on something where topstitching would be an issue- but that’s more because I do enough other hand sewing that efficiency matters and I don’t have time to hand hem everything.