Amongst my new skills are two in particular i would like to share with you. The first is UNDERSTITCHING, which is a row of stitching we have used to secure the skirt pockets, and is also used for facings, to keep them from rolling onto the right side of a garment. This is done by sewing very close to the seam on the facing. Although the stitches are visible on the facing/pocket side of the garment, it is not visible on the right side, and looks very neat! I'm not sure if you can see this on the picture below as my thread and fabric are quite well matched, but trust me it looks neat and tidy :)
The second is FRENCH SEAMS. This is a way of finishing inside seams, the finish effect of which is to make them look (again) neat and professional, without the use of an overlocker. I argue that perhaps it looks even nicer! Briefly this is done by first sewing a 1/4" seam with the WRONG sides of the fabric together (Tasia warns that it feels very wrong to do this and it really does - so wrong that at first i tried to align the wrong edges so the right side was facing inwards, and ended up in a panic because they didn't fit together correctly. How many times can i use the word 'wrong' in one sentence?!?). The seam allowance is then trimmed to 1/8" and the fabric flipped over so that the right sides are together (phew!).The seam is pressed and then another 1/4" seam is shown. The end result is that your raw edges are hidden, but the right side of the fabric looks normal. Hopefully you can see this in the picture...i forgot to take pictures as i was sewing, but Tasia has an excellent tutorial (as always!) at the link above. I have french seamed both the pocket and side seams here.
On a completely unrelated note, the masters students i am working with at the moment bought me these adorable cherry earrings from Greece as an early birthday present...aren't they fantastic!
Happy crafting....
K xx
Wow, its looking amazing!! So lovely and neat :) Also, I LOVE that fabric, reminds of the black floral I'm using for mine :)
ReplyDeleteThose earrings are so cute!
Ashley x
Wow that fabric is lush! Hmm i will need to check out theat french seam tutorial, I hate the ugliness of zig-zagging my seams but french seams have always scared me!
ReplyDeleteIt's looking great Kat. This sew along malarkey is something i should get in on, next time one comes along i think i'd like to do!
Wow wee, great progress...it's really taking shape now and I'm loving the fabric! Whoop!
ReplyDeleteMine's had to go on the back burner as 'one pattern, seven bloggers' has taken over my very limited sewing time at the moment. It makes me sad, but I'm determined to get back to it at some point!
P.S. Super cute earrings!
Thanks for the info on the new skills you have been working on (understitching, french seams)..I am not there yet but hope to be soon! I can't WAIT to do my first sew along! :)
ReplyDeletep.s do you know the code to add the 'email this, blog this, share to twitter, share to facebook' bar you have at the bottom of your blog? I used to have it, then I when I switched templates I dont have it anymore and can't figure out what I need to do. Let me know if you know?!-Hattie
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your encouraging comments :)
ReplyDeleteLaw - You should try French Seams, they are so simple to do and the finished effect is fantastic.
Hattie - I'm not sure of the code, but you can add them from the "design" page there is a link to on the blogger dashboard...you then click "edit" on the blog post section, and there is a little box to tick in the pop-up window, something along the lines of 'Enable sharing' and then a picture of the icons. Hope that makes some sense, feel free to email me if not!