Thanks for stopping by! We're two cousins who love to craft on the cheap and share our ideas. We'd love for you to stay awhile, pull up your Pin it! button, sewing machine, and let us know what you think!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Sewing 101: Basic Hem

basic hem (9.5)

Last week, I bought this outfit off the dollar rack at Wal-Mart.

basic hem (1)

I loved the price, not the outfit.  Seriously.  Who wants to wrestle a 19 month old to snap all those snaps?!  Not me!  Still, I saw the potential in it and bought it.

Wanna see what my tutorial pictures really look like before I edit them?

basic hem (2)

This is my #3, Deege.  (pronounced Dee-j…and that’s just his nickname.)  Isn’t he a cutie?  :)

Oh yeah.  Onto the tutorial…

This is a tutorial on a basic hem that can be used on a shirt, skirt, dress, shorts, pants, pillowcase, or whatever else you have that needs hemming.  Ready?  Ok.

I started off by taking a shirt that already fit Monkey and measured it to the romper.  I cut it about an inch longer so that I had enough fabric for the hem.

basic hem (3.5)

basic hem (4)

Then I serged around the bottom of the shirt.  I threw the legs of the romper away.  You could save them for another project if you wanted to.

basic hem (5)

See that lovely serged edge?  I heart my serger!  I didn’t have to do this since the shirt is knit.  It wouldn’t have frayed, but why miss an opportunity to spend time with Juki?!  If you don’t have a serger and the fabric is something that will fray, zig-zag around the raw edge. 

basic hem (6.5)

Once your raw edge is taken care of, measure and pin the hem into place.  You could also measure and hem again (with the raw edge sewed completely under) just to be sure you don’t have any fraying.

basic hem (7.5)

Use a straight stitch and a matching thread to sew your hem into place.  I could have stopped here, but the shirt sleeve hems were double stitched, so I went around another time, just so everything would match.

basic hem (10.5)

If you’re sewing with knit, it will stretch a bit.  I rest a warm iron over my seams to shrink it back into place.  Don’t use a back and forth ironing motion, that won’t help the stretching.

basic hem (11)

Look at that lovely serged edge!  So pretty…sigh…

basic hem (9)

…and the shirt is done!  It’s about a million times cuter, now, too!

basic hem (13)

My oldest (Jingus…another nickname) looked at the shirt and said, “Wow, Mom!  You can’t even tell that that shirt used to be ugly!”  Best.Compliment.Ever!!

basic hem (12)

See how cute?  Oh goodness.  Isn’t he yummy?!  I think so, too!  :)

Not bad for a buck, right?!

signature nat

Pin It!

1 comment:

Thanks so much for taking a minute to let us know what you think! We read and appreciate all of your comments!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...