Unit 5: Hems

What a Hem Is Doing, and How Deep to Cut It

Scripture names the hem of a garment on purpose. The woman in Matthew's account did not reach for a sleeve or a shoulder; she reached for the border, the lowest and most ordinary edge of the Lord's clothing, and she was healed. It is a small comfort to anyone who spends an evening turning up the bottom of a skirt: the humblest edge of a garment is not beneath notice.

Three jobs, not one

A hem is doing three things at once, and every decision you make about it serves one of them.

First, it encloses a raw edge so the fabric cannot fray itself apart in the wash. Second, it adds weight at the bottom of the garment, which is what makes a skirt swing instead of flutter and a curtain hang instead of curl. Third, it is a reserve of fabric — a bank account of length you can withdraw later when a child grows or a dress rides up after laundering.

Understand the second job and a great deal becomes clear. A hem that is too shallow on a heavy skirt lets the fabric flip and misbehave. A hem that is too deep on a lightweight blouse hangs like a rolled-up sleeve, dragging the hemline into a stiff ring that fights the drape you paid for.

How deep to cut the allowance

Hem allowance is the strip of fabric you reserve below the finished hemline. Standard practice, and it is worth memorizing:

• Jackets, pants, and blouses: 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm).
• Skirts, dresses, and coats: 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7.5 cm).

Those are cutting figures, decided before the shears touch the yardage. Within that allowance you then choose your folds. A narrow hem is usually two equal folds — half an inch turned, then half an inch turned again — which uses one inch of the allowance. A wider hem is commonly unequal: a quarter inch turned first to enclose the raw edge, then three quarters of an inch turned up. The small first fold keeps the top of the hem from making a thick ridge that shows on the right side after pressing.

Let fabric weight set the width

Weight decides more than pattern does. On lightweight cotton lawn, voile, or a rayon challis, keep the finished hem between a quarter inch and half an inch. Anything wider stiffens the edge and puckers, because a light fabric cannot carry the extra layers without distorting. On a medium-weight cotton, three quarters to one and a half inches sits well. On heavy linen, denim, or coating wool, a deep hem is welcome for weight — but at that point a double fold makes four layers of thick cloth, and you will usually be better served by covering the raw edge with a separate strip instead of folding twice. That method is taken up later in this unit.

Do the arithmetic in the opposite direction too. If a pattern gives you a two-inch hem allowance and you intend a three-quarter-inch double fold, you will be trimming an inch away. Better to know that before you cut, so you can lengthen the pattern piece and keep the reserve.

The mistake that cannot be undone

The single most expensive hemming error is cutting the allowance too short. It happens most often at the fitting stage: the garment is tried on, the hemline is marked higher than expected, and the sewer trims the surplus off cleanly because the loose fabric looks untidy hanging there. A month later the wearer has grown, or the fabric has shrunk, or the length was simply wrong — and there is nothing left to let down.

Trim to your working allowance and no further. On children's clothing, on anything sewn for someone who is still growing, and on any garment you expect to keep for years, leave the full two to three inches even if you only fold up one. The extra fabric costs you nothing but a few square inches and buys you a second life for the garment.

Before you touch the scissors

Write the numbers down. Finished length, hem allowance, first fold, second fold. Three lines in a notebook take thirty seconds and have saved more good yardage than any tool in the room. Work heartily, as unto the Lord, at the part of the garment nobody is meant to notice — that habit, more than any single technique, is what separates careful work from hurried work.

Marking a Hemline That Hangs True

A hem is only as good as the line it follows. Sew a flawless fold along a crooked mark and you have a flawless crooked hem. The marking stage takes patience and costs nothing, which is exactly the sort of work the hasty skip and the diligent do not.

Let the garment hang first

Cut fabric relaxes. Anywhere the hemline crosses the bias — a flared skirt, an A-line dress, a circle skirt most of all — those bias sections will stretch downward under their own weight over the first day or two of wear. If you hem immediately after construction, the garment will develop a drooping wave at the sides a week later and there is no fixing it but recutting.

So hang the finished garment on a hanger, right side out, seams pressed, and leave it alone for twenty-four hours. A full circle skirt in a soft rayon deserves forty-eight. Then mark. The fabric has already done its stretching, and the line you mark is the line that stays.

Measure from the floor, not from the waist

Bodies are not symmetrical and waistbands do not sit level. Measuring down from the waist seam carries every irregularity of the body straight into the hemline. Measuring up from the floor ignores all of it.

Have the wearer stand naturally on a hard floor, in the shoes and undergarments the garment will be worn with — shoes change the hang more than people expect. The wearer stands still; you move. Working around the garment, mark a consistent distance up from the floor with pins or chalk, placing a mark every two to three inches. Close spacing matters on a curve; sparse pins let you connect a series of straight lines and lose the curve entirely.

Do not let the wearer turn to watch. One twist of the hips tilts the whole garment and every mark after it is wrong.

Deciding the length itself

Length is the one hemming decision that is not technical. Here it is worth saying plainly that modest dress is a kindness, not a cage. A hemline chosen so the wearer can kneel to a child, climb a stair, or sit down in company without a moment of self-consciousness is a gift to her, and to everyone around her. It frees her to forget what she is wearing and give her attention to other people. Choose the length with that in mind, cheerfully, and then get on with the sewing.

Practical checks: have the wearer sit, and then bend forward from the waist. A skirt that is right standing and wrong sitting is wrong. Longer lengths need slightly more allowance for the step, and narrow skirts may need a vent rather than extra length.

Turning marks into a stitching line

Take the garment off and lay it flat on a table. Fold the hem up along the marks, pinning perpendicular to the fold so pins are easy to remove as you sew. Check the fold against a hem gauge at several points; the marks were made on a body and small errors creep in.

For a curved hemline, run a line of long basting stitches about 3/8 inch (1 cm) from the raw edge before you fold. That basting is not decoration. It is a drawstring: pull gently on the bobbin thread and the excess fabric around the curve eases inward evenly instead of collapsing into pleats at random. Distribute the fullness with your fingers until it is even all around, then press.

Where it goes wrong

Three failures account for most crooked hems. The wearer shifts weight, usually because the marking is taking too long — mark quickly and steadily. The measuring tool is inconsistent, because a soft tape held at an angle reads short; use a rigid ruler or a hem gauge standing on the floor. And the marks are too far apart on curved sections, so the fold cuts across the curve in flat facets.

Check your work before you sew. Hang the garment again and look at it from six feet away, from the front and from each side. The eye catches a tilted hemline instantly at that distance and misses it entirely up close.

The Double-Fold Hem on a Straight Edge

This is the workhorse. Fold the raw edge under once, fold again, stitch it down. It is the hem on the pillowcase, the curtain, the plain skirt, the trouser leg, the apron. Learn it well and you can finish most of what comes through a home sewing room.

It works on straight edges only. A double fold on a curve fights itself — the outer fold has more length to travel than the inner one, and the surplus has nowhere to go, so it puckers and wrinkles. Curves get a different treatment, taken up later.

Setting up the machine

A universal needle, size 80/12, handles most medium-weight wovens. Drop to a 70/10 for lighter cottons and voiles, move up to a 90/14 for denim, canvas, and heavy linen. Thread to match the garment, all-purpose polyester or cotton, the same in bobbin and needle.

Set stitch length to 2.0 to 2.5 mm. That is shorter than a general seam length, and deliberately so: a hem sits at the edge of a garment where it takes abrasion from shoes, chair edges, and doorways, and a shorter stitch holds better and looks tidier along a long straight run.

Folding and pressing

Measure the first fold and press it. Measure the second fold and press it. Do not fold both at once and hope.

For a finished half-inch hem, turn under half an inch, press, then turn another half inch and press again. For a finished three-quarter-inch hem, turn under a quarter inch first, press, then three quarters, press. The narrow first fold is the better arrangement on anything wider than about half an inch, because a wide double thickness at the top of the hem makes a visible ridge on the right side after pressing.

A hem gauge — a small metal ruler with a sliding marker — makes this quick and consistent. Set the marker, slide it under the fold, press against it. Check every few inches. If you are drifting wider, you will see it in a series of measurements long before you see it in the finished hem.

Press with steam and let each section cool flat before moving on. Cloth sets its crease as it cools, not while it is hot under the iron. Lifting a section and moving it while it is still warm undoes half the pressing you just did.

Stitching it down

Stitch from the inside of the garment with the hem facing up, so you can see the inner folded edge and follow it. Run the line about 1/8 inch from that inner fold — close enough to secure it firmly, far enough that the fold does not slip out from under the stitching.

Take the pins out as you come to them. Sewing over pins can bend the needle, deflect it into the throat plate, or throw a broken needle point up toward your face. It is not worth the seconds it saves.

Start and finish with a few backstitches, or leave long tails and tie them off on fine fabric where backstitching would bunch. On a tubular hem — a trouser leg, a sleeve, a pillowcase — overlap the beginning of the stitching by about half an inch and stop.

Press the finished hem one last time, from the wrong side, then from the right side with a press cloth if the fabric is prone to shine.

What goes wrong

A wavy, rippled hem. Almost always the fabric was fed unevenly, or the edge was stretched while pressing. Support the weight of the garment on the table so it is not hanging off the machine and dragging. On knits, waving is normal with a straight stitch; knits need a different approach.

A visible ridge on the right side. The first fold was too deep. Go back to the narrow-first-fold arrangement.

Stitching that wanders off the fold. You were watching the needle instead of the fold. Watch a fixed point on the presser foot or the throat plate and let the fold run against it.

Puckering along the line. Stitch length too short for the fabric, tension too tight, or a dull needle. Change the needle first; it is the cheapest fix and often the right one.

Work it heartily. A hem nobody will ever examine still deserves to be square, and the habit of finishing well where it does not show is the whole of good craftsmanship.

Pressing: The Half of Hemming That Is Not Sewing

Ask an experienced sewer why her hems look better than yours and the answer is usually the iron. A sharp, accurate, well-set fold is the foundation the whole hem is built on. Stitch onto a vague fold and no amount of careful sewing will rescue it; stitch onto a crisp one and the machine work becomes almost easy. The house stands or falls on what is underneath it.

Pressing is not ironing

Ironing is a sliding motion used to smooth wrinkles out of finished clothes. Pressing is a lift-and-set motion: place the iron, hold it, lift it straight up, move it, set it down again. The distinction is not fussiness. Sliding the iron along a folded hem edge drags the fabric, and dragged fabric stretches — especially along a bias or a curve. That is where wavy hems come from.

Press in three motions: set the fold with your fingers or a gauge, place the iron and hold for a few seconds, lift straight up. Let the fabric cool flat before you move it. Cloth takes its crease as the moisture leaves and the fibers cool. Move it warm and you carry away half the work.

Heat, steam, and the test scrap

Every iron dial is a guess. The only trustworthy setting is the one you found on a scrap of the same fabric.

Cut a piece from the same yardage, fold it, and press it at the setting you intend. Look at the right side. You are checking for three failures: scorching, which shows as a yellow or brown discoloration; glazing, a shiny flattened patch on synthetics and blends where the surface has been over-heated; and imprint, where the edge of the hem allowance shows as a ridge through to the outside.

Natural fibers — cotton and linen — take high heat and plenty of steam and reward both. Wool wants steam and a gentle hand, and should be pressed with a cloth over it. Silk prefers a lower setting and a dry or lightly steamed press, since water spots some silks. Synthetics and blends want the lowest setting that will set a crease; they glaze and shine readily, and that damage is permanent. Test, always, before the iron ever touches the garment.

Three tools that earn their space

A press cloth — a square of muslin or a scrap of silk organza — goes between the iron and the fabric. It prevents shine on dark wools, protects synthetics, and lets you use more heat safely than you otherwise could. Silk organza is a favorite because you can see through it.

A clapper, a smooth block of hardwood, is pressed onto the fabric immediately after the iron lifts. The wood absorbs the steam and holds the fold flat and cool while it sets. On a thick wool hem it does what no amount of extra iron time can do.

A strip of paper or a manila strip slipped between the hem allowance and the garment keeps the raw edge from imprinting a ridge on the outside. On dark, smooth fabrics it is the difference between an invisible hem and one you can see from across a room.

The iron itself

An iron at pressing temperature will burn skin on contact and will scorch a table, a chair arm, or a pattern piece in seconds. Set it on its heel every time you set it down — every time, without exception, so it becomes a motion you do not think about. Keep the cord routed away from the front edge of the board where a sleeve, a hip, or a child can catch it. If children are in the room, the board is not a place they may stand near; the safest arrangement is simply that the iron is on only while you are at it, and off and cooling on the heel the moment you step away.

Fixing pressing mistakes

A crease in the wrong place can usually be steamed out: dampen the area, press from the wrong side, and let it dry flat. Old set creases in a let-down hem are stubborn — a damp press cloth and repeated pressing will fade most of them, but on some fabrics a permanent line remains, which is worth knowing before you plan to lengthen a garment.

Glazing and scorching do not come out. That is why the test scrap exists.

Rolled and Narrow Hems for Silk, Chiffon, and Voile

Sheer and lightweight fabric will not tolerate a hem it has to carry. Turn a full inch of chiffon up twice and the edge stiffens into a band that hangs like a hoop and reads through from the outside. The answer is to make the hem almost disappear: two folds of about 1/8 inch each, stitched close, so the edge is finished and weighs practically nothing.

There is a satisfaction in this work that is hard to explain to anyone who has not done it. Handling a fabric that fine, and seeing a clean edge appear where a raveling one was, is a small taste of what it means to call a made thing marvelous. The psalmist praises God for workmanship far above ours; careful handwork is one honest way of echoing that praise.

Needle and thread

Use a sharp needle, size 60/8 or 70/10. Sharps have a fine point that pierces cleanly between the tight threads of a woven silk or a fine cotton. A universal needle, with its slightly rounded tip, tends to push threads aside and snag them, leaving pulled threads and skipped stitches along an edge where they show badly.

Set stitch length between 2.0 and 3.0 mm. Go to the short end of that range on chiffon, georgette, and fine silk; longer stitches on those fabrics let the narrow fold slip and roll. Move toward 3.0 mm on a medium-weight cotton lawn, where a very short stitch can pucker the line.

Change the needle at the first sign of trouble. A needle that is slightly blunted will produce pulls on silk that it would never produce on cotton.

The machine method by hand-folding

The dependable way, without any special foot:

1. Stitch a line of regular straight stitching 1/4 inch from the raw edge. This is the guide.
2. Press the edge under along that stitched line. The stitching makes the fold obey.
3. Trim the raw edge back close to the stitching, about 1/8 inch, with sharp scissors.
4. Fold under again, so the trimmed edge is enclosed, and press.
5. Stitch close to the inner fold, about 1/16 to 1/8 inch in.

Slow is fast here. Feed the fabric with light tension in both hands — guiding, never pulling.

The rolled hem foot

A rolled hem foot has a curled scroll at the front that rolls the edge as it feeds. It produces a very narrow hem quickly, and it takes practice.

Start by folding the first inch of the edge by hand into the finished double fold, place it under the foot, lower the needle into it, and take two or three stitches. Then feed the raw edge into the scroll and hold it at a slight angle to the left, keeping a steady, even amount of fabric entering the curl. Too little fabric and the hem unrolls into a flat single fold; too much and it jams and doubles over on itself. The feeding hand does the work — the machine only sews what you hand it.

Practice on a strip of the same fabric before touching the garment. Rolled hem feet behave differently on every weight of cloth.

The hand-rolled hem

For a fine silk scarf or a bridal edge, hand-rolling still beats any machine. Stitch a guideline 1/4 inch from the edge, trim to about 1/8 inch, then roll a short section of the edge between damp fingertips until it forms a tight tube. Secure it with small slip stitches, catching a thread of the roll and a thread of the garment alternately, spaced roughly 1/4 inch apart. Roll another inch, stitch again, and continue. It is slow, and the result is softer and more beautiful than any machine can manage.

What goes wrong

The hem unrolls or splits open. Not enough fabric in the scroll, or the folds were pressed too shallow.

Pulled threads and snags. Wrong needle type or a dull one. Fit a fresh sharp.

The edge waves. The fabric was pulled through instead of guided, stretching it on the bias.

The fabric disappears into the throat plate at the start. Common on chiffon. Start with a scrap leader under the presser foot, sew off it onto the garment, then clip the leader away, or fit a straight-stitch throat plate with its small round hole.

Hand Stitches That Disappear: Slip, Catch, and Ladder

Some hems ought to be sewn by hand. A wool skirt, a lined jacket, a good dress — anywhere a line of machine stitching across the front would announce itself and cheapen the garment. Hand hemming is slower, and it is also quieter, portable, and forgiving. It is the sort of skill Titus describes older women passing to younger ones: a good thing, taught at a table, hand to hand.

A note on names before the stitches themselves. Sewing vocabulary is not standardized. "Blind stitch" and "slip stitch" are used interchangeably by some teachers and distinguished by others, and the same is true of several other names in this family. When someone tells you which stitch to use, ask what the needle actually does. The motion is the real instruction; the name is only a label.

Preparing the edge

Every one of these stitches assumes the hem is already folded and pressed, and its raw edge already finished — pinked, serged, zigzagged, or turned under a quarter inch. Press the fold. Pin from the inside every three or four inches.

Use a fine hand needle and a single thread about eighteen inches long. Longer thread tangles and abrades as it is pulled through the cloth hundreds of times. Knot the end, and bury the knot inside the hem fold where it will not show or catch.

The slip stitch

This is the invisible one. The needle travels inside the fold of the hem, hidden, and comes out only to take a bite of the garment.

Bring the needle out through the edge of the fold. Directly across from where it emerged, pick up one or two threads only of the garment fabric — not a bite, not a nibble, a thread or two. Then slide the needle back into the fold, run it along inside the fold about a quarter to three-eighths of an inch, and bring it out again. Take another one or two threads. Continue.

Keep the tension loose. A slip stitch pulled tight dimples the right side of the garment into a row of little puckers that show in raking light and cannot be pressed out. The stitches should lie relaxed enough that you can slide a fingertip under the hem edge without strain.

If the stitches show on the right side, you took too much fabric. That is nearly the only way it fails.

The catch stitch

Where the slip stitch is invisible and delicate, the catch stitch is elastic and strong. It is worked left to right (right-handed sewers work backward, against the usual direction), with the needle pointing back to the left each time, so the thread crosses itself in a row of small X shapes.

Take a tiny stitch in the garment just above the hem edge, move to the right, take a tiny stitch in the hem allowance itself, move to the right again, and back to the garment. The crossing threads give the stitch line some give.

That elasticity is the point. Because it stretches under load instead of snapping, the catch stitch belongs on pant legs, on children's clothing, on anything that gets knelt on and climbed in, and on the top edge of a hem allowance in wool where you want the hem to hold without a hard line.

The ladder stitch

The ladder stitch closes an opening between two folded edges — a lining left open for turning, a pillow, a repaired seam. Work straight horizontal stitches, alternating from one folded edge to the other, so the thread makes rungs across the gap.

Leave the rungs loose as you go. When you have worked two or three inches, pull the thread gently and the rungs disappear, drawing the two folds together with the thread hidden inside them. Repeat to the end and knot off inside the fold.

Tugging the difference

Practice all three on scraps and then test them. Take a folded scrap hemmed with a slip stitch and one hemmed with a catch stitch, and pull gently across each hem. The slip stitch resists and then a thread snaps. The catch stitch stretches and returns. Feeling that difference in your hands teaches it better than any description, and it will decide which stitch you reach for on a garment that has to survive a season of hard wear.

The Machine Blind Hem: Guide Blade and a Single Thread

A machine blind hem gives you most of the look of hand hemming at a fraction of the time. It is the practical answer for a family's worth of trousers, uniform skirts, and lined dresses. The whole trick is to make the machine take an enormously small bite — one thread of the folded edge — over and over, without ever taking two.

There is a fitting thought here. Samuel was reminded that the LORD looks past the outward appearance to the heart. The blind hem is a small picture of the same order of things: what shows on the outside is almost nothing, and all the substance is on the inside, where nobody looks.

Folding the hem for the machine

The fold arrangement is what confuses most people, so work through it slowly on a scrap.

1. Finish the raw edge of the hem allowance — serge, zigzag, or turn under a quarter inch and press.
2. Fold the whole hem allowance up to its finished position and press. Pin it.
3. Now fold the garment back on itself along the top of the hem, right sides together, so that only about 1/4 inch of the finished hem edge sticks out past the folded bulk of the garment.
4. Pin along that arrangement. What faces up under the needle is the soft fold of the garment on the left, and the projecting 1/4 inch strip of hem on the right.

The stitching runs along the strip. The needle's occasional swing to the left is what reaches over and nicks the garment fold.

The foot and the stitch

Fit the blind hem foot. It has an adjustable guide blade down the center. That blade rides hard against the garment fold, holding it at a fixed distance from the needle. Select the blind hem stitch — usually shown as a run of several straight stitches followed by a single wide swing to the left.

Set the fabric so the garment fold presses firmly against the blade. Sew slowly and watch the left swing. On each swing the needle should just barely pierce the fold, catching a single thread. Too far left and it takes a visible bite. Too far right and it misses the fold entirely and the hem is not attached at all.

Stitch width settings differ from machine to machine, and there is no universal number worth memorizing — your manual and a scrap will tell you what your machine needs. Narrow the width in small increments until the left swing is only just catching. Many machines also allow the needle position to be shifted, which gives you finer control than the width alone.

Testing before you commit

Always test on a folded scrap of the same fabric, prepared exactly like the garment. Sew four inches, unfold it, and look at the right side. You should see a row of tiny dots, spaced roughly every half inch, and almost nothing else. If you see clear dashes, the bite is too big — narrow the stitch width or shift the needle position right.

Turn the garment right side out and press with a press cloth. Pressing settles the tiny stitch dimples into the cloth and the hem all but vanishes.

What goes wrong

Visible stitches on the right side. The commonest failure. The needle is catching too much fabric on the left swing. Narrow the width.

The hem falls off after a few inches. The needle stopped reaching the fold. Almost always the guide blade drifted away from the fold. Keep light left-hand pressure holding the fold against the blade for the whole run.

Uneven, irregular stitching. The fold was not held flush against the blade, or the pins pulled the arrangement out of shape as you sewed. Pin closer together, or hand-baste the fold first on slippery fabric.

It works on cotton but shows on wool crepe. Soft, drapey fabrics let the needle drag the fold. Slow down, and reduce the presser foot pressure if your machine allows it.

Blind hemming knits is possible using the same foot with a stretch blind hem stitch and a ballpoint needle in size 70/10 to 90/14, chosen to suit the weight of the knit. The rounded point pushes between the loops of the knit instead of piercing them, which is what keeps a run from starting at the hem.

Hemming a Curve Without Puckers

A curved hem is where beginners' work goes visibly wrong, and it is not for lack of skill. It is geometry. Fold a curved edge upward and the folded strip is trying to fit a shorter path than the one it came from. The extra length has to go somewhere, and left to itself it goes into wrinkles and pleats.

Curves reward a slow hand. Proverbs commends the one who rules his own spirit above the one who takes a city, and there is no better place to practice small rule over oneself than the hem of an A-line skirt at eleven at night. Hurry here is always paid for.

Why the double fold fails

A double-fold hem works on straight edges only. On a curve, both folds are fighting the geometry at once and the surplus is doubled. The result is a rippled hem that will not press flat and pulls the hemline up into scallops. Do not attempt it, however gentle the curve looks.

There are three honest approaches to a curve. Ease the fullness and use a single narrow fold. Face the edge with bias tape. Or, on a very sharp curve, use a shaped facing cut from the garment pattern itself.

Easing the fullness

This is the standard method for a gentle curve — a shirt tail, a slightly flared skirt.

Run a line of long basting stitches about 3/8 inch (1 cm) from the raw edge, all the way around the curve. Leave long thread tails. Fold the hem up to the marked line and pin at the seams first, then between them.

Now pull gently on the bobbin thread of the basting. The edge draws in. Work with your fingers to distribute the fullness evenly all around rather than letting it gather in one spot — you want a smooth, faintly rounded edge, not gathers. Then press the eased edge with plenty of steam, shrinking the surplus into the cloth. Wool and cotton shrink beautifully this way; polyester and other synthetics ease far less, which is why a curved hem in a synthetic wants to be narrower.

Keep the hem narrow: half an inch, sometimes less. The wider the hem on a curve, the greater the mismatch, and a two-inch curved hem is essentially impossible.

Facing the curve with bias tape

Bias tape is cut at 45 degrees to the grain, which lets it stretch along one edge and shrink along the other. That is exactly what a curve needs, and it means the tape can go around a curve lying flat where a straight strip would buckle.

Two rules matter. First, use tape 1/2 inch wide or narrower; a wide tape cannot bend enough to follow the curve without rippling. Second, press the tape into the curve before you apply it — lay it on the ironing board, and with steam and gentle guiding pressure, coax it into a curve of the same radius as the hemline. It will hold that shape. Applying a straight tape to a curved edge and hoping it will cooperate is what produces puckers.

To apply: unfold one edge of the tape, pin it right sides together to the hem edge, and stitch in the crease line. Trim any excess hem allowance close. Press the tape to the wrong side, rolling it slightly so the tape does not show from the outside, and press again. Then either edgestitch the tape's inner folded edge down, or slip stitch it by hand for an invisible finish.

Bias tape on knits

Woven bias tape works on knits too — it has enough give to roll with the fabric. Use a narrow zigzag or another stitch with some stretch built in rather than a plain straight stitch, and fit a ballpoint needle. A straight stitch on a knit hem will pop threads the first time the wearer pulls the garment over her head.

Checking your work

Lay the hemmed piece flat and look along the edge. A properly eased curve lies flat with no ripple; a poorly eased one shows tucks on the inside and a wavy line on the outside. If tucks have formed, pick out the stitching, redistribute the fullness, press again, and sew it a second time. That is not failure; that is how curved hems are made.

Faced Hems for Coats, Denim, and Heavy Wool

Winter coats, wool jumpers, canvas work trousers, quilted jackets — the heavy garments that keep a household warm are exactly the ones a double-fold hem cannot handle. Fold heavy cloth twice and you have four layers of it at the bottom edge, a stiff band the machine struggles to climb and the fabric refuses to drape over. The answer is to stop folding and start facing.

The Proverbs 31 woman is not afraid of the snow for her household, because she saw the winter coming and clothed them. That is the spirit of this work: heavy garments, sewn ahead of the weather, made to last more than one season.

What a faced hem is

Instead of enclosing the raw edge in the garment fabric itself, you cover it with a separate, lighter strip: bias tape, seam binding, grosgrain or petersham ribbon, or a woven trim. The strip carries the finishing, and the hem gets only one fold instead of two. Bulk drops by half or better, and the hem lies smooth and hangs with its full weight.

Faced hems are the right choice for denim, canvas, coating-weight wool, quilted fabrics, faux fur, and any heavy or thick cloth. They are also useful when the hem allowance is too shallow to fold twice — an alteration where someone cut short, or a garment you need every fraction of an inch of length from.

Choosing the facing

Match the weight sensibly. A heavy garment does not need a heavy facing; it needs a facing thin enough not to add back the bulk you just removed. Lightweight woven cotton bias tape, rayon seam binding, or a soft ribbon all work. Rayon seam binding is a traditional coat-hem choice because it is smooth, thin, and quiet against a lining.

Preshrink the facing. A cotton tape that shrinks in the first wash will draw the hemline into a pucker that no pressing will release, and on a wool coat the garment cannot be washed to match. Steam it thoroughly or wash and dry it before it ever touches the garment.

Applying it

1. Trim the hem allowance to an even width — one to two inches is generous for a coat.
2. Unfold one long edge of the bias tape. Lay it right sides together on the raw edge of the hem allowance, tape edge aligned with fabric edge, and pin.
3. Stitch in the crease line of the tape, about 1/4 inch in. On a heavy fabric use a 90/14 or 100/16 needle and lengthen the stitch to 3.0 mm; a short stitch in thick cloth perforates it and looks crowded.
4. Press the tape away from the garment, then fold the whole hem up to its finished position and press the fold.
5. Secure the free edge of the tape to the garment with a hand catch stitch, sewing through the tape and taking only one or two threads of the garment each time.

Hand-finishing that last step is worth the time on a good coat. A machine line across the front of a wool coat is visible from a distance; a catch stitch is not, and its elasticity keeps the hem from breaking when the coat is sat on.

Faced hems on knits

Woven bias tape has enough give to roll with a knit, which makes it a good hem finish for sweater knits and heavy jersey where a turned hem would flute. Sew it on with a narrow zigzag or another stretch-capable stitch and a ballpoint needle in 70/10 to 90/14 to suit the weight. A straight stitch will snap the first time the knit is stretched over a shoulder.

What goes wrong

The hemline puckers after washing. Unpreshrunk facing. Preshrink next time; on a washable garment you may be able to release the stitching and reapply.

The facing shows below the hem edge. The tape was not rolled slightly to the inside before pressing. Roll it about 1/16 inch to the wrong side so the fold sits just above the hemline.

The machine struggles at the side seams. Thick cross-seams are the hardest point on any heavy hem. Trim and grade the seam allowances inside the hem area before you face it, and if the machine still balks, walk it over the bump by hand on the flywheel rather than forcing it. Forcing a needle through stacked denim is how needles snap.

Hems Made to Be Let Down, Mended, and Made New

A hem is the part of a garment most likely to be changed. Children grow. Fashions in length shift. Wool shrinks a little at the dry cleaner. Trouser hems wear through at the heel long before the rest of the garment is tired. A sewer who builds hems with the second alteration in mind gets years more out of the same cloth, which is the whole point for most households.

Building in a let-down

The habit is simple: leave more allowance than you fold. On a child's dress, cut a full three inches, fold up one and a half, and leave the rest. Baste rather than stitch on a growing child's everyday clothes if you expect to change it inside a year — a basted hem in matching thread looks perfectly ordinary and takes two minutes to remove.

Secure a deep let-down allowance with a catch stitch through the top edge rather than a machine line. It holds well, it comes out cleanly, and its X-shaped structure gives with the fabric so it does not leave a hard crease line at the top of the hem.

One more habit worth building: mark the original hem allowance on a scrap of the same fabric and tuck it into a labeled envelope with a note of the garment. When you let the hem down in two years and the crease will not press out, that scrap is what lets you decide whether to face the edge, add a band, or trim and rehem.

Letting a hem down

Pick out the stitching with a seam ripper, working from the inside, cutting every fourth or fifth stitch and pulling the thread rather than dragging the ripper along the fabric. Dragging cuts the garment.

Then face the crease. Press with a damp press cloth and steam, repeatedly, working from the wrong side. Most creases fade substantially. Some do not — a hard-set fold in a synthetic, or a sun-faded line where the folded edge protected the fabric beneath it, will remain. If the line stays, you have three honest options: cover it with a band of trim or ribbon sewn at that height, cut the garment off below the line and rehem shorter, or accept the line on a work garment where it does not matter.

If you fold up a shorter hem than before, the old creaseline may now sit below the new hemline where it shows. Plan for that before you cut.

Mending a worn hem

Trouser hems abrade at the back where the fabric meets the shoe. The mend depends on how far it has gone.

If threads have broken but the fabric is sound, restitch, adding a strip of hem tape inside the wear area for reinforcement. If the fabric itself is thinning, back the area with a patch on the inside and secure it with small hand stitches through both layers before restitching the hem. If the edge is worn through, the honest repair is to trim above the damage and rehem shorter, which is why the reserve allowance matters.

Matching cloth before you patch

Our Lord's parable in Luke 5 makes an observation any sewer will recognize: cloth cut from a new garment does not agree with an old one, and forcing the two together tears both. He was teaching about something far greater than sewing, but the observation is exact, and it is the practical rule for every patch you will ever set.

Match four things before you cut a patch. Fiber, because cotton and polyester behave differently under heat and tension. Weight, because a stiff patch on a soft ground will tear the ground at its edges — the strong piece always wins, and the weaker fabric gives way around it. Weave, because a twill patch on a plain weave shifts differently under load. And shrinkage, which means preshrinking any new fabric before it goes onto an old garment that has already done all the shrinking it will do.

Color matching comes last on that list, not first, and that surprises people. A slightly off-color patch that behaves correctly will outlast a perfectly matched one that fights the cloth around it every time the garment is washed.