Unit 6: Facings and Understitching

What a Facing Does and Where It Belongs

A neckline is a curve. A hem is a straight line, and a straight line can simply be folded up twice and stitched down. A curve cannot. Fold a scooped neckline to the inside and the outer edge of that fold is suddenly too long for the space it has to occupy; it ripples, it fights the iron, and it never lies quiet. The facing is the old and sensible answer to that problem.

The job a facing performs

A facing is a second piece of fabric cut in the same shape as the edge it finishes, but only about two to three inches wide. It is stitched to the garment edge with right sides together, then folded to the inside, where it disappears. Three things happen at once. The raw edge is enclosed, so nothing frays. The edge is reinforced, so a neckline that gets tugged over the head twice a week does not gradually grow. And the edge gains a small amount of body, which is what makes a good neckline sit against the collarbone instead of standing away from it.

Because the facing is cut to the same curve as the garment, its outer edge and the garment's edge are the same length. There is no excess to ease away. That is the whole trick, and it is why a facing behaves where a folded hem would not.

How a facing is shaped

Look at a facing piece flat on the table and you will see it is a crescent — wider at the shoulder, narrowing or curving as the neckline drops. A front neckline facing and a back neckline facing are joined at the shoulder seams to make one continuous ring before either one touches the garment. Some patterns use an all-in-one facing that finishes the neckline and both armholes as a single unit.

Cut facings on the same grain as the garment piece they will meet. If the garment front is cut on the lengthwise grain, the front facing must be too. Ignore this and the facing will stretch at a different rate than the garment and pull the finished edge out of shape over time.

The order of operations

Facing work goes wrong most often because the steps are done out of sequence. The order is fixed, and it is worth memorizing before you touch a machine:

1. Interface the facing pieces.
2. Join the facing sections at their seams and finish the facing's outer raw edge.
3. Stitch the facing to the garment, right sides together.
4. Press the seam as sewn, then press both seam allowances toward the facing.
5. Grade and clip the seam allowances.
6. Understitch.
7. Turn the facing to the inside, press over a curved surface, and secure it.

Every one of those steps exists because the step after it needs it. You cannot understitch a seam whose allowances are pressed the wrong way. You cannot press a clean edge over a lumpy ungraded seam.

When a facing is the right choice

A facing is not the only edge finish. Bias binding wraps the edge and stays visible; it suits a sheer where a facing would shadow through, and it suits knits and quilted work. A facing suits woven fabric of light to medium weight where you want the finish invisible and the edge slightly firm.

A facing is a poor choice on a very bulky coating fabric, where three layers at the neckline become unmanageable, and on anything so sheer that the crescent shape would read through the cloth like a watermark.

A word on the work

The psalmist asks God to establish the work of our hands — to make it stand, to give it permanence. That is a strange and good thing to pray over a neckline facing, which no one will ever see. But hidden structure is exactly what makes a garment last through a hundred washings instead of ten. Work that is meant to serve a family for years deserves the inside done as carefully as the outside.

Before you cut, run your hand along the neckline of a ready-made shirt you own and feel for the facing inside. Notice how firm it is, how flat it lies, and whether it rolls out at the front. That is the standard you are working toward.

Choosing Interfacing That Suits the Cloth

Interfacing is the layer nobody sees and everybody feels. It is applied to the wrong side of the facing pieces before those pieces go anywhere near the garment, and its job is to keep a neckline from stretching, sagging, or wilting. Choose it badly and the garment tells on you: a soft rayon blouse with a neckline that stands up like a paper collar, or a linen dress whose neck opening has grown an inch by the third wearing.

Match the weight, or go a shade lighter

The governing rule is simple. Interfacing should weigh the same as your garment fabric or slightly less. Never more.

A fine viscose or a lightweight cotton lawn wants a light fusible. A quilting cotton, a linen blend, or a mid-weight poplin wants a midweight fusible. Denim and canvas want a midweight to firm fusible — but note that even for denim you are usually not reaching for the heaviest product on the shelf, because the denim itself is already doing most of the structural work.

Too heavy, and you get stiffness and bulk that reads through drapey cloth as a visible stiff crescent around the neck. Too light, and the edge sags and stretches, which is exactly what you bought interfacing to prevent. When you are between two weights, take the lighter one. A slightly soft neckline is a small fault; a cardboard one is a ruined garment.

Fusible and sew-in

Fusible interfacing has heat-activated adhesive on one side. Press it on with heat and steam and it bonds. It is faster, it is the conventional first choice, and for most facings on most woven fabrics it is what you want.

Fusible is the wrong choice in four situations, and each has a real reason behind it:

• Napped fabrics — velvet, velveteen, corduroy, suede. The pressure of the iron crushes the pile permanently, and no amount of steaming afterward brings it back.
• Heat-sensitive fibers. Some synthetics and specialty finishes will glaze, shine, or shrink under the iron long before the adhesive has bonded.
• Very textured fabrics. The adhesive only touches the high points, so the bond is partial and lifts within a few washings.
• Loosely woven or open fabrics — lace, mesh, open weaves. The glue squeezes through the holes onto your iron and press cloth.

In all four cases, use sew-in interfacing. Sew-in has no adhesive. You baste it to the wrong side of the facing just inside the seam line, and the permanent construction seam holds it in place from then on.

Woven, knit, and non-woven

Interfacings also differ in how they are made. Woven interfacing has a lengthwise and crosswise grain like ordinary cloth and must be cut on the same grain as the piece it supports. Knit and weft-insertion interfacings have some give and are pleasant under soft fabrics. Non-woven interfacing is pressed rather than woven and has no true grain, so it can be cut in any direction.

Handle each according to its nature. Cutting a woven interfacing off-grain will drag the facing crooked; cutting non-woven any which way is fine.

Test before you commit

Buy or cut a spare piece large enough for a test. Fuse it to a scrap of your actual garment fabric, following the manufacturer's own instructions for that specific product — heat setting, whether steam is used, how long to hold the iron, and whether a press cloth is needed. These instructions vary a great deal from product to product, so the packaging is the authority, not a general rule of thumb.

Let the test scrap cool completely before you judge it. Warm fusible always feels better bonded than it really is. Then drape the cooled scrap over your hand. Does it fall the way you want the neckline to fall? Try to peel a corner up with your fingernail. If it lifts, your iron was too cool, your time too short, or the fabric wrong for fusing.

Counting the cost first

Our Lord's picture of the builder who sits down and counts the cost before he lays a foundation is about honest forethought. A ten-minute test on a scrap, before you commit good fabric and a day's work, is that same forethought in miniature. Sewers who skip the test are not braver than the rest of us; they simply pay for the information later, in a finished garment they do not want to wear.

Fusing Interfacing Without Ruining It

Fusing looks like the least skilled task in the whole process — press a thing onto another thing — and it is where a surprising number of good garments quietly fail. Bubbles, lifted corners, glue on the iron plate, a shine burned into the right side of the cloth. All of it comes from treating the iron like a broom.

Set up before you heat anything

Cut the interfacing pieces from the same pattern pieces as the facings. If the interfacing is woven, lay the pattern on it following the grain line arrow exactly as you did on the fashion fabric. Non-woven has no grain and may be laid out for best use of the yardage.

Identify the glue side. Held to the light, the adhesive side is faintly pebbled or shiny with small dots; the other side is dull and smooth. Run a fingertip across both. If you fuse it upside down you will glue interfacing to your iron, and cleaning that off is a joyless half hour.

Work on a firm surface. A padded ironing board gives under pressure and steals the force you are trying to apply. A wooden table with a folded towel and a pressing cloth over it is better for large pieces.

Press, do not iron

This is the heart of it. Ironing is gliding — the motion you use on a shirt. Pressing is setting the iron down, holding it, lifting it straight up, and setting it down again on the next spot. Fusing requires pressing. Gliding shoves the interfacing sideways while the glue is molten and leaves you with ripples and a facing that no longer matches its pattern piece.

Place the interfacing glue side down on the wrong side of the facing. Cover it with a pressing cloth — a square of muslin or an old cotton pillowcase does perfectly well. Set the iron down, hold it, lift it, and move to the next area, overlapping each placement so no strip is missed. Follow the manufacturer's stated heat setting, steam instruction, and hold time for that particular product; these differ from brand to brand and the packaging is the authority.

Then leave it alone. The bond finishes as the piece cools, and a piece moved or draped while warm will lift at the edges later. Let each piece lie flat on the table until it is cool to the touch.

Judging the result

A good fuse is invisible from the right side. No shine, no imprint of the interfacing's edge, no puckering, no bubbles. Peel-test a corner gently with a fingernail: it should not lift. Flex the piece; the interfacing should move as one with the fabric rather than separating in ripples.

If corners lift, the iron was too cool, the pressure too light, or the time too short. Re-press that area with a pressing cloth and more patience. If you see bubbles across the whole piece, the fabric or the interfacing shrank at a different rate than its partner — a good argument for pre-washing garment fabric before cutting. If a shine has appeared on the right side, the heat was too high for that fiber; the shine will not come out, so cut a fresh piece and drop the temperature.

One more preparation step belongs here. On mid-weight and heavier fabric, trim the seam allowance off the interfacing before fusing — cut it back by the full seam allowance so the interfacing stops just short of the stitching line. This keeps three glued layers out of the seam and makes grading easier later. On light fabric where the interfacing is barely there, leaving the full width is fine and gives a firmer edge.

Iron safety, plainly

An iron at pressing temperature will give a serious burn instantly, and the steam vents burn just as badly as the plate. Set it on its heel every single time you release it, keep the cord out of the walking path, and never leave a heated iron on a table where a child could reach the cord and pull it down. If little ones are in the house, the ironing station is the one part of the sewing room worth being unyielding about.

Quiet work

Paul told the Thessalonians to study to be quiet and to work with their own hands. Fusing rewards exactly that temperament. It cannot be rushed, it cannot be improved by force, and it asks nothing of you but attention and a few unhurried minutes. Most of the skill in sewing is of this kind.

Joining the Facing Ring and Finishing Its Free Edge

Between fusing the interfacing and touching the garment there is a stage many sewers hurry through: the facing pieces have to become one continuous shaped ring, and the edge that will sit loose against the body has to be finished. Do this well and the rest of the process is nearly restful. Do it badly and you will be fighting a twisted, fraying facing at the exact moment you need both hands free.

Sew the facing sections together first

A neckline facing usually arrives as two pieces, front and back, joined at the shoulders. An armhole facing may be a front and back piece joined at both the shoulder and the underarm side seam.

Stitch those joining seams at the seam allowance the pattern calls for — commonly 5/8 inch — using your ordinary construction stitch length of about 2.0 to 2.5mm. Press each of those little seams open, not to one side. Open is the correct choice here because the seam will end up sandwiched inside the finished edge and a pressed-open seam distributes its bulk across two sides instead of stacking it on one.

Trim the shoulder seam allowances of the facing back to about 1/4 inch after pressing. Nobody sees them, they serve no further purpose, and every scrap of thickness you remove from the shoulder area is thickness that does not print through the finished neckline.

Finish the free edge

The facing has two edges. One will be caught in the seam with the garment. The other — the inner, free edge — will lie against the wearer's body forever, unsupported. Woven fabric left raw there will shed threads into the garment and eventually fray back into the facing itself.

Finish that free edge now, while the facing is flat and easy to handle. Any of these work:

• Serged or overlocked edge. Fast and flat. Best on anything that frays willingly.
• Zigzag. A width of about 3mm and a length of about 2mm along the raw edge does the job on a machine without a serger. Let the right swing of the needle fall just off the fabric edge.
• Turn and stitch. Press 1/4 inch to the wrong side and topstitch it down. This is the tidiest finish on light and mid-weight woven fabric and adds a little firmness, but it also adds thickness, so skip it on anything bulky.
• Pinked edge. Acceptable on a tightly woven fabric that barely frays. Not enough on a loose weave.

Choose the flattest option your fabric will tolerate. A lumpy facing edge shows as a faint ridge on the outside of a fitted garment.

Check the shape before you go further

Lay the finished facing ring on the corresponding garment edge, right sides together at the shoulders, and walk it around. The two should match, notch for notch, from center front around to center back. If the facing runs long or short by more than a whisker, something is off — a seam allowance sewn at the wrong width, a piece cut off grain, or a facing stretched while it was handled.

Fix it now. A neckline facing that is a half inch too long will ripple no matter how beautifully you understitch, and no amount of pressing will hide it.

Handle the edge gently

The garment neckline itself is largely cut on the bias through its curve, which means it will stretch if you let it hang from one hand or drag it across the table. Many patterns call for a line of staystitching just inside the seam allowance on the garment neckline for exactly this reason. If yours does, do it, and stitch it in the direction the pattern gives — usually from each shoulder down toward the center — so both halves are stabilized the same way.

Order as a kindness

Paul told the Corinthians to let all things be done decently and in order, and he was writing about a congregation, not a sewing room. But the principle carries. Order is not fussiness; it is the arrangement that keeps the next person — even if the next person is you, tomorrow, at the same table — from having to undo something. A facing joined, pressed, trimmed, and edge-finished before it meets the garment is simply a kindness done in advance to your own hands.

Stitching the Facing to the Garment

Everything so far has been preparation. Now the facing ring and the garment meet, and the single seam you are about to sew determines the shape of the finished neckline. It is not a difficult seam. It is a seam that punishes carelessness in exactly one way: it is curved, and a curve sewn a little wide here and a little narrow there produces a neckline that is subtly wrong and impossible to diagnose later.

Right sides together — check twice

The facing goes against the garment right side to right side. Say it out loud if you must. Sewn wrong sides together, the facing ends up on the outside of the finished garment, and the only remedy is unpicking a long curved seam through interfaced fabric.

Match at the shoulder seams first. The facing's shoulder seams must sit directly on the garment's shoulder seams; pin through both seam lines to lock them. Then match center front to center front, center back to center back, and every notch the pattern gives. Pin between those anchor points, placing pins perpendicular to the seam line with heads toward the raw edge so you can pull them as you go.

On a tight curve, pins every inch is not excessive. On a deep V or a square neckline, pin especially firmly at the corner or point.

Needle, thread, and stitch length

Choose the needle by the garment fabric, not by the facing or the interfacing. Lightweight fabrics take a 60/8 to 75/11. Medium weights — quilting cotton, linen blends, poplin — take an 80/12 to 90/14. Heavy fabrics such as denim take a 100/16 or larger. Those paired numbers are metric and American sizes for the same needle: the 80 in 80/12 means the shaft measures eight hundredths of a millimeter — 0.8mm — across.

A dull or wrong-sized needle shows up as skipped stitches, pulled threads along the neckline, or a small popping sound with every stitch. Change it rather than arguing with it.

Sew at your ordinary construction stitch length, about 2.0 to 2.5mm. On a tight curve, or on a fine slippery fabric, shortening to roughly 1.5 to 1.8mm gives you more control and a smoother line, at the cost of being harder to unpick.

Sewing the curve

Stitch with the facing side up so you can see the interfaced piece and keep the fused layer from shifting. Sew slowly. A curve is sewn by making many small direction changes, not one long swoop — needle down, lift the presser foot a fraction, pivot a degree or two, foot down, continue. Watch the seam allowance guide on the throat plate rather than the needle itself; your eye judges distance far better than it judges a moving needle.

At a V neckline, shorten the stitch length for the inch on either side of the point and take one or two stitches straight across the point rather than pivoting on a single stitch. That tiny flat gives the fabric something to hold when you clip into the V later.

What good looks like

Turn the piece over. The stitching should sit a consistent distance from the raw edge the whole way around, with no wobble where you started and stopped. Press the seam flat exactly as it was sewn, before doing anything else. This is not a wasted step: heat and pressure settle the stitches into the fabric, close the small gaps between them, and give you a clean fold line to work from.

If the seam has puckered, the usual causes are too much thread tension, a stitch length too short for the fabric, or fabric pushed rather than allowed to feed. If the neckline has grown, you stretched the bias while sewing — next time, support the weight of the garment on the table instead of letting it hang off the edge.

Line upon line

Isaiah's picture of precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little, describes how understanding is actually built in a person: not in one revelation but in patient accumulation. A curved seam is sewn the same way — a stitch, a pivot, another stitch, and no single one of them impressive. The finished neckline is nothing but a great many small correct decisions laid end to end.

Grading and Clipping: Taking the Bulk Out of a Curve

The seam is sewn and pressed as stitched. Inside it sit two layers of fabric plus interfacing, all folded to the same width and all about to be turned to the inside of the garment. Left alone, that stack does two ugly things. It prints a ridge along the neckline that you can see from across a room, and on the curve it either bunches or pulls, because the seam allowance of a curve is the wrong length for where it must go.

Grading fixes the ridge. Clipping fixes the curve. They are two different operations and both are needed.

Press first, always

Cut nothing until the seam has been pressed flat as sewn. A pressed seam has settled stitches and full-width allowances that are easy to hold and easy to measure against. Trimmed and clipped allowances are narrow, frayed, and awkward to press without distorting them. The order is press, then cut — never the reverse.

Grading: different widths for different layers

Grading means trimming each layer of the seam allowance to a different width so the stack ends in a staircase rather than a cliff. From a 5/8-inch seam allowance:

• Trim the garment-side allowance — the layer that will lie nearest the outside of the finished garment — to 3/8 inch.
• Trim the facing-side allowance to 1/4 inch.

The wider layer sits under the narrower one, so the change in thickness happens in two small steps instead of one abrupt one, and the outside of the garment stays smooth. Reverse the two and the narrow layer's cut edge presses a visible line through the cloth.

Cut with the two layers separated, not stacked. Slide the blade of a small sharp scissors between them and trim one at a time. If the interfacing was left full width, trim it back closest of all.

Clipping: outward and inward curves

A neckline seam allowance has to change length when it turns. Understand which way and the clipping makes sense.

On an outward, convex curve — the outer curve of a rounded neckline, a scalloped edge, a collar's outside curve — the seam allowance is too long for the space it turns into. It needs fabric removed. Cut small V-shaped notches, roughly 1/2 inch apart, taking a narrow wedge out of the allowance.

On an inward, concave curve — the scoop of a neckline as it dips, the hollow of an armhole — the seam allowance is too short and must spread. It needs to be released, not reduced. Make single straight clips, perpendicular to the seam, about 1/2 inch apart.

In both cases stop the cut just short of the stitching — leave about 1/8 inch of fabric standing between the end of the clip and the thread. Cut into the stitching and you have a hole that will open the first time the garment is pulled over a head.

Space clips evenly. Too far apart and the fabric bunches between them; too close and the allowance loses its strength. On a tight curve tighten the spacing; on a gentle one you may need almost none. Clip only where the curve actually demands it.

Corners and points

At an inward corner, such as the base of a V, clip once straight into the very point, again stopping about 1/8 inch shy of the stitches. That one cut lets the two arms of the V lie down. At an outward corner, cut the point off diagonally across the corner instead, then trim the two allowances beside it at an angle.

Check with your fingers as well as your eyes

Fold the seam allowance toward the facing with your fingers and let the curve fall. It should lie without any tugging. Where it still puckers, you need another clip. Where it still stands up in a ridge, one of the layers wants more trimming.

Proverbs says that the hearing ear and the seeing eye were both made by the Lord — a plain reminder that our senses are given us for use, not for decoration. In sewing, the fingers belong on that list. An experienced sewer reads a seam allowance with her hands as much as her eyes, feeling for the thickness that will print through before it ever gets pressed into the cloth. Train that hand; it is faster than any measuring tool you own.

The Understitch: Hidden Work That Shows on the Outside

Here is the single technique that separates a home-sewn neckline from a well-made one. Understitching costs about ninety seconds, uses no special foot, and is the reason a good facing stays where it was put instead of creeping out around the neck and showing a strip of its wrong side to the world.

What understitching actually is

Understitching is a line of straight stitching sewn on the facing, close to the seam line, catching the facing and both seam allowances — and deliberately not the garment.

That is the whole definition, and every part of it matters. Because the two seam allowances are stitched to the facing, they can no longer roll toward the outside. Because the garment is not caught, nothing shows on the right side. The seam is quietly persuaded to fold a hair to the facing side of the true seam line, so the join sits just inside the edge where nobody sees it.

Understitching is not optional if you want a professional edge. A facing without it will roll out. It may behave for one wearing, but the first wash settles the question.

How to do it

1. Press the seam flat as sewn, then press both seam allowances toward the facing. Not toward the garment. If they lie toward the garment, understitching is simply not possible — there is nothing to catch. Use the tip of the iron and a tailor's ham for the curved sections.
2. Open the work flat, right side up, with the facing and the seam allowances lying away from the garment. Everything you are about to stitch through is on one side of the seam.
3. Set a straight stitch of about 2.0 to 2.5mm. Test a scrap first: thick layers sometimes feed better with the stitch a touch longer than your seam stitch, and the best setting depends on your fabric and your machine, so a two-inch test tells you more than any rule.
4. Stitch on the facing, 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the seam line, all the way around. Keep the seam allowances underneath you as you go, smoothing them toward the facing with your fingers just ahead of the presser foot.
5. Where the fabric wants to fold the wrong way — usually at a tight curve — stop with the needle down, flatten with your fingers, and go on.

Keep your fingers to the side of the presser foot, never directly in front of the needle. The whole thing is done at low speed with the work under tension from both hands, which is precisely the posture that puts a fingertip under a moving needle if you are not deliberate about it.

What it should look like

From the facing side you will see a neat line of stitching running parallel to the seam, about a needle's width or two away. From the right side of the garment you should see nothing at all. Fold the facing to the inside and the edge will roll slightly to the inside on its own — the seam line will want to sit a fraction under the finished edge. That is the effect you paid ninety seconds for.

When you cannot understitch all the way

At a V point, or where a facing meets a zipper or a shoulder seam, the machine cannot reach the last inch or so. Stitch as far in as the foot allows, and finish the remaining short stretch by hand with a small running stitch through facing and seam allowances only. On a deep V, understitch each side separately, working from the point outward.

If the facing still rolls out after understitching, check three things: were both seam allowances caught, or only one; was the line stitched close enough to the seam, or drifting out to half an inch; and was the seam actually graded, since a thick unstepped allowance will overpower any stitching.

Reward for hidden work

Our Lord spoke of alms given in secret and a Father who sees in secret and rewards openly. Understitching is a small, homely picture of that principle. Nobody will ever see this stitching. Nobody will compliment it. But it is the reason the neckline lies flat, and the flat neckline is the thing people do see. Almost everything that makes a garment look expensive is hidden work of exactly this kind.

Pressing the Curve and Turning the Facing Home

Understitching is done. The facing is still lying open, away from the garment, and everything that remains is pressing and securing. This is where a neckline is either finished or spoiled, because a curve pressed on a flat board is a curve pressed into creases it was never meant to have.

Why a flat board is the wrong shape

An ironing board is a plane. A neckline is a shallow dome. Lay that dome flat to press it and you force the extra fabric of the curve to go somewhere, and where it goes is into small pleats and hard creases along the fold. Once pressed in, they are stubborn.

The answer is a curved pressing surface. A tailor's ham is a firm, tightly stuffed, ham-shaped cushion whose surfaces echo the curves of the body. Set the neckline over the part of the ham whose curve most nearly matches it, and the seam is supported in three dimensions while you press. A seam roll — a firm stuffed cylinder — does the same service for long seams and lets you press the center of a seam without the allowance edges printing a ridge on either side.

If you own neither, a tightly rolled towel secured with rubber bands is a serviceable stand-in. It is not as firm, so press with a lighter hand.

Turning and rolling the edge

Fold the facing to the inside of the garment. Before you press a single inch, run the seam between your thumb and forefinger all the way around, rolling it so the seam line sits a hair to the inside — one or two thread widths under the finished edge, on the facing side.

This is called rolling the seam, and it is the reason a well-made neckline never shows a glimpse of facing at the edge. The understitching has already coaxed the seam that direction; your fingers finish the argument. Work in short sections, rolling and pinning as you go, until the whole edge is set.

Then press, over the ham, with steam. Press in short lifts rather than sliding. Use a pressing cloth if your fabric is prone to shine — dark, tightly woven, and synthetic fabrics all shine readily, and the shine does not come out.

Let the piece cool before you move it. Fabric sets its shape as it cools, not while it is hot, and lifting a warm neckline off the ham and draping it over your arm undoes half of what you just did.

Securing the facing so it stays put

A well-pressed, understitched facing behaves, but a facing anchored at a few points behaves permanently. There are several honest ways:

• Tack at the seams. By hand, take a few small stitches through the facing's seam allowance and the garment's shoulder and side seam allowances only, never through to the outside. This is the standard method and is nearly invisible.
• Stitch in the ditch. From the right side, stitch precisely in the groove of the shoulder seam, catching the facing beneath. Done accurately it disappears; done sloppily it wanders off the seam and is obvious.
• Topstitch the edge. A row of stitching 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the finished neckline edge, through all layers, from the right side. This is a visible design choice, not a hidden one, and it flattens the edge firmly. Suits casual garments; wrong on anything meant to look soft.
• Slipstitch. Hand-stitch the facing's free edge to the garment with tiny stitches that catch only a thread or two of the garment. Invisible from the outside, and the right choice on fine fabric.

When it still will not lie flat

If ripples remain at the neckline after pressing, the most likely cause is that the edge stretched somewhere along the way and the facing is now shorter than the opening. Steam alone will sometimes shrink a small amount of excess back — hold the iron just above the fabric, let steam soak in, and shape the edge with your fingers as it cools.

If a hard ridge shows on the outside, the seam was not graded, or was graded with the wrong layer left widest. If the facing peeks out in one spot only, that section was not rolled before pressing. Unpick nothing yet; re-roll and re-press that section first, since most of these faults are pressing faults.

The end of a thing

The Preacher says that the end of a thing is better than its beginning, and that the patient in spirit is better than the proud. Pressing is where patience pays. It is slow, it is invisible in a photograph, and it is the difference between a garment that looks handmade and one that looks well made. Give the last twenty minutes of a neckline the same attention you gave the first twenty.

Armhole Facings on a Sleeveless Garment

An armhole facing is built on everything you already know — interface, join, stitch, grade, clip, understitch, press — but it is tighter, smaller, and less forgiving than a neckline. The curve is sharper. The opening is narrow enough that the finished ring will not fit around most ironing boards. And unlike a neckline, an armhole is under constant motion; every reach of the arm tugs at it.

What is different about an armhole

The armhole curve changes direction. The lower half, under the arm, is a deep scoop — a concave curve that needs releasing clips. The upper half, over the shoulder, is much shallower. That means your clipping is not uniform around the ring: close together and generous through the underarm scoop, sparse or absent across the top.

An armhole facing is always interfaced. There is no exception worth making. An unstabilized armhole under a moving arm will stretch out of shape within a season, and once it has grown, it gapes at the front and there is no cure short of rebuilding it.

Order of assembly

The armhole facing is usually a front piece and a back piece, joined at both the shoulder seam and the underarm side seam to form a closed ring. Interface both pieces, sew both joining seams, press them open, trim them to about 1/4 inch, and finish the facing's free inner edge before it goes near the garment — a serged, zigzagged, or turned-and-stitched edge, chosen for whichever lies flattest in your fabric.

Then pin the ring into the armhole, right sides together, matching the shoulder seam to the shoulder seam and the underarm seam to the side seam. Stitch at the pattern's seam allowance with your usual construction stitch of about 2.0 to 2.5mm.

The tight-curve problem

Sewing the underarm scoop is the hard part. The curve is tight enough that a wide presser foot wants to push the fabric rather than turn with it. Slow down to a crawl, and pivot often — needle down, foot barely lifted, a degree or two of turn, foot down. Free-arm the machine if it converts, so the tube of the garment has somewhere to go.

Grade as you did before: garment-side allowance to 3/8 inch, facing-side to 1/4 inch. Clip the underarm scoop with single straight clips about 1/2 inch apart, or a little closer where it is tightest, stopping about 1/8 inch shy of the stitching. Press the allowances toward the facing over a ham, understitch 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the seam on the facing side, then turn and roll the edge to the inside.

Pressing a ring you cannot lay flat

The finished armhole will not fit over a standard ironing board. This is what a sleeve board or the narrow end of a tailor's ham is for; slide the ring over it in sections and press a few inches at a time, letting each stretch cool before moving on. A rolled towel will serve. Do not force the ring flat on the board to press it — that presses a crease into the ring where none belongs.

Secure the facing by tacking it to the shoulder and side seam allowances by hand. Because the arm moves constantly, this anchoring matters more here than at a neckline.

Then check the fit. Put the garment on, or on a form, and lift the arm. The armhole should not bind, and the facing should not flip out into view under the arm. If it flips, either it was not understitched all the way through the underarm scoop — a common miss, since that is the hardest inch to reach — or the tacking is missing.

Strength and honor for clothing

Proverbs draws its picture of the virtuous woman with clothing as the metaphor: strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. A sleeveless garment is worth a word here, gently and without lecturing anyone. Many families sew sleeveless bodices to be layered — a fitted vest over a blouse, a jumper over a long-sleeved shirt — and an armhole facing is what makes that layer sit neatly against the garment beneath. Clothing our households modestly and well is a good and cheerful task, an outward token of the inward strength the proverb praises. Sew what suits your family's conscience, and sew it beautifully.

Diagnosing a Facing That Went Wrong

Every sewer produces bad facings. The difference between a beginner and a capable sewer is not that the capable one avoids the faults; it is that she can look at a finished neckline, name the fault, and know which step caused it. That skill is worth more than any single technique, because it turns a spoiled garment into information. Here are the faults you will actually meet, and what each one is telling you.

Faults you can see from the outside

The facing rolls out and shows. A strip of the facing's wrong side peeks around the neckline. This is the most common complaint of all, and it has three causes in order of likelihood. First, the seam was not understitched; nothing else will substitute. Second, it was understitched but the line drifted too far from the seam — understitching must run 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the seam line to have any leverage. Third, the edge was never rolled with the fingers before pressing, so the seam line sits on the outer edge instead of a hair to the inside. Check first that both seam allowances were caught by the understitching. If they were, re-roll and re-press over a ham. If they were not, unpick that section and redo it.

A hard ridge shows through. Run your hand down the neckline from the right side and you feel a raised line. The seam allowances were not graded, or were graded backwards with the facing-side layer left wider than the garment-side layer. The garment side takes 3/8 inch and the facing side 1/4 inch, in that order, so the step lies under the thicker layer. Turn the facing back out, separate the layers, and re-trim. This is repairable at any stage.

The neckline ripples or waves. The garment edge grew longer than the facing. Either the bias sections were stretched during handling and stitching, or the facing was cut off grain. Steam will sometimes shrink a small excess back: hold the iron just above the edge, let it steam, shape with your fingers, and let it cool untouched. If it is more than a small excess, the honest remedy is a new facing cut carefully on grain, or unpicking and re-stitching with the excess eased in over the shoulders.

Faults in the stitching and the cloth

Puckering along the seam. Small gathers pull up along the stitching itself. Look at thread tension first, then at stitch length — too short a stitch on a fine fabric will pucker — then at whether you were pushing the fabric through rather than letting the feed dogs carry it.

A stiff, papery facing. The interfacing was heavier than the garment fabric. There is no rescue once it is fused. This fault must be prevented, by matching interfacing weight to fabric weight or going a shade lighter, and by testing on a scrap first.

Fabric bunching between the clips. The clips were spaced too far apart for that curve. Add clips between the existing ones, keeping about 1/8 inch of fabric between the end of each cut and the stitching. If a clip has gone through the stitching, stitch a short reinforcing line just inside the original seam across that spot before going further; a clipped stitching line will open under strain.

Unpicking without doing more damage

Most of these repairs begin with a seam ripper, and the ripper does more harm than the original mistake in unpracticed hands. Work under good light with a small, sharp tool. Cut every third or fourth stitch from one side, then lift the loosened thread away from the other side, rather than dragging the point along inside the seam. Dragging tears fabric, and a torn neckline is a real loss where a slowly picked seam is only ten minutes.

Pick out the whole affected section rather than a few inches in the middle of it. A patched repair leaves a visible change of direction in the stitching, and you will see it every time you wear the garment. Brush away the cut thread ends with a stiff brush or a strip of tape before you re-sew, or they will work their way to the outside and show as fuzz along the seam.

Falling and rising again

Proverbs says the just man falls seven times and rises up again. The verse is not a promise that he stops falling; it is a description of what makes him just. That is an honest picture of learning to sew. Nobody's seventh facing is their first facing, and the sewers whose work you admire have a basket of ruined necklines behind them that they simply do not show you. Keep yours. Look at them a year from now, and let them tell you how far the hands have come.