Unit 10: Linings and What Goes Underneath

The Three Hidden Layers: Interfacing, Underlining, and Lining

A garment that hangs well and wears for years is rarely one layer of cloth. Underneath the part the world sees there is usually a quiet second construction doing the real structural work. Three different layers get confused with each other constantly, and the confusion costs people money and whole afternoons. They are interfacing, underlining, and lining. They are not interchangeable, and learning to tell them apart is the whole foundation of everything that follows.

Interfacing works in small places

Interfacing is a support fabric applied only to localized areas: collars, cuffs, waistbands, button plackets, the turn-up of a hem, the edge of a pocket opening. It is never applied to a whole garment. Its job is to keep a small, hard-working part of the garment crisp and stable while the rest of the cloth stays soft. Think of the band of a skirt. The band carries the weight of the skirt and the pull of a button; without support it rolls, twists, and stretches out of shape by lunchtime. A strip of interfacing inside it holds the shape you cut.

Interfacing comes fusible, with a heat-activated adhesive on one side, or sew-in, which is stitched into the seam and simply stays there. Both have their place, and we will treat each of them properly later on.

Underlining is cut like the garment itself

Underlining is an entirely different animal. It is cut from the very same pattern pieces as the fashion fabric — every piece, the whole shape, grainline and all — and then basted to the wrong side of each fashion-fabric piece before construction begins. From that moment the two layers are treated as a single cloth. You sew the darts through both. You press both. You finish the seam allowances of both together.

Underlining does four things at once. It gives thin cloth body without stiffness. It gives an opaque backing to fabric that would otherwise be see-through. It gives you a hidden layer to catch hem stitches and interior tacks in, so nothing shows on the outside. And it takes strain off a fragile fashion fabric by giving it something sturdier to lean on.

Lining is the finished inside

A lining is a separate garment, or nearly so, made of smooth fabric and attached to the main garment only at particular places — necklines, armholes, front facings, the hem — usually by hand or by a machine seam that gets turned and pressed. It is not cut identically to the garment pieces; lining patterns are drafted a little differently to allow ease and to stop short where facings begin.

A lining hides seam allowances, keeps a wool skirt from itching, lets a sleeve slide over a blouse instead of dragging on it, and protects the inside of the garment from body oils and wear. It hangs free. That freedom is the point: the lining moves independently, so the outside is not disturbed by what the inside is doing.

Telling them apart when a pattern is vague

Pattern envelopes are often careless with these words. Read the piece list instead of the description. If the pattern lists small shaped pieces labeled for the collar, cuff, or band only, that is interfacing. If it tells you to cut a second complete set of the main pieces from a different fabric and baste them together, that is underlining, regardless of what the envelope calls it. If it lists its own separate set of pieces that stop at a facing line, that is a lining.

The commonest beginner mistake in the whole subject is applying interfacing to a whole garment piece because it seemed like the way to add body. The result is a board. Body comes from underlining; crispness in one small place comes from interfacing.

The work that no one sees

Scripture speaks well of what is hidden. Peter praises "the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible," and calls it of great price in the sight of God. That is a fair description of good interior work. Nobody at church will ever see your basting stitches or the strip of interfacing in your waistband, and yet those are the parts that decide whether the dress still hangs straight in five years. Work as carefully on the inside as on the outside. It is honest work, and it is the kind of quiet care that God Himself notices.

Reading Weight: Matching Support to the Cloth You Have

Every failure of a hidden layer that I have ever had to unpick came down to weight. The support was heavier than the cloth, and the cloth lost the argument. Weight is the first decision, before fiber, before fusible or sew-in, before anything. Learn to judge it and most of your interior work will simply behave.

What GSM means and why it is on the bolt

Support fabrics are sold by GSM — grams per square meter, the weight of one square meter of the goods. It is a plain, honest number, and it lets you compare an interfacing from one shop with an interfacing from another without holding them both in your hands.

For interfacing the useful bands run roughly like this. About 25 GSM is ultra-lightweight, the sort of thing used in baby garments and the sheerest blouses. About 50 GSM is lightweight, the standard for shirts and blouses. About 75 GSM is a medium weight, suited to suits and dresses. From about 95 to 100 GSM is medium-heavy, meant for coats and jackets. Above that you are into craft and bag interfacings, which have no business inside clothing.

Lining fabrics are lighter still. Bemberg rayon, the fine lining used in good tailoring, runs around 75 to 85 GSM — about two and a half ounces per square yard. That is light enough to slip and hang without adding a whisper of bulk.

The rule: match or go lighter

Here is the whole principle in one line. Support fabric should weigh the same as the fashion fabric or less, never more.

A support layer heavier than the cloth takes over. The garment stops draping and starts standing. Sleeves hold a shape of their own instead of following the arm. A soft rayon dress interfaced with a medium-heavy coat weight will hang like a shingle and no amount of pressing will rescue it. Going lighter costs you very little; a support slightly too soft simply lets the fashion fabric be itself, which is usually what you wanted anyway.

Testing before you cut

Numbers only take you so far, because two fabrics at the same GSM can feel entirely different. So test. This is five minutes that saves an afternoon.

Cut a square of the fashion fabric about six inches by six inches, and a matching square of the candidate support. Put them together as they will be in the garment — fused, if fusible, following the maker's instructions on the package; simply held together if sew-in or underlining. Now drape the sample over your hand. Let it fall over the edge of the table. Roll it gently between your fingers.

Ask three questions. Does it still fall in the same kind of fold the fashion fabric fell in alone? Does the fashion fabric still look like itself from the right side, or has the surface gone flat and dull? Can you feel a distinct hard edge where the support ends? If the drape has changed character, drop a weight and test again.

Do this with three weights at once if you can — light, medium, and medium-heavy fused to identical scraps — and bend each one in your hand. You will learn more about stiffness in ten minutes of handling samples than in an hour of reading, and the samples keep. Write the GSM on each one in pencil and put them in a box. In two years you will still be pulling them out.

Where weight is allowed to climb

There are honest exceptions. A shirt collar stand may carry a slightly firmer interfacing than the shirt body because it must stand up under a collar all day. A coat front may be underlined heavier than a coat sleeve. But these are considered decisions about a particular small area, not a general license. The rule holds everywhere else.

Weight, honesty, and the work of your hands

"A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight." That proverb is about the scales of a merchant, and its first meaning is honest dealing. But there is a quieter truth in it for anyone who works with materials: things have a true weight, and pretending otherwise does not go well. You cannot make a heavy interfacing behave like a light one by wishing. Learning to see what a material actually is — and to build within what it can do — is a form of truthfulness. Good work begins there.

Shrink It First: Preparing Linings and Interfacings

A dress can be cut perfectly, sewn perfectly, and ruined the first time it is washed, because the lining shrank and the wool did not. The outside is then too big for its inside. Puckers run up the seams, the hem draws in at odd places, and there is no repair short of taking the lining out entirely. All of it is prevented in an evening of quiet preparation before the scissors ever come out.

Why the layers must shrink together

Different fibers, weaves, and finishes take up moisture and heat differently. A rayon lining, a cotton underlining, and a wool fashion fabric will each move a different amount the first time they get wet. As long as they are three separate pieces of cloth in a cupboard, that does not matter. Once they are stitched into one garment, whichever layer shrinks most drags the others with it. The fix is simple: make every layer do its shrinking before it is cut, while it is still flat and harmless.

This applies to the fashion fabric, the lining, the underlining, and the interfacing alike. People remember the fashion fabric and forget the rest. The rest is exactly where the trouble comes from.

Preparing sew-in interfacing and underlining

Sew-in interfacing and underlining fabrics have no adhesive to protect, so they can be prepared the way you intend to launder the finished garment — only more so. Wash them in hot water and either tumble dry or line dry them. Hot water and heat give the cloth every chance to do its worst now.

Press the piece smooth while it is still slightly damp, or press it dry with steam, and set it aside flat or rolled rather than folded hard. A sharp crease pressed into a support fabric has a way of surviving into the finished garment.

Preparing fusible interfacing — gently

Fusible interfacing needs a different hand. The adhesive is a coating of heat-sensitive resin, and a machine wash with agitation and a hot tumble dry can soften, crack, or partly strip it. You then fuse a piece that no longer bonds evenly, and it lifts in bubbles months later.

Instead, fold the fusible loosely — loosely, not in a tight bundle — and lower it into a basin of hot water. Let it soak, undisturbed, until the water has cooled to room temperature. Do not wring it and do not scrub it. Lift it out, support its weight so it does not stretch, press the water out between towels, and lay it flat or drape it over a rod to dry on its own. No dryer, no iron.

Take a moment with the basin itself. Hot tap water scalds; carry a full basin with both hands, and keep it away from the edge of a table where a child could reach it.

Buy the shrinkage, not just the yardage

Since these fabrics will lose a little length, buy accordingly. If a pattern calls for two yards of lining, take a little extra rather than exactly two. It is a small cost against the alternative, which is discovering you are four inches short after everything has dried.

Measure before and after if you want to learn what your particular goods do. Cut a square, mark it with two pins a measured distance apart, treat it, and measure again. Different fibers behave differently and it is worth knowing which of yours are the movers, but do not assume a number you read somewhere applies to the bolt in your hands. Test your own cloth.

Care instructions carry forward

One more thing to settle at this stage: the finished garment can only be cared for in the way its most delicate layer allows. Acetate lining, for instance, can be harmed by dry cleaning solvents, so check the care information for the lining you buy before you commit a wool coat to a dry cleaner. Decide the care method now, prepare every layer for that method, and write it on a slip of paper that goes into the project bag.

Prepared before the moment arrives

When Joseph was pulled hurriedly out of the dungeon to stand before Pharaoh, he did not go in as he was. He shaved himself and changed his raiment first, even with the summons urgent and the moment suddenly upon him. Being ready to be seen was not a detail to skip because time was short; it was part of being actually ready, not just technically present. The layers of a garment ask for the same order of operations. The finished coat will stand in front of the world for years, washed and worn and judged by how it holds up, and none of that readiness can be improvised at the ironing board after the seams are already sewn. Prepare every layer while there is still time to do it right. Shrink the layers. Then cut.

Woven, Non-Woven, Knit, and Weft-Insertion

Walk up to the interfacing shelf and you will find four families of goods that look, at a glance, like four shades of the same white stuff. They are not. Each behaves differently under the needle and in the finished garment, and choosing the wrong family is the reason a collar twists or a placket ripples for no visible cause.

Woven interfacing

Woven interfacing is real cloth: warp threads and weft threads crossing at right angles, with a lengthwise grain, a crosswise grain, and a bias, exactly like the fabric of your dress. It behaves like fabric, which is its virtue. A shirt collar interfaced with a good woven feels like cloth rather than like paper, and it ages the way the shirt ages.

It carries one strict requirement: you must match its grain to the grain of the piece you are supporting. Lengthwise grain on the interfacing lies along the lengthwise grain of the fashion fabric. If you cut it carelessly — a little off, or crosswise where it should be lengthwise — the two layers stretch by different amounts in different directions, and after fusing the piece skews. A collar point curls up. A cuff will not lie flat. Nothing you do afterward corrects it, because the two grains are permanently bonded and pulling against one another.

So find the straight grain before you cut. On most wovens you can see the threads plainly against a window, and the selvage edge tells you the lengthwise direction at once.

Non-woven interfacing

Non-woven interfacing has no threads and no grain. Its fibers are pressed and bonded together in a random mat, rather like felt or paper. Because there is no grain, there is nothing to match, and that makes it the most predictable and forgiving of the four. You can cut it in any direction, and it will not skew.

The trade-off is hand. Non-woven feels papery compared with woven, particularly in heavier weights, and it tends to make a crisper, more manufactured-looking edge. For a waistband, a bag opening, or a button placket, that crispness is often exactly right. For a soft blouse collar, it can be too much. Non-woven is also the family most likely to look right on the table and feel wrong on the body, so test a sample before committing a whole garment to it.

Knit interfacing

Knit interfacing is knitted, so it stretches, and it stretches in company with the fabric it supports. This is the family for jersey, ponte, sweater knits, and any garment that has to give when the wearer moves. Fuse a rigid interfacing into the neckband of a knit top and the first time the wearer pulls it over her head, either the stitches pop or the interfacing tears loose from the fabric.

Note the direction of the stretch. Most knit interfacings give across the width and are stable along the length; lay that stretch in the same direction the garment must stretch.

Weft-insertion interfacing

Weft insertion is the tailor's compromise. It has yarns laid in across the width, inserted into a knitted or bonded base, so it combines characteristics of more than one family: stability across the piece, along with a soft, cloth-like drape rather than a papery one. It is the family most often reached for in jacket and coat fronts, where a large area needs both quiet support and a hand that still moves.

Choosing quickly

Ask what the area must do. Must it stretch? Knit. Must it be crisp and small and forgiving to cut? Non-woven. Must it feel like cloth in a woven garment? Woven, cut on grain. Must a large tailored area be supported without going stiff? Weft insertion. Then, always, fuse a sample and handle it before you fuse the garment.

The weaver's craft

Scripture takes the weaver seriously. In Exodus, the Lord filled men "with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer... and of the weaver." The people who built the tabernacle hangings knew grain the way you are learning to know it — which way the threads ran, and what the cloth would do when it was pulled. That knowledge is not beneath God's notice. It was given, in that account, by His Spirit. Learning to read the threads in a piece of interfacing is a very small share in a very old and honorable craft.

Fusing Clean: Interfacing Without Bubbles or Scorch

Fusible interfacing is the fastest way to put structure into a garment and the fastest way to ruin a piece of good cloth. The whole difference lies in about four minutes of care. Once fused, it is fused; there is no unpicking a bonded surface without damage. So the sequence below is worth learning as a sequence and following the same way every time.

Test on a scrap before you touch the garment

Cut a scrap of the fashion fabric and a scrap of the interfacing, and fuse them together before you fuse anything that matters. Manufacturers differ, and the instructions printed on the package or the bolt end are the authority for that particular product — heat setting, whether to use steam, and how long to hold the iron. Follow them, not a number you remember from another brand.

The scrap tells you three things. Whether the heat marks or scorches your fabric. Whether the fabric shrinks under the iron, which some synthetics do. And whether the bond actually holds when you try to peel a corner up with your thumbnail. If the corner lifts, the fuse was too short, too cool, or too light on pressure, and you now know that before it happens on a collar.

Setting up

Work on a firm surface. A padded, springy ironing board absorbs the pressure you are trying to apply; a board with a firm cover, or a piece of hardwood covered with a towel, gives a much better bond.

Lay the fabric wrong side up. Place the interfacing adhesive side down on it. The adhesive side is the one with a faint dotted or pebbled texture; run a fingertip across both faces and you will feel which is which. Getting this backwards puts melted resin on your iron sole, which is a miserable half hour with a cleaning stick.

Lay a pressing cloth over the whole thing — a piece of plain cotton or a bit of muslin. It protects the sole plate, spreads the heat evenly, and costs nothing.

Press, do not iron

This is where most beginners go wrong. You do not slide the iron. Sliding drags the interfacing out of position and stretches the fabric under it, and the piece comes out distorted.

Set the iron down flat on one section and hold it still, with steady downward pressure, for about ten seconds. Then lift straight up, move to the next section overlapping the last one slightly, and press again. Overlapping matters: the gaps between iron placements are exactly where bubbles appear later. Work across the whole piece that way.

When the wrong side is done, turn the piece over and press once more from the right side, through the pressing cloth. That final pass settles the bond completely.

Then leave it alone. Let the piece lie flat and cool untouched before you move or cut it. Moving a warm fused piece is how a good bond turns into a wrinkled one.

What goes wrong, and what to do

Bubbles or ripples on the right side usually mean an incomplete bond: too little time, too little pressure, missed sections, or a piece moved while warm. Sometimes a firm re-press with a pressing cloth will rescue it. Often it will not, and the honest remedy is to cut a fresh piece.

A shiny or glazed patch on the right side means too much heat, and it does not come out. Lower the setting and always keep the pressing cloth between iron and cloth.

A stiff, boardy result means the weight was wrong, not the technique. Go lighter and start again.

Adhesive on the iron sole means the interfacing went down face up. Let the iron cool, clean it properly, and check the texture with your finger next time.

Two words about safety

An iron at fusing heat will burn you instantly and will burn a child worse. Set it on its heel every single time you set it down — not resting on the board, not balanced on a seam. Keep the cord out of the walkway, and never leave a hot iron in a room where a small child is loose.

Refined by heat

"Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." Heat, in the right hands and for the right length of time, makes a thing fit for use; carelessly applied, it destroys. That is as true at an ironing board as it was at a silversmith's fire. Patience with the iron is not fussiness. It is the very thing that turns raw material into something worth wearing.

Sew-In Interfacing for Delicate and Reversible Work

Fusibles have made themselves so ordinary that many sewers have never used anything else. That is a loss, because there are garments a fusible simply cannot serve, and the older method — interfacing that is stitched in rather than glued in — is neither difficult nor slow once you have done it twice.

When the iron is the wrong tool

Reach for sew-in interfacing whenever heat and adhesive would spoil what you are working with.

Delicate fibers come first. Silk chiffon, fine handkerchief linen, an antique cotton lawn — the pressure and heat needed for a proper fuse can flatten the surface, glaze it, or shrink it in a patch you cannot press out.

Then textured and napped cloth. Velvet, corduroy, boucle, and anything with a raised pile will crush under a ten-second press, and the crushed area does not recover. Any surface with a slub or a loose weave is likely to show the adhesive dots as faint pebbling from the right side once the garment has been worn and washed a few times.

Then heat-sensitive synthetics, some of which soften or distort at fusing temperature.

Finally, reversible garments and anything you may want to alter deeply in future. A sew-in can be unpicked; a fusible is there for good.

Cutting and attaching

Cut sew-in interfacing from the pattern piece it supports. If it is woven, match the grain exactly as you would for a fusible woven; a sew-in can still skew a piece if the grains fight one another.

Trim the interfacing out of the seam allowances wherever bulk matters. Two common methods: cut the interfacing to the finished stitching line instead of the cutting line, or cut it full and then trim it close to the stitching after it is caught in the seam. On a heavy coat front, trimming is the difference between a smooth edge and a lumpy one.

Attach it one of two ways. Machine baste it to the wrong side of the garment piece just inside the seam line — a hair under the seam allowance width, so that your permanent stitching will cover the basting and it never has to be removed. Or, on fine work, catch it by hand with a loose running stitch or a few widely spaced catch stitches through the interfacing and into the underside of the fashion fabric, taking up only a thread or two of the fashion fabric so nothing shows through.

That "thread or two" is the whole art of it. Pull the fabric up and look at the right side against a window as you go. If you can see a dimple where each stitch sits, you are taking too deep a bite, or your thread is too tight. Loosen both.

Thread, needle, and tension

Use a fine, sharp hand needle and a single strand of thread that matches the fashion fabric rather than the interfacing. Keep the thread short — an arm's length or less — because a long thread tangles, wears, and drags rough over fine cloth.

Never pull the hand stitches snug. Sew-in interfacing must lie against the fabric, not gather it. The finished piece should hang exactly as the fashion fabric alone would hang, only with more substance behind it.

If you machine baste instead, a universal needle in 80/12 for lighter goods or 90/14 for heavier ones is the sensible range, with an ordinary straight stitch. Watch your fingers near the needle when you are guiding two shifting layers; that is the moment people get stitched.

What goes wrong

Rippling along the interfaced edge usually means the interfacing was stretched as it was stitched. Lay both layers flat on the table and pin, rather than holding them up in your lap.

Visible stitches from the right side mean deeper bites or tighter thread than the cloth allows. Take them out and try again with a finer needle.

A hard ridge at the edge means the interfacing was left full in the seam allowance. Trim it back.

A bruised reed

"A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench." The prophet is describing the gentleness of the Lord toward frail people, and it is one of the tenderest lines in Scripture. It also names a real habit of hand. A fine silk, an old linen handed down, a piece of cloth already worn thin — these ask for the gentle tool rather than the strong one. Learning to recognize what cannot bear force, and to work with it instead of against it, is a small daily schooling in the same kindness we have been shown.

Underlining: Cutting and Basting a Second Skin

Underlining is the layer that most changes what a beginner can make. It takes a limp cotton and gives it body. It makes a thin summer skirt decently opaque. It gives a fragile fabric something to lean on so it does not tear at the strain points. And it gives you a place to hide every hem stitch and interior tack, so that from the outside the garment looks as though it were made by no one at all.

Choosing the underlining cloth

The rule from earlier holds: match the fashion fabric's weight or go lighter. Beyond that, ask what the fashion fabric lacks.

If it lacks opacity, choose a smooth, closely woven cloth in a color close to the fashion fabric — often a shade lighter, so it does not darken the outside. If it lacks body, choose something with a little crispness of its own. If it is scratchy against the skin, remember that underlining sits between the fashion fabric and the body, so it must be pleasant to wear.

Cotton batiste, cotton lawn, and lightweight muslin are all used for underlining, and so are purpose-made commercial underlining fabrics. There is no single correct answer; the right choice is the one that gives your cloth what it is missing without changing how it drapes. Test a sample by holding the two together and letting them fall over your hand, exactly as you tested interfacing.

And pre-shrink it. Underlining is stitched into the garment for life; if it shrinks later, the whole garment puckers.

Cutting

Cut the underlining from the same pattern pieces as the fashion fabric, on the same grainlines, with the same notches. Every piece that is underlined gets a full twin.

Transfer your markings to the underlining rather than to the fashion fabric — dart legs, dart points, pocket placements, notch positions. This is one of the pleasures of underlining: chalk and tailor's tacks can go on the underlining side where a mark can never show through and never has to be removed from good cloth. Once the layers are basted, those marks read as the marks of the piece itself.

Basting the layers together

Lay the fashion fabric wrong side up on a flat table. Do not do this in your lap; the layers will shift and you will not know it until the piece is finished. Smooth the underlining over it, wrong sides together, matching edges and notches. Pin from the center of the piece outward toward the edges, smoothing as you go, so any fullness is worked out to the edges rather than trapped in the middle.

Baste with a running stitch about half an inch in from the cut edge — that is just inside the seam line if you are working with the common five-eighths-inch seam allowance, so the basting sits in the seam allowance and can stay there permanently if you like.

Baste the darts too, and this is the step people skip. Run a line of basting along each dart fold line, and carry it about two inches past the dart point. A dart pulls the two layers against each other hard; without that basting the underlining shifts and the dart puckers on the outside.

Hand basting is worth the time here. The needle lets you feel and correct any shifting as you go, which no machine can do. If you must machine baste, use the longest stitch your machine offers — about 4.0 to 5.0 mm on most machines — with the upper tension reduced, which makes an unbalanced, loose stitch that pulls out easily. Do not backstitch at either end; the whole point is that it comes out. A short basting stitch is misery to remove and takes fashion fabric with it.

From here on, one cloth

Once basted, forget there are two layers. Sew every seam, dart, and hem through both. Press both. Finish the seam allowances of both as one edge. The commonest failure with underlining is trying to construct a garment and add the underlining afterward, which cannot work — the seams and darts will never line up.

Curiously wrought, out of sight

"My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth." The psalmist is describing the body itself, knit together in a place no eye could see, with a care that did not slacken simply because nobody was watching it happen. Underlining is the small sewing-room echo of that same principle. It is stitched into a place no one will ever see once the garment is finished — every dart basted, every mark hidden on the underside, an hour of careful hand-work that exists entirely for the sake of what it holds up from beneath. No one will admire it directly. They will only ever see its effect: a garment that hangs right, holds its shape, and does not pucker at the darts three washings later. Work that thoroughly unseen and that carefully made is not wasted effort. It is, in its own small way, curious workmanship of exactly the kind this verse honors.

Sewing Two Layers as One: Darts, Seams, and Pressing

The underlining is basted in. From this point the garment behaves differently under your hands, and a few habits have to change. Sew an underlined piece the way you would sew a single layer and you will get twisted seams, thick darts, and shadow lines showing on the right side. None of it is hard; it is simply a different set of small decisions.

Sewing seams through both layers

Every seam is stitched through fashion fabric and underlining together, on the marked seam line, as though they were one cloth. That is the entire principle, and most trouble comes from forgetting it.

The two layers are now thicker, so give the machine a little help. A universal needle in 80/12 suits most light-to-medium underlined work; step up to 90/14 for wool, twill, or anything with real substance. Lengthen the stitch slightly — around 2.5 mm rather than a very short stitch — since a thick seam sewn with tiny stitches draws up and puckers.

Sew every seam in the same direction where you can, usually from the wide end toward the narrow, or from hem up toward the waist on a skirt. Two layers fed in opposite directions on adjacent seams will twist the finished garment quite noticeably, because the feed dogs always move the bottom layer a little faster than the presser foot moves the top.

Darts in an underlined piece

Fold the dart through both layers on the basted fold line and stitch from the wide end toward the point. As you approach the point, shorten your stitch for the last half inch or so and let the last two or three stitches run right along the fold rather than off the edge. That is what keeps a dart point smooth instead of dimpled.

Do not backstitch at the point; a knot of stitching there makes a hard bump that shows through both layers. Leave thread tails and tie them off by hand instead.

Two layers make a bulkier dart. On heavier fabrics, slash the dart open down the center to within about an inch of the point and press the fold open flat, which removes the ridge. On light fabrics, press the whole dart to one side — vertical darts toward the center of the garment, horizontal darts such as bust darts downward.

Pressing as you go

Press every seam and dart before it is crossed by another. This is true of all sewing and doubly true here, because once a second seam locks a wrinkle into two layers you cannot press it out.

Press from the wrong side wherever possible. When you must press from the right side, use a pressing cloth. Two layers hold heat and moisture longer than one, so give the piece a moment to cool flat under the weight of your hand before you move it — that is what sets the press.

Use a seam roll or a rolled towel under long seams. Without it, the ridge of the seam allowance prints a visible line on the right side, and an underlined garment shows those lines more readily than a single layer does. A tailor's ham does the same service for curved seams and darts.

Finishing the seam allowances

Both layers are finished together as one edge — pinked, zigzagged, overcast, or bound. Do not finish them separately; separate finishing lets the underlining creep away from the fashion fabric and shadow along the seam.

What goes wrong

A seam that ripples on one layer but not the other means the layers fed unevenly. A walking foot, or hand basting the seam before you sew it, cures this.

A dart that dimples at the point means backstitching, too abrupt an ending, or a stitch line that curved away from the fold at the last moment.

A shadowy ridge on the right side is almost always seam allowances pressed without a seam roll.

Two are better than one

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor... and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Solomon is speaking of companionship, but the picture he uses is a craftsman's picture: strands joined together hold what a single strand cannot. Your underlined garment is exactly that. Two modest cloths, neither remarkable alone, become one strong and well-hanging thing because they were joined carefully and treated thereafter as one.

Choosing a Lining Fiber: Bemberg, Acetate, Polyester, Silk

A lining is not scrap fabric used up on the inside. It is the layer against the skin, or against the blouse, all day long, and its fiber decides whether a garment is a pleasure to wear or a trial. Four fibers cover nearly everything a home sewer will do.

Bemberg rayon

Bemberg is the standard for good tailoring, and there are reasons. It is light, about 75 to 85 grams per square meter — roughly two and a half ounces to the square yard — with a smooth, slippery surface and something close to the hand of silk. It breathes, which matters enormously in a fitted sleeve on a warm day, and it resists the static cling that makes a lined skirt climb the wearer's stockings.

It is the choice for a wool jacket, a good winter dress, a coat you intend to keep. It is also the easiest lining to wear next to the skin.

Acetate

Acetate has the shine people associate with silk and costs a good deal less — commonly in the range of ten to twenty-five dollars a yard against roughly twenty to forty for silk, depending on quality and where you buy. It is widely used in jackets, coats, and formalwear, and it presses to a very smooth finish.

Its weakness is care. Acetate can be damaged by dry cleaning solvents, so read the care information for the particular goods before you line a coat with it and send that coat to a cleaner. It is also less breathable than rayon and less forgiving under a hot iron.

Polyester

Polyester lining is the workhorse: durable, wrinkle-resistant, cheap — commonly around five to twelve dollars a yard — and it asks nothing special in the way of care. For children's clothes, for a garment that will be washed weekly, for a first lined project where you would rather not risk expensive goods, it is a sound and honest choice.

Its weakness is breathability. Polyester does not let heat and moisture pass the way natural fibers do, and in a close-fitting bodice or a summer garment the wearer will know it. Reserve it for outerwear and hard-wearing clothes rather than for anything worn against the skin in warm weather.

Silk

Silk lining is the luxury: beautiful, breathable, wonderfully light. It is the most expensive of the four, commonly around twenty to forty dollars a yard, and it demands careful handling both in sewing and in laundering. Most sewers keep it for special garments and use Bemberg for everything else, which is a sensible economy and no loss in comfort.

Matching lining to use

Ask four questions before you buy.

How will the garment be cleaned? The lining must survive that method.

Will it be worn against the skin? Then breathability outranks price.

How slippery can you manage? A very slick polyester sheath shifts and travels under the presser foot, producing uneven hems and twisted facings. If your hands are still learning, a slightly less slippery lining will save you real grief.

And is the fashion fabric see-through? A lining that makes a thin skirt decently opaque is doing the same work an underlining would do, and it is often the simpler answer for a skirt.

That last point deserves saying plainly. A well-chosen lining lets a woman wear a fabric she loves without any anxiety about what the light behind her is doing. The woman of Proverbs 31 makes herself coverings of tapestry, and her clothing is silk and purple — she is praised for choosing fine materials well, not scolded for owning them. Silk shows up in her wardrobe the same way it shows up on this lesson's list: as a real, worthy option among several, chosen when the occasion and the budget call for it, and set aside for Bemberg or polyester the rest of the time without any loss of comfort or good sense. Fitting the fiber to the purpose, rather than reaching for whatever is nearest or most impressive, is the same careful judgment in both the ancient household and the modern sewing room. An extra yard of the right lining, silk or otherwise, buys real freedom cheaply.

Buying

Buy the lining at the same time as the fashion fabric and hold them together in daylight; shop light lies about color. Take a little extra for pre-shrinking. And keep the care instructions from the bolt end, because in three years you will not remember what you used.

Setting In the Lining: Slip Stitch, Whip Stitch, and a Clean Finish

Everything so far has been preparation. Here the lining goes into the garment, and the last few inches of it are closed by hand, because no machine can put a lining edge down invisibly. Two hand stitches will carry you through nearly every lining you ever sew.

Building the lining

Make the lining up as its own garment. Sew its seams, press them, and stitch its darts. Two habits save trouble later.

Press the lining seam allowances toward the back rather than open. Open seams in a slippery fabric tend to roll, and a pressed-to-one-side allowance lies quietly.

Leave ease where the pattern gives it. A lining is usually drafted a shade larger than the garment, and a pleat is often folded down the center back and tacked at the neck and hem. That fold is not decoration. When the wearer reaches forward, the pleat releases and the lining moves; without it, the lining is the shortest layer and it will tear across the back or drag the outside out of shape. Never trim that ease away to make the lining "fit better."

Joining lining to garment

Where a facing exists, the lining is machine stitched to the inner edge of the facing, right sides together, and then the seam allowance is pressed toward the lining and the whole thing turned to the inside. Understitching that seam — a line of stitching through the lining and both seam allowances, close to the seam — keeps the lining from rolling out and showing at the neckline.

Where there is no facing, or at a sleeve hem, the lining edge is turned under and stitched down by hand. That is the work below.

Slip stitch

Slip stitch is the invisible one. Turn under the lining edge and press the fold. Bring the needle up inside the fold so the knot is buried. Then run the needle along the inside of that fold for about a quarter inch and bring it out. Directly opposite, pick up one or two threads of the garment layer — no more — and immediately re-enter the fold at the same spot, travel another quarter inch inside the fold, and come out again.

The thread spends almost its whole life hidden inside the fold, showing only as a tiny bite where it crosses. Worked properly, nothing is visible from the outside. Keep the stitches about a quarter inch apart, and keep the thread relaxed; if you pull it tight the seam draws up into a scalloped pucker that no pressing will remove.

Whip stitch

Whip stitch circles an edge with short diagonal stitches, going over the edge each time rather than inside a fold. It is quicker than a slip stitch and more visible, so save it for places nobody sees: tacking a lining to a seam allowance at the underarm, holding a shoulder pad in place, or securing an edge that will be covered by something else.

Working comfortably and safely

Use a fine, sharp hand needle and thread that matches the lining. Keep the thread short, and knot it with a small knot you can bury. A thimble is not fussiness; a lining hem is hundreds of stitches and your fingertip will tell you so by the second hour.

Do not leave loose needles or pins in the arm of a chair or the seat of the sofa. Keep them in a pincushion or a magnetic dish that goes back on the table when you rise, especially if there are small children in the house. And stitch in good light — poor light is what makes people set stitches too deep.

What goes wrong

Puckering along the hand-finished edge means the thread was pulled tight; take it out and work loosely. Stitches showing on the right side mean you took too big a bite of the garment layer; take one or two threads only. A lining that pulls and strains when the wearer moves means the ease was trimmed away or the center-back pleat was never folded in.

In secret

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly." A slip stitch is a small parable of that verse. It is done to be unseen; its entire excellence is that no one can tell it is there. Much of the good done in a household is like this — quiet, unnoticed, holding things together from the inside. It is seen where it matters.