Unit 6: Hemming Trousers and Skirts

Where the Hem Falls: Marking Trousers and Skirts Evenly

The first stitch of a good hem is not a stitch at all. It is a mark. Almost every crooked hem you have ever seen began with a measurement taken while the garment lay flat on a table, when the garment will spend its whole life hanging on a body. Marking well is a quiet skill, and it is worth learning before you touch the machine.

Mark on the Body, Measure from the Floor

Put the garment on the person who will wear it, with the shoes and the undergarments that will be worn with it. Trouser length changes by half an inch between a flat shoe and a heeled one, and a skirt hangs differently over a slip. Have the wearer stand naturally on a hard, level floor — not on carpet, which swallows the difference between one leg and the other.

Then work from the floor up. A ruler stood on end beside the leg, or a yardstick held vertically, gives you a single fixed reference: chalk a mark at, say, sixteen inches from the floor, walk around the leg, and chalk again at sixteen inches. Every mark on both legs comes from the same number. This is the whole trick. Measuring down from the waistband instead is what produces one short leg, because hips are rarely the same height on both sides and few of us stand perfectly square.

For a skirt, the same principle holds, but you will need to move around the wearer and mark every four to six inches all the way around. A skirt cut on the bias or with a full sweep must hang overnight on a hanger before you mark it, or the bias will drop after you hem and leave a wavy edge.

If you are working alone, put the garment on, stand in front of a mirror, and set a chair beside you with a ruler taped upright to its leg. It is slower, but it still gives you one fixed height.

Deciding the Length

For trousers, the classic full break rests the front hem on the top of the shoe with a soft fold of fabric, while the back hem sits slightly lower. A shorter, cleaner finish stops just at the top of the shoe with no fold at all. Neither is more correct; ask the wearer what they want and pin it before you commit. Dress trousers are often finished about a half inch longer at the back than the front; jeans and work trousers are usually hemmed level all the way around.

For a skirt, length is a matter of comfort, modesty, and how the wearer actually lives. A hem that sits well below the knee stays where it belongs when she sits down, climbs stairs, or bends to pick up a child. Scripture treats clothing as a gift and a covering — the LORD God Himself made the first garments and clothed the man and his wife — and there is a real dignity in dressing the body kindly and well. A hemline chosen with that in mind is not a restriction. It is a kindness to the wearer and to everyone she meets, and it frees her to move through her day without adjusting anything.

Marking Tools and Their Traps

Tailor's chalk in a color close to the fabric, a fine wax chalk pencil, or a water-soluble marking pen all work. Test any marker on a hidden seam allowance first. Water-soluble pens can set permanently if pressed with a hot iron before the mark is washed out, and dark chalk can shadow through pale wool.

Pins can also mark the line: place them horizontally along the fold, heads toward the front, one every two inches. On a slippery fabric, thread-marking with a long basting stitch in contrasting thread is more reliable than chalk, which brushes off before you reach the ironing board.

Check Before You Cut

Once the line is marked, take the garment off and lay it flat, right side out. Fold each trouser leg along its inseam and match the two legs together. The chalk lines should sit on top of each other within about an eighth of an inch. On a skirt, measure from the marked line up to the waistband seam at eight or ten points and write the numbers down; a gradual change is normal on a shaped skirt, but a sudden jump of an inch means a mark went astray.

Correct the line while it is still only chalk. Cloth that has been cut short cannot be argued with.

Hem Allowances: How Much Cloth to Turn Up, and How Much to Cut Away

The marked line is where the finished edge will sit. Below it lies the hem allowance — the strip of fabric that folds up inside the garment and gives the hem its weight, its hang, and its life. Choose that width badly and even perfect stitching will not save the garment.

Standard Allowances by Garment and Fabric

For woven trousers, an allowance of one and a quarter to one and a half inches is the working standard. It gives enough body to make the leg hang straight without adding bulk at the ankle.

For woven skirts, one and a half to two inches is right. The extra weight helps a skirt fall smoothly and keeps a light fabric from lifting in the wind.

For knits, keep it narrow: three quarters of an inch to one inch. A knit hem should stay flexible, and a wide turn-up in stretchy cloth makes a stiff band that rolls.

The upper limit matters. Above about two inches, a hem starts to distort the drape of the garment. On a straight tube skirt you may get away with more; on anything shaped, a deep hem fights the curve and the fabric ripples.

Fabric weight adjusts these numbers within their range. Heavy wool gabardine or denim takes the narrower end, because thick cloth folded twice is already bulky. Fine wool crepe or a lightweight linen skirt takes the wider end, because the extra allowance supplies weight the cloth does not have on its own.

Measuring, Then Cutting

Work on a flat table with the garment inside out. From the marked hemline, measure down and mark a second line at your chosen allowance, then add whatever you need for the raw edge finish. If you intend to turn the raw edge under a quarter inch and stitch it, add that quarter inch. If you will serge or zigzag the raw edge, add nothing.

Mark the cutting line all the way around at short intervals and connect the marks before you cut. Cut with shears, not by chopping — long, smooth strokes with the lower blade resting on the table give a straighter edge than short snips.

If you are using a rotary cutter, use a mat under the fabric, keep your guiding hand behind the blade and never in front of it, and close the guard the moment you set the tool down. A rotary blade will open a finger as readily as it opens cloth.

Cut one leg, then use the cut-off strip to check the second leg before you commit. Two strips of equal width are proof that both legs were trimmed the same amount.

Old Creases and Worn Edges

Lengthening a garment, or shortening it only slightly, often exposes the old hem crease. Press the crease with a damp press cloth and plenty of steam to soften it; on wool this usually works, on cotton it fades but may not disappear, and on a permanent-press finish it may never come out entirely. Plan the new hemline so the old crease falls inside the hem allowance and out of sight whenever you can.

Check the old fold line for wear before reusing that fabric. Trouser hems fray along the back edge where the shoe rubs, and cloth that has gone thin there will not hold a new hem. If the wear runs deep, cut above it.

Making It Last

There is a homely wonder in Deuteronomy: through forty years in the wilderness their raiment waxed not old. Most of our clothing enjoys no such protection, and that is precisely why a proper hem allowance matters. A generous hem is not decoration; it is stored length for a growing child, insurance against a fray, and the weight that keeps a garment hanging honestly for years. When you finish a hem, take a moment to press the fold, look at the garment on a hanger, and ask whether it hangs true. That habit of finishing well is the difference between a garment that lasts and one that merely survives.

Pressing the Fold: The Step No One Should Skip

Ask a tailor what separates a homemade hem from a professional one and the answer is almost never the stitching. It is the pressing. A hem that has been properly creased before a single stitch goes in will lie flat, feed evenly under the presser foot, and finish without a ripple. A hem that has only been pinned will shift, and every shift becomes a pucker.

Pressing Is Not Ironing

These are two different motions and confusing them ruins fabric. Ironing slides the iron across the cloth. On a hem allowance, sliding drags the top layer over the bottom layer, stretches the fold, and on a curve it will grow the edge by a surprising amount.

Pressing means setting the iron down on the fabric, holding it there for a couple of seconds, lifting it straight up, and moving to the next section with an overlap of an inch or so. No sliding at all. Work around the hem in these small placements, and the fold will come out sharp and true to the marked line.

Let each section cool under your hand or under a clapper before you move the garment. Fabric sets its shape as it cools, not while it is hot. Lifting a hot section and letting it flop off the edge of the board is how a crisp crease turns soft again.

Setting Up the Press

Fold the hem allowance up along the marked line, wrong sides together, and pin from the fold side with the pins parallel to the hem edge, an inch or two apart. Then press — and remove each pin just before the iron reaches it. Never press over pins. Metal conducts heat and can leave a shiny impression, and pins with plastic heads will melt onto both the fabric and the soleplate.

Match the iron's heat to the fiber, and when in doubt start low and work up, testing on the hem allowance where a mistake will not show. A press cloth — a square of muslin or a cotton handkerchief laid between the iron and the garment — protects against shine on wool and against scorch on anything synthetic. Wool, dark cotton twill, and any fabric with a nap should always be pressed through a cloth or from the wrong side.

Steam is your ally on wool and linen and a nuisance on some synthetics, where it can water-spot. Test first. Keep your fingers away from the vents; a burst of steam is hotter than the soleplate and will blister a fingertip before you can pull back. If children are in the room, the cord and the hot iron left standing are the two real hazards — set the iron on its heel at the back of the board, and never leave a heated iron on a board a child can reach.

Curves, Bulk, and Trouble Spots

A skirt hem that curves will not fold flat: the outer edge of the allowance is longer than the line it must lie against. Run a long machine basting stitch a quarter inch below the fold line, pull the bobbin thread gently to ease the excess, and press the gathers out with the point of the iron before you finish the hem. On a strong curve, a narrower allowance eases far more willingly than a wide one.

At the side seams and inseams the allowance stacks up four or six layers thick. Press these hard, and if the fabric is heavy, trim the seam allowance inside the hem to a diagonal so it does not print a ridge through to the right side. A tailor's ham or a rolled towel under the seam keeps you from flattening the surrounding fabric.

Clean Cloth, Careful Work

The Preacher's counsel to let thy garments be always white is a picture of readiness — of being fit to be seen. A pressed hem carries something of the same spirit. Press a clean garment; an iron drives dirt and body oil permanently into fibers, and a hem finished over a soiled fold will show a gray line forever. Work on a clean, taut ironing board cover, check the soleplate for starch buildup before you begin, and give the last press of the finished hem the same care you gave the first.

Taking Out an Old Hem Without Wounding the Cloth

Almost every alteration begins by undoing someone else's work. A hem that must be shortened, lengthened, or preserved has first to be opened, and this is where beginners do their worst damage — a slip of the ripper puts a hole in the garment an inch above the fold, where no hem will ever hide it. Learn the tool properly and the risk nearly vanishes.

How the Seam Ripper Actually Works

A seam ripper has three parts: a long point, a short curved hook, and a small U-shaped blade seated in the valley between them. The blade is the only part that cuts. The long point is for lifting; the hook is for holding a thread against the blade.

To cut one stitch, slide the long point under a single thread loop, then lift and push forward gently until that thread slides down into the U and parts. You will feel it give. If you find yourself pushing hard, you are trying to cut too many threads at once, or the blade is dull.

The most common injury is not to fabric but to fingers. Hold the garment so the ripper travels away from your other hand, and set the tool down cap-on when you pause. Those small blades are sharp enough to puncture skin without your noticing until you see the blood on the cloth.

The Cut-and-Skip Method

Do not run the ripper along inside the seam like a letter opener. That is exactly how fabric gets sliced, because the blade cannot tell thread from cloth.

Instead, cut one stitch, skip three or four, cut again — working along one side of the hem. Then turn the garment over and do the same from the other side. With stitches cut at intervals on both faces, the remaining thread comes away in short lengths with a gentle pull, and no blade ever travels far enough to reach the fabric.

Always draw the ripper away from the stitches that remain, not into them. Pulling toward the intact stitching is what puts the blade over solid cloth with nothing to stop it.

Chain stitching, which many ready-made trousers use, behaves differently: find the end of the chain and it will often unzip for several inches at a pull. Look for it before you settle in for slow work.

Clearing Up and Reading the Evidence

Lint-roll or brush away the cut thread ends. Bits of old thread left in the fold will show through a light-colored fabric as flecks and will get caught under the new stitching.

Now look at the opened hem. Old needle holes mark the original stitch line exactly, and on wool or tightly woven cotton they stay visible for years — useful information if you intend to reattach the original hem later, and a warning if you are lengthening the garment, because those holes will be on show below the new hemline. A hard press with steam closes many of them; a shot of steam and a fingernail worked across the grain closes more.

Note the original crease line too. It tells you where the manufacturer set the length and, on trousers, whether there is enough allowance left to let the leg down at all.

The Object Is to Leave the Cloth Whole

The woman in Mark's Gospel said within herself, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. Wholeness is exactly what you are protecting when you unpick a hem: the cloth entrusted to you should come out of your hands as sound as it went in, minus only the stitching you meant to remove. That is not perfectionism. It is plain respect for a garment somebody paid for and depends on.

If you do cut the fabric, stop and assess before going further. A small slit in the hem allowance below the finished line is harmless and will be hidden. A slit above the hemline needs a fusible patch on the wrong side and, if it will show, a darn — better done now, in good light, than discovered after the hem is sewn shut.

The Hand Blind Hem: Stitches That Disappear

A hand-worked blind hem is the finish for good wool trousers, lined skirts, and anything you want to look tailored rather than manufactured. It takes perhaps twenty minutes on a skirt hem, and once your hands know it you can do it in front of the fire while somebody reads aloud. Nothing shows on the right side but a faint, even softness where the hem lies.

Setting Up the Fold

This stitch works best on a hem allowance wider than about one inch — two and a half centimeters. Below that there is not enough depth to hide the thread.

Press the hem up along the marked line and finish the raw edge, by serging, zigzagging, or turning it under a quarter inch. Then fold the hem allowance back down on itself so that about an eighth of an inch — three millimeters — of the finished raw edge stands proud of the fold. You are now looking at a small shelf of hem edge, with the body of the garment folded away underneath. Every stitch you take will live in the shelter of that fold and never sit on the surface.

Thread a fine hand needle — a size 9 or 10 sharp, or a milliner's needle — with a single strand of thread no longer than about eighteen inches. Longer thread tangles and abrades as it passes through the cloth. Knot the end small, or better, secure it with two tiny backstitches inside the hem allowance where nothing shows.

The Stitch Itself

Work right to left if you are right-handed. The rhythm is: two or three tiny stitches taken horizontally through the hem allowance alone, and then one stitch that reaches across and catches the garment body — picking up a single thread of the fabric, no more. Then back into the hem allowance for another two or three, and across again.

The stitch that catches the garment is the one that matters. Take one thread. If you take two or three threads you will see a pucker from the right side, and if you take a whole bite of cloth the hem will look stapled on. Repeat that catching stitch every quarter to half inch along the hem; closer than that adds nothing but time, and wider than a half inch leaves the hem loose enough to catch a heel.

Keep the tension firm but easy. The thread should lie relaxed between stitches with a little slack, not stretched. Pull each stitch tight and the fabric will bunch — a row of small dimples on the right side that no amount of pressing will remove.

What Goes Wrong

If the stitches show, one of three things happened: you caught too much fabric on the crossing stitch, you used thread that contrasts with the cloth, or you pulled too tight. Thread should match the garment or run a shade darker; a shade lighter always shows.

If the hem sags between stitches, your catching stitches are too far apart, or the thread has too much slack. If the hem line ripples, the tension is too tight.

Every eight or ten inches, turn the garment over and look at the right side in good light. It is far easier to take out four inches than a whole skirt.

Finish with two or three small backstitches inside the hem allowance and run the tail an inch through the fold before cutting, so the end cannot work loose.

Small Work, Real Faith

The woman in Matthew's account said within herself that if she might but touch His garment she would be whole — and she reached for the very edge of it, the part a tailor makes and nobody notices. There is something fitting in that. Most of the work that holds a garment together is invisible by design. Doing it well, in a stitch no one will ever admire because no one will ever see it, is honest work of the sort that pleases God whether or not it is noticed by anyone else.

The Machine Blind Hem: Folding the Cloth So the Stitch Can Hide

Most machines sold in the last forty years include a blind hem stitch and a foot to go with it, and most owners never touch either. That is a pity, because it will hem a skirt in five minutes with a result that is genuinely hard to see. The stitch is not difficult. The fold is what confuses people, and once you have made that fold three times your hands will remember it.

What the Stitch Does

Look at the stitch diagram on your machine and you will see a run of straight stitches with a single spike jutting off to one side, repeated. That is the whole pattern: four straight stitches, then one zigzag that swings left and takes a bite, then four more straight stitches.

The four straight stitches run down the hem allowance, where they are hidden inside the garment. The single swinging stitch is the only one that touches the outer fabric, and it must catch no more than a thread or two. Set stitch width somewhere between 2 and 3. Set stitch length between 2 and 3 millimeters — and on lightweight fabric go to the longer end, 2.5 to 3 millimeters, because a short stitch on thin cloth gathers the hem into a ripple.

Making the Fold

Press the hem up along the marked line and finish the raw edge first. Then, with the garment wrong side out, fold the whole garment back on itself along a line about an eighth of an inch inside the finished hem edge. What you should be holding is: the bulk of the garment folded away to the left, a narrow soft fold of the garment body facing you, and about an eighth of an inch of the hem allowance edge sticking out beyond that fold to the right.

Slide it under the blind hem foot so the soft fold of the garment body sits snugly against the foot's vertical guide, and the exposed hem edge lies to the right where the straight stitches will land. Many feet have a small screw that moves the guide; use it to fine-tune how deeply the zigzag bites.

Sew slowly. Watch the fold, not the needle — your job is to keep that fold riding against the guide at a constant depth for the length of the hem.

Reading the Result

Stop after six inches, unfold, and look at the right side in daylight. You are hoping to see faint dimples every half inch or so, and nothing else.

If the stitching shows as a visible dash: the zigzag is biting too much. Move the guide so the fold sits farther right, or reduce the stitch width. If the zigzag misses the fold entirely and the hem falls away loose, move the guide the other direction or widen the stitch a little.

If the hem ripples, the stitch length is too short or the fabric was not pressed flat before sewing. If you get skipped stitches, change the needle — a blunt or bent needle is the usual cause, and needles blunt faster than anyone expects. Use an 80/12 for ordinary wovens, a 90/14 or 100/16 for heavy trousers, and a 60/8 to 70/10 for fine, closely woven silk. Standard 50-weight all-purpose thread suits the 80/12 to 90/14 range.

Test every setting on a doubled scrap of the actual garment fabric before you touch the garment. Incorrect tension shows up here as loops on the underside or puckering along the stitch line, and it is easier to solve on a scrap than on a finished skirt.

Where the Hem Is Worth Doing Well

Matthew records that the sick besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment, and as many as touched were made perfectly whole. It is a striking detail that the crowd reached for the hem — the plainest, humblest edge of the clothing, the part a tailor finishes last and nobody praises.

Hems are like that. Nobody compliments a hem. But a hem that hangs true and shows no stitching is the difference between a garment that looks made and one that looks mended, and doing that work carefully for your family, or for a neighbor who cannot do it herself, is service of a very ordinary and very real kind. Keep your fingers well clear of the needle as you guide the fold, sew at a pace you can control, and take the six-inch look before you commit to the whole hem.

Keeping the Original Hem: Shortening Jeans and Trousers Invisibly

Ready-made jeans carry a hem you cannot copy at home: a heavy chain-stitched or lockstitched edge in thick gold or copper thread, worked on an industrial machine, and often faded exactly like the rest of the leg. Cut it off and hem the leg the ordinary way, and the trousers announce that they have been altered. The technique that keeps that original edge and simply moves it up the leg is often called the European hem, or original hem preservation. It is the single most useful trick in trouser alterations.

Measuring for the Fold

Decide the finished length and mark it as you would for any hem. Then work out how much length must come out: measure from the marked line down to the existing finished bottom edge. That figure is your excess.

Fold the leg up so that the original hem folds toward the outside of the trouser, and pin so that only half the excess is taken up in the fold — because a fold takes up double. If you need to remove one and a half inches, the folded edge should sit three quarters of an inch above the original hem's top stitching line.

Now pin around the leg with the fold even all the way around, and check the fold sits at the same height at the inseam and the outseam. Turn the leg and look down it; a fold that wanders makes a hem that slants.

Sewing the Tuck

Stitch a new line just above the original hem's stitching, close enough to sit almost against it — about an eighth of an inch above — going all the way around the leg. Use a 90/14 or 100/16 needle for denim and ordinary 50-weight thread in a color that matches the fabric, not the gold topstitching. This seam will end up inside the trouser leg, so it will not be seen.

At the side seams a jeans leg stacks to six or eight layers of denim. Sew slowly through that, hand-walking the wheel if the machine labors. Do not force the fabric through; a needle that hits a thick seam at speed can snap and send a fragment flying. Safety glasses are not foolish here.

Trim the excess inside the tuck to about a quarter inch, finish that raw edge with a zigzag or serge, and press the whole allowance up toward the knee.

Fooling the Eye

Unfold the leg and look at it. The original hem now sits at the new length, with a small ridge of the tuck above it hidden inside. On dress trousers press the ridge flat and it disappears. On jeans, the seam allowance inside can be tacked upward with a few stitches so it does not flip down.

If the original hem was faded and worn at the fold and your new seam sits above that fade line, the join can look slightly off. Softening the new seam with light sandpaper rubbed gently along the ridge, or simply washing and drying the jeans a couple of times, blends it.

For dress trousers with a plain turned hem rather than a topstitched one, the same tuck works, but consider instead unpicking the hem with the cut-and-skip method, trimming the leg, and reattaching the original hem with a blind hem, placing the new stitches close to the old needle holes so the fabric is not perforated twice.

The Edge of the Garment

Mark writes that the woman, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind and touched His garment. She came from behind, unseen, and reached for the edge — and that quiet reaching was counted as faith. There is honest encouragement in that for anyone who mends. Much of this trade is done out of sight, on the back of the work, in ways no one will ever inspect. Do it as carefully as if it were the front, because the character of the workmanship is the same either way, and the One who sees the hem also sees the hand that made it.

Topstitched Hems: Visible Stitching Done on Purpose

Not every hem should hide. On jeans, chinos, work trousers, casual skirts, and most knits, the stitching is meant to be seen, and a crisp, even line of topstitching is part of what makes the garment look right. A wobbling line, on the other hand, is the first thing the eye lands on. Topstitching is easy to do and easy to do badly, and the difference is almost entirely in the setup.

Setting Up for a Straight Line

Press the hem thoroughly first. Topstitching over an unpressed fold is how puckers are made, because the two layers arrive at the needle at different speeds.

Fit a straight stitch presser foot and, if your machine takes one, a straight stitch needle plate — the one with a single small round hole rather than the wide slot. The narrow hole supports the fabric right where the needle enters and prevents the machine from pushing lightweight cloth down into the throat, which is a common cause of puckering and skipped stitches at the start of a seam.

Lengthen the stitch. Ordinary construction runs about 2.5 millimeters; topstitching looks deliberate at 3 to 3.5 millimeters, and a longer stitch also lies flatter and puckers less.

Set your distance from the fold and hold it. The edge of the presser foot, a seam guide, or a strip of painter's tape stuck to the bed of the machine all work. What you must not do is watch the needle and try to steer; watch the guide instead, and let your hands feed the fabric steadily.

Thread, Needles, and Denim

For most garments, ordinary 50-weight thread in a matching color is right, and the stitching reads as a neat line rather than a decoration.

Jeans are the exception. Their hems are traditionally worked in heavy gold or copper thread, and matching that is what makes an alteration invisible. Thicker thread needs a bigger eye and a bigger groove in the needle: 30-weight topstitching thread wants a 90/14 to 100/16 needle. Put the heavy thread in the needle only and keep ordinary 50-weight in the bobbin; heavy thread in the bobbin fights the tension and rarely improves anything.

If the top thread shreds or frays, the needle is too small for it or the needle is blunt. If the stitches look loose and loopy on the underside, the top tension needs a small increase; go one small step at a time and test on a doubled scrap of the same fabric after each change.

Turning, Starting, and Stopping

At the beginning, hold both thread tails behind the foot for the first few stitches so they do not get sucked into the machine. Rather than backstitching on a visible line, which leaves a lump, sew all the way around the leg and overlap the start by about a half inch, then pull the tails to the wrong side and knot them.

To sew a second parallel row, which is common on jeans, do not use the first row as your guide by eye — use the foot edge against the fold again with a wider guide setting, or you will inherit every wobble.

Where the hem crosses a thick seam, stop with the needle down, lift the foot slightly, and use a folded scrap of denim behind the foot to keep it level as it climbs. A foot tipped backward at a thick seam produces a run of short, crowded stitches.

Work Worth Looking At

The psalm says the king's daughter is all glorious within, and that her clothing is of wrought gold. Both halves belong together — the inward glory first, and then a garment worked with care and beauty. Visible stitching in gold thread on a pair of work jeans is a small, homely echo of that idea: an edge finished honestly, meant to be seen, and made well because good work is a fitting offering whether the wearer is going to church or to the barn.

Hemming Knits Without the Wave: Jersey, Sweatshirting, and Stretch

A knit hem that comes out wavy is not bad luck. It is the fabric being stretched as it goes under the needle and then springing back afterward, leaving more length at the edge than the seam can hold. Every fix for a wavy knit hem is a way of keeping the cloth from stretching in the first place.

Narrow Allowance, Ballpoint Needle

Start by keeping the hem allowance narrow: three quarters of an inch to one inch. A wide turn-up in stretchy cloth makes a stiff band that rolls outward and fights the drape of the garment.

Change to a jersey or ballpoint needle — commonly 75/11 or 80/12 for ordinary jersey. Its rounded tip slips between the loops of the knit instead of piercing them. A sharp needle cuts loops, and a cut loop becomes a run down the garment a week later. This is one of the few places in sewing where the wrong needle causes damage rather than merely a poor result.

Press the hem allowance up, but press gently and let it cool flat; a heavy hand with the iron on jersey can stretch the edge before you have sewn a stitch.

Stabilize Before You Sew

The most reliable cure is a stabilizer along the fold. A narrow strip of lightweight fusible interfacing, cut on the straight grain, or a purpose-made fusible hem tape, fused to the wrong side of the hem allowance, gives the edge something to hold on to. It keeps the hem from growing while it also keeps the stitching from popping when the garment is pulled on.

Fuse it with a press cloth, iron set to the fabric's fiber, pressing and lifting rather than sliding, and give it a few seconds under the iron so the adhesive really grips. Test on a scrap: some fusibles show a slight change of hand or a shadow through thin jersey, and it is better to learn that on a leftover piece.

A walking foot is the other half of the answer. It has its own feed that moves the top layer at the same rate as the machine's feed dogs beneath, so the two layers arrive together and the hem does not grow. On a serger, differential feed does the same job by controlling how fast the fabric enters relative to how fast it leaves; nudge it up slightly for knits and the wave flattens out.

The Stitch Itself

The hem must stretch or the thread will snap the first time the garment goes over someone's head or hips. Straight stitch alone will not do it.

A twin needle sewn from the right side gives the familiar two parallel rows on top and a zigzagging bobbin thread underneath that provides the stretch. Use a twin needle marked for stretch or ballpoint, sew slowly, and expect to loosen the top tension slightly if the fabric tunnels up into a ridge between the two rows.

A narrow zigzag — width about 1, length 2.5 to 3 millimeters — is the plain and dependable alternative on any machine, and on a busy print it barely shows.

With a serger you have two decorative options as well: a rolled hem, where the edge rolls under itself into a narrow dense finish, and a lettuce hem, which is a rolled hem with the fabric gently stretched as it feeds, producing a rippling scalloped edge on purpose. A flatlock hem, made by removing the left needle and adjusting tension, gives a flat seam that shows on both faces.

An Edge Marked on Purpose

Israel was told to make fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and to put upon the fringe a ribband of blue — a hem deliberately marked so that the wearer, seeing it, would remember whose people they were. The border of a garment has carried meaning for a very long time. A lettuce edge on a girl's play dress is a small, cheerful thing, but the instinct behind it is old and good: finish the edge, and finish it in a way you are glad to be seen wearing.

Finishing a Skirt Hem: Curves, Facings, and a Length You Can Live In

A skirt hem asks something a trouser hem does not: it usually curves. The bottom edge of an A-line or a gathered skirt is a longer arc than the line it must fold against, so the surplus has to be dealt with. Everything else in this unit still applies — mark from the floor, press before stitching, take the tiniest bite of the outer cloth — but the curve is what turns a straight hem into a skirt hem.

Easing the Curve

Sew a line of long machine basting, about 4 millimeters, a quarter inch below the marked fold line, all the way around the hem allowance. Leave long thread tails.

Fold the allowance up and pin it at the seams and at quarters. You will see the outer edge is too full to lie flat. Draw gently on the bobbin thread of your basting, easing that fullness in a little at a time, and distribute it evenly rather than letting it gather in one place. Then press the eased edge with the tip of the iron, shrinking the small ripples out with steam. Wool and other animal fibers will ease and shrink beautifully. Cotton and linen ease a little. Polyester and most synthetics ease hardly at all, and on those fabrics the answer is a narrower hem allowance, which curves far more willingly than a deep one.

If the curve is very strong, do not fight it with a two-inch hem. Trim the allowance back to a half inch or even a quarter inch and finish it as a narrow double-turned hem. A sharply flared or circular skirt should always have a narrow hem.

Facing a Hem That Will Not Fold

Where the flare is too great for any fold, or where a garment has been let down and there is no allowance left, use a hem facing: a separate strip cut on the bias, or purchased bias tape, or a shaped facing cut to match the curve of the hem.

Stitch the facing to the raw hem edge with a quarter inch seam, right sides together, press the seam toward the facing and understitch it so it rolls to the inside, then turn the facing up and blind hem its upper edge to the garment. The garment loses no length at all, and the skirt gains a little weight at the edge, which helps it hang.

Match the facing to the fabric's weight. A stiff facing on a soft skirt makes a hem that stands away from the leg.

Weight, Hang, and Wear

Hang the finished skirt overnight before you decide it is done. A bias or flared skirt will drop; if you hemmed it before it settled, the hemline will dip and need trimming true.

For a lining, hem it separately and about an inch shorter than the skirt, so the lining never peeks below the edge. Leave it hanging free at the hem rather than attaching it, except for a short thread chain at the seams if you want to control it.

Beautiful Garments

Isaiah calls out to the holy city to awake, to put on her strength, to put on her beautiful garments. There is real gladness in that verse, and it belongs on a sewing table. Modest dress has sometimes been taught as a list of prohibitions, and that is a poor way to hand on something good. It is far truer to say that a well-made skirt of a length you can move in — walk, kneel, lift a child, climb a ladder — is a beautiful garment in exactly the sense Isaiah means. It suits the wearer, it does not ask anything of anyone who looks at her, and it leaves her free to think about something other than her clothes.

That is worth the extra hour it takes to ease a curve properly and hang a skirt overnight. Finish the hem, press it once more, hang it up, and be glad of it.