Flat-felling stitches
Hello fellow stitching & non-stitching friends!
This post is fairly simple and straightforward, but it's a very important step in historical costuming.
Flat-felling is a technique for finished seam allowance inside a garment. It's especially helpful for lined garments, since the stitches won't show through to the outside of the garment.
Before doing anything to the seams, be sure to press them flat. This helps them not wrinkle as you're sewing them, and also stiffens them a bit to make cutting them easier. Once your seams are ironed, cut one side down to a quarter of an inch. It doesn't matter which side, but if either side is smaller than the other, cut the smaller one down and leave the larger one intact.
Once you've cut one side down to approximately a quarter inch, fold the uncut side in half. Then lay the folded side down over the cut side, encasing all the raw edges and leaving only the folded edge out.
I like to pin my felled seams down, as this means I don't have to constantly fold down edges as I sew and then hold them down while sewing.
Whip stitch the folded edge to the bodice. When you're flat felling a lined garment, be sure only to catch the lining to prevent your stitches from showing on the outside of the garment.
Keep the whip stitch small and relatively parallel to the folded edge: this will help keep the stitches tight and small.
And there you have a lovely, hand-felled seam. As I said, it's a simple process but very essential. You can also use it in your modern garments, as it produced a lovely, incomparable finish.
As you're stitching, you can also pin the finished seams to your lap, or a heavy object, like a tailor's ham, to keep tension on your stitching and make it a little easier on yourself.
I hope this tutorial helps, and if you're still not sure how to flat fell a seam, go check out some other historical costumers on YouTube.
-The Victorian Alaskan
This post is fairly simple and straightforward, but it's a very important step in historical costuming.
Flat-felling is a technique for finished seam allowance inside a garment. It's especially helpful for lined garments, since the stitches won't show through to the outside of the garment.
Before doing anything to the seams, be sure to press them flat. This helps them not wrinkle as you're sewing them, and also stiffens them a bit to make cutting them easier. Once your seams are ironed, cut one side down to a quarter of an inch. It doesn't matter which side, but if either side is smaller than the other, cut the smaller one down and leave the larger one intact.
Once you've cut one side down to approximately a quarter inch, fold the uncut side in half. Then lay the folded side down over the cut side, encasing all the raw edges and leaving only the folded edge out.
I like to pin my felled seams down, as this means I don't have to constantly fold down edges as I sew and then hold them down while sewing.
Whip stitch the folded edge to the bodice. When you're flat felling a lined garment, be sure only to catch the lining to prevent your stitches from showing on the outside of the garment.
Keep the whip stitch small and relatively parallel to the folded edge: this will help keep the stitches tight and small.
And there you have a lovely, hand-felled seam. As I said, it's a simple process but very essential. You can also use it in your modern garments, as it produced a lovely, incomparable finish.
As you're stitching, you can also pin the finished seams to your lap, or a heavy object, like a tailor's ham, to keep tension on your stitching and make it a little easier on yourself.
I hope this tutorial helps, and if you're still not sure how to flat fell a seam, go check out some other historical costumers on YouTube.
-The Victorian Alaskan
Comments
Post a Comment