Bridging, also known as fagoting, is a beautiful and old heirloom sewing technique. Mostly
seen in garment sewing, it allows a gap to exist between seams for a unique and decorative
look. We’ll be showing you how to do it by hand and by sewing machine.
Let’s tackle how to bridge by hand first. Much of the work is done in prep. I’ll be
doing mine in the seam between the yoke and front bodice. I cut out my fabric pieces as
normal. On the edges where you plan on doing your
stitches, fold under your seam allowance plus half of your desired gap. For example, if
I want a quarter inch gap, I would add one eighth to my five eighths seam allowance,
meaning I fold under ¾” of an inch.
Press with an iron to hold your fold.
Since I want my stitches to be between these
two pieces, I folded on the bottom of my yoke and the top of my front bodice, where these
two pieces would be normally be attached.
To help, I’m going to use some water soluble
embroidery stabilizer that has a sticky side. Cut a piece that’s as long as your seam
and about 3 inches in width. Use more than one piece if needed.
Remove the paper back and place the stabilizer sticky side up. Take your first folded edge,
right side up, and stick to one side of the stabilizer.
Take the second folded edge, also right side up, and stick it to the stabilizer, leaving
a gap with your desired gap amount, so I’m doing a ¼” of an inch.
You can use regular thread for hand stitching but I think it looks best with a thicker thread.
I’m using pearl cotton embroidery floss. Put it on your hand sewing needle and tie
a knot at one end.
Start at the end from one side.
Bring up your needle from the wrong side through the folded edge in order to hide the knot
instead of going directly to the opposite side or directly across.
I'm going to grab a little bit of my fabric, but I am going to go about a quarter of an inch down.
So this is directly across go about a quarter of an inch
and i'm going to grab a bit of the folded edge
of the fabric.
I'm going to pull this all the way through.
Now I'm going to do the same thing going across about a quarter of an inch to the opposite side
but before I do that, I'm going to bring my needle underneath
this diagonal thread that's going across
the gap
and pull it tight so you end up with a loop here.
So now I can grab
a little bit of this folded edge.
Pull it through.
I'm gonna go to the opposite side, again don't forget to go underneath the thread that's going across the gap before I do that.
And then grab a little bit of the folded edge and just keep going back and forth.
Over the gap until you go for the full length of the seam.
To tie off your stitch your going to put it just through the folded edge.
I'm going to lift up this so I can actually see me needle on the wrong side.
Pull it all the way through. And then just create a loop with your thread.
Put the end through the loop
and create a knot
pushing the knot as close as you can to the fabric
and then cut if off.
When finished, just peel the stabilizer off
and here’s what it looks like. You can also do a similar look on your sewing
machine. First, choose your stitch and sew a sample. I’m choosing this decorative stitch
but if you don’t have something similar you can use a zigzag stitch.
Measure the width of your stitch sample so you know how big your gap can be.
You’re going to prep your pieces the exact same way as before. Fold under the seam allowance
plus half the gap width. Stick each side to your stabilizer, leaving the exact gap width.
Now stitch at your sewing machine. You may want to use a silk thread so it’s a little
thicker and more noticeable than all-purpose thread.
In this case the machine stitches through the stabilizer, so we can’t just peel it
off. Rinse your fabric in water and the water soluble stabilizer will wash away.
My machine bridging is complete. The benefit in doing it by machine is that it’s a lot
faster and you know your stitches will be equal and consistent.
With the hand stitch, you can use a thicker thread and there’s more flexibility on how
big your gap can be.
Regardless of which way you do it, this heirloom technique will look lovely and you’ll want
to give it a try. Let us know if you have a project in mind, that you would love to
try this technique on.
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