hello this is Angela wolf and i'm a sewing instructor on craftsy.com
in this quick lesson I'm going to show you how to do a blind hem
with your sewing machine not a blind hem machine
have you ever bought pants in a store - I have the tags on here and these are ready to wear
and you can't even hardly see that stitching it's the same color
as the fabric but here's the key from the outside
here's the pant hem and you can see those stitches it's perfect
so how do you get that with the home sewing machine we show you here
pretty much every sewing machine comes with a blind hem foot
and a blind hem stitch. open your sewing machine manual if you can't find it
but
most of us don't read that but if you can't find it
go take a peek. here you go let's just pretend this is the hem and I'm going to show
you the concept of this
here's the foot, it has a blade on the back
from the side, kind of a weird blade
so let's just pretend this is your pants and this is your hem
this is your seam allowance when the concept to this whole thing is that
you're going to stitch
and this blade will run along the fold
and most of your stitches will be here in seam allowance
right on the edge and what it does is it stitches and it does a little
zigzag and that little zigzag, you just want it to grab
just a touch of fiber of fabric
and then back over - stitch, stitch over - just like that
that's the concept of it. If you go too far you end up being able to see the
stitches from the right side of the garment but
let me just show you how this works
put the presser foot on
so here's our fabric and I'm just using a swatch of fabric so you can see how this
goes
so let's just pretend that this is the right side of your pants
there's your hem
and there's your hem allowance so all you do is you take your fingers
like this and flip
okay and this is what you're going to be sewing along
I usually would do a few pins here i'm going to pin really close to the edge and
flip it back over so you can see what this would look like from the right side
of your garment
because you're gonna think this is really weird but actually it's not so
fold this back out - remember this is the inside of your pants, there's your hem
there's your hem allowance, so what does it look like from the right side to the fabric
this. and I know what you're thinking I'm going to end up with some goofy stitches
but you're not. let's go back here we go put it in the sewing machine
line this lever right here up with the fold
on your fabric. lower your presser foot
and then just start stitching
I'm using a different color here and I actually have a zig-zag a little
bit wider so you can see it
it just kinda goes zigzag. it's just grabbing just a little bit of that
fiber in the fabric
to show the blind hem
let's do a few more stitches here let's see what we ended up with
up again this is the inside of your pant leg
look at how see how that stitch that's kinda weird isn't it
so the majority the stitches are actually on
your hem allowance at the very edge this is the part of your pant leg that is
just gathering
that little itty bitty zigzag
this is what the inside of your pant leg looks like nobody's going to see that except
for you but it's not too bad
looking I would probably serge this edge first and then
do the blind hem just to give it a professional finish. so let's go to the right
side the garment
here we go we've got little itty bitty (now remember I told you I had the triangle a little bit
wider so you could see it)
but if I had narrowed that just a little bit which you just do that with the width
of your stitch
you wouldn't even be able to see that and of course you pick a thread that matches
your
pant. it looks great and so once I press that you wouldn't even see that. I would
narrow that stitch just a little bit and it'd be perfect
again this is Angela Wolf, and for more tips like this on altering your clothes or
even rehabbing clothes you buy in a resale shop join me
in my online class Tailoring Ready to Wear on craftsy dot com