#NaBloPoMo – Handmade Clothes
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I love handmade clothes. I’ve even made a few for myself.
But I have one problem with making my own clothes- I can never get the finish the way I want. The outsides always look great, but my inside seams ravel. I think I need a serger, unless you have another, less bulky way to finish seams you can recommend.
In the mean time, I’ll probably be working mostly with quilting instead.
Here in Spain we don’t buy sergers, we just zigzag right on the edge, so that one side of the zigzag goes over the edge of the seam allowance. It stops the fabric from ravelling and you don’t have to buy an expensive gadget. In Spanish it’s known as “sobrehilar.” Literally, “a thread over (the edge)”. You don’t have to stitch and then cut off excess fabric, just sew along over the cut edge itself.
I may have to give this a try! Though, most patterns in the US have a 5/8″ seam built in, so I’ll have to play with my patterns some to solve that. Thanks for the tip.
You don’t have to change a thing. Say you’re making a blouse. You sew the two front panels onto the back piece. Then when the seams are sewn, you simply zigzag the raw edges of each side of the seam allowance, making sure you are right on the edge so the thread interlocks on the outside of it. In English the term is apparently “overcast.”
You can see it Here: http://www.ohmotherminediy.com/2012/07/aprender-utilizar-la-maquina-de-coser-1.html
Scroll down to the heading “Puntadas en zigzag” 3rd photo from the top of the page. In the photo there are three examples on a piece of cloth. See that L edge? That’s what you want. It’s up to you how close you make the stitches, you want to experiment with a scrap first.
Thanks! That helps a lot.