How to Sew Hem Your Garments with a Sewing Machine
Wouldn’t it be great if you knew how to hem your garments with a sewing machine? Then, you would be one step closer to avoiding paying sky-high prices for the most in-demand clothing this season. You could make the clothes yourself. Well, you’re going to learn that trick in this article!
Hemming Your Garments by yourself is NOT Rocket Science!
Just as cooking isn’t rocket science, making your attractive clothes isn’t either. You’ll learn how to make clothes that would make makers of designer labels like Guess and DKNY green with envy. It all starts with the sewing machine, and you’ll learn how to hem your garments with a sewing machine!
Get Your Arsenal Ready
It would be best to have tools and equipment to fight a war, so it makes sense that you’ll need certain supplies to learn how to hem your garments correctly. You’ll need a:
- Measuring instrument. That can be a measuring tape, yardstick, or ruler
- Tailoring chalk
- Sewing pins
- Scissors
- Iron
- Sewing machine
- Hemming foot
- Bias tape
The last two supplies are optional, but they will make hemming your garments much easier.
How You Sew a Hem
Now it’s time to learn how to hem your garments with a sewing machine. Hemming your dress or other garment is as easy as folding the end of the cloth and using sewing pins to hold it in place. It will be easy to sew the hem once you’ve secured it.
As you’re going to find out, there are many different types of stitches that you can use when hemming fabric and pieces of cloth. The reason is that many different types of fabric and cloth are used in different pieces of clothing. Some types of fabric and cloth need stronger and more reinforced stitches than others to keep from falling apart.
Sewing a Blind Hem Stitch
There are times when regular stitches won’t do for fabric. You’ll need to use a different type of stitch. The blind hem stitch happens to be one of these. You start with a straight stitch, but you position the fabric through the feeder so that the stitches form a zig-zag pattern as the needle works on them.
Don’t worry; no one will know that the blind hem stitches are there. The reason is that these stitches are so tiny and skillfully sewn on the interior of the cloth that only a professional or tailor could easily notice them. When sewn properly, blind hem stitches secure other types of stitches. That helps keep the hem in place longer, even after many wearing and washings.
Sewing a Twin Needle Hem Stitch
When you set it up to sew a twin-needle hem stitch, the sewing machine sews two side-by-side rows of stitches. Note that you have to set the sewing machine up and program it beforehand to have it sew this type of stitch. You’ll also need to have some practical experience with sewing twin-needle hemstitches. After all, you’re the one who’s guiding the machine to sew for you!
When done correctly, twin needle hem stitches are almost invisible to the naked and untrained eye. You’ll find that this type of stitch will be your best friend if you sew a lot of knitted clothing items. The same is true if you make a lot of clothing from stretch fabric. A good example of that type of clothing is jegging.
Using a Hem Tape
Hem tapes are different from Scotch and even from duct tape. So, it will take some training and practical experience to learn how to use it. A hem tape is a thicker and double-sided fabric tape. While you don’t need to use it when using a sewing machine, it will give whatever items of clothing you sew that ‘designer label’ look!
Using hem tape will save you from that annoying bunched appearance of stitches you may get when you sew the hem on something with a circular edge, like a skirt or a pant leg. Your clothing items won’t sell as fast and will sell at much lower prices if you bunch up their hems while running them through your sewing machine.
Sewing the Hem
You have to follow a certain formula with several steps in sequential order when you’re trying to sew the hem on a piece of fabric.
- Understand if you have a circular or square hem. Yes, different-shaped hems require different stitches. Also, some stitch types only work on certain types of hems.
- Figure out how long your hem will be. Longer hems require different types of stitches than shorter hems. You’ll have to wear the item of clothing. It’s the only way you’ll understand how long your hem needs to be. You’re just guesstimating if you don’t wear the clothing before you sew the hem.
- Next, you want to use tailor’s chalk to measure the hem’s area. That way, you’ll have exact markers when you feed the cloth through the machine.
- Do you need to square the hem edge? There’s a way to do that. Place the garment on a table and examine the nature of its hem. You’ll need to mark that on the garment’s exterior if it’s curved and circular. You’ll need to sew (by hand) a line of half-inch stitches underneath that line.
- You’ll need an iron for this step. You’ll be pressing the fabric with an iron. That will get it nice, straight, and even when it comes time to feed it through the machine. Then turn the hem up to align with your tailor chalk line. Measure the entire hem area to ensure the turned-up part is even. Then use sewing pins to pin that area up.
- You’ll use the bias tape for this step. You’ll want to follow this step perfectly if you want your clothes to look and sell like the name-brand pieces of clothing in department stores do. Open your double-sided tape and then lay it flat against your hem. Make sure that the sides line up perfectly. Then stitch a parallel line by hand approximately a quarter inch up from the beginning of the end.
- You’ll want to fold the tape over the hem and secure the area with sewing pins. Then feed the fabric into the machine along the top end of the tape.
Final Words
As you have seen, learning how to hem your garments with a sewing machine isn’t rocket science. Anyone with basic literacy who knows how to operate any machine can learn how to sew using a machine!
- Additionally, You may love to read: Uses of Sewing Machines in the Apparel industry
- Different types of sewing machines used in the Apparel industry
- Sewing Machine Parts and Function with Pictures
- Sewing Machine Maintenance Checklist and Technical Adjustments
- 12 Best Sewing Machine Brands around the World