Vacuuming the Lawn: rolled hem foot

Sunday, February 17, 2013

McCall's 6518 muslin: rolled hem extravaganza

McCalls 6518 in progress, size 12 above

I have a bit of sewing ADD right now. I'm "working" on three projects at once, which is unusual for me. Usually I work on one project at at time.:

Sewaholic Thurlow trouser muslin (will soon start muslin #5.)
Sewaholic Renfrew top (Started muslin #2, will soon start muslin #3. Thanks for all your suggestions regarding armhole wrinkles, Jennifer Stern is helping me fit this via the PR class Fitting The Tee to a T, check out this photo to see part of the solution!)
McCall's 6518 dress muslins #1 (size 12) and #2 (size 14)

I saw the McCall's dress last summer. I needed to learn how to use the narrow (or rolled) hem foot on a curved edge to finish the ruffles. I learned last summer how to use the narrow hem foot on a straight edge for this dress.

On Saturday I started with a free Craftsy class about sewing machine feet, but it only covered using the foot on a straight edge. Then I found a great BrianSews video on using the narrow hem foot on a curved edge. Perfect! I spent an hour playing around and "perfecting" the technique.

Here's what works for me:

short stitch length (1.5 on my old Baby Lock--my new machine doesn't have this foot)
stitch width of around 2
tension of 2
use the narrowest foot (the 1/8", not the larger one I have--going around a curve with that foot resulted in a mess)
go slow! it's not a race.
and follow Brian's directions. Basically, your fabric entering the slot must not be wider or smaller than the slot, otherwise, trouble!

So here's how the ruffle began:

And here's how it looked as I was sewing it with the rolled hem foot. You can see how the foot rolls the fabric under to be stitched down. Sweet!

Cute, right?

The front side:

Here's what it looks like straight from the machine (and unironed):

Nice front:

Here's the underside:

Here's an underside where the fabric width exceeded the slot length. Those little bits can be cut off with double bent embroidery scissors.

SO, here's the three tiered ruffle before ironing:

and after ironing:

And then on the dress:

And close up:

As it turns out, I think the 12 is fine on top but too small on the bottom (I'm not showing you what the back of this dress looks like--it's very goofy--not enough ease for sure in the hip/derriere area). Since I already started the 14 bodice, I will put the 14 skirt on the 14 bodice and see if the back looks any better. If so, I will make a 12 grading to 14 in the hip in the real deal.

Anyway, the rolled hem (or narrow hem) foot is a pretty sweet foot.

I had breakfast for dinner. I even had orange juice--that's another unusual thing for me. I made the lasagna again by the way last week--it is THAT good.