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When I sew a cover stitch hem, I never seem to be able to get the stitches to line up along the raw edge of the fabric. I get so aggravated with myself! :(
One thing that might contribute to my difficulties is that I am constantly fighting the feeling that it would somehow be really bad if the stitches went too far inward and fell off the second layer of fabric.
One thing that might contribute to my difficulties is that I am constantly fighting the feeling that it would somehow be really bad if the stitches went too far inward and fell off the second layer of fabric.
I've already received some good advice from phoebegrant, Lois K, Summerset and an annonymous commenter - thank you to all!
But I would love to hear from others too. So, how about you? Do you have trouble with this too? Any advice or suggestions of methods to do this more accurately? How bad is it if the stiitches periodically over-extend the raw edge?
4 comments:
If your stitches do go over the edge, it is possible to get tunneling or a ridge due to one needle being in a single layer and the other being in two layers. It isn't the end of the world in a print where you can't see it, but in a solid, it looks a bit weird. I think it is better to stitch too close to the fold and then trim. At least you're stitching through a consistent thickness in that case.
I never get it right either but, as long as it's not waaaaaaaay off, who cares? If you go over the edge and only get one layer of fabric, it'll tunnel (like Summerset said) so I always fold over more than I need and trim when done.
If you measure from your left needle over to the width of the hem and give yourself some visual line on the bed it's easier to not wander into a single layer.I have two pieces of tape permanently placed on the bed of my coverstitch. One just shy of 1" and another just shy of 3/4. The 1" is regular masking tape and to get the 3/4 I used Wonder tape (it's 1/4" wide, don't remove paper backing) placed right on the edge of the masking tape. Automatically different colors so really easy to see the lines. Once I measure and press up my hem I follow the tape and rarely go into the single layer.
With the [thingy I don't know what to call] up, my distance between its edge and the first of my needles is 3/4", so I iron up around 5/8" and then use the tIdkwtc as my guide. Works around 98% of the time perfectly, with very little issue the other 2%.
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