Talk Back Thursday

Thank you so much to Mamafitz, Kristine, Angela, Summerset, Becky, Faye, Kelley, CarlaF, Sharon, Sarah & Tasia for talking back to my confession last week! I asked about grading seams and which layer you should trim shortest – or if it didn’t matter.

So, we did have a couple of folks who are a bit laissez-faire about grading seams – we got 2 votes for the “never or rarely do it” category and 1 vote on the “when I do it, I just wing it” category.

But most people converged upon 3 guidelines, with the most popular one being this:

1. The layer that will be closest to the public side of the garment should be left the longest.

Five people agreed that this is (at least usually) the right way to do it.

The two other rules-of-thumb that were presented (by 2 people each) were:

2. Trim the thickest layer (usually the interfaced layer) to be the shortest.

3. If you will be edgestitching or making a flat felled seam, make sure that the longest layer is able to trap all of the shorter layers inside (or underneath).

Summerset addressed the issue of “does it matter?” She doesn’t grade every seam, but advises that it does make a difference if you have multiple, thick layers of fabric coming together in a single seam.

Finally, as for the “how” to grade seams, Faye and Sharon gave this tip: Apparently you can just hold your scissors at an angle as you trim (or use appliqué scissors) and the seam comes out automatically graded. :)

Thanks again to everyone who took the time and effort to respond! You guys rock! :)