Now that we have sewn our first seam, we need to look at how to stop the raw edges of our fabric from unravelling. There are lots of different ways to do this but when you are starting out with sewing, the following four methods are your easiest options!
PINKING SHEARS
The easiest of them all is to finish your seams with pinking shears . These are serrated scissors which have a ‘saw-tooth’ type of blade instead of a straight one and produce a pretty zig zag edge to your fabric which stops it from fraying. Just trim the raw edges off your seams with these scissors and your done!
ZIG ZAG STITCH
Using a zig zag stitch on your sewing machine helps to neaten your seams and prevents the fibres of the raw edge of the fabric from fraying. Once you have sewn your seam, trim down the seam allowance by about one eighth of an inch, then set your sewing machine to a zig zag stitch – approximately 2.5mm long and 3.00mm wide. Then sew the zig zag so that the right hand side of the stitch lands just inside the raw edge of the fabric. You can either sew both sides of the seam as one or you can sew them separately.
OVERCAST STITCH
Most sewing machines will have some sort of overcast stitch which is used to finish seams. You may need to change the foot that you are using but check your manual to see whether your specific machine requires that. Change the foot if necessary and then place the fabric along the edge of the foot guide and sew. The thread will then wrap itself around the edge of the fabric encasing the raw edges preventing any fraying.
OVERLOCKING
An overlocker is a whole separate machine who’s purpose is purely to finish seams. As a beginner, you may not have one yet and that’s fine because its not absolutely necessary and is probably just a ‘nice to have’ at this stage. However, I have included it in this guide because if you do have one, it is very easy to just run your seams through the machine and get an extremely professional looking seam finish.
So there are the four easiest seam finishes for anyone who is just starting out with their sewing.
Moving forward, as you gain more experience, there are many more options such as flat fell seams, Hong Kong seams, French seams and more, so look out for these in a future blog post!
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