The Blind Hemmer Foot - A Saga

My daring boyfriend started a new job a couple weeks ago.  And, as with all new jobs, this required a new wardrobe. (Ok, not all new jobs need a new wardrobe, but the best ones do!)  One new pair of dress pants came home a solid three inches too long, and after a quick “Darling would you please?” I had agreed to hem his pants...

Ladies and gentlemen, this should not have taken me anywhere near three and a half to four hours.  But, it did.  To this point, I had never used the blind hem foot.  So a part of this exorbitant amount of time was spent with the machine’s manual, and looking at YouTube tutorials.  But an embarrassing amount of time was spent staring at the machine, willing the stitches to line up. 

As a monument to my struggles, and an inspiration to others (so that you can say ‘at least I wasn’t as bad as Angie was’ when you try), I thought I’d document my painful process. 

Step One:

Pour over the manual and identify the blind hem stitch.  It’s a straight stitch with an occasional zigzag.  Then, watch at least a few YouTube tutorials. This one was fairly helpful.

Step Two:

I measured up 3.5 inches, which was the ‘tiny bit’ that his pants needed shortening, then turned the pants and ironed in the new hem to get a good crease.  (Pro Tip: Follow the iron’s guidelines for the type of fabric you’re working with.  Yes, I have learned that the hard way.)  I put a few pins just above the hem to hold the crease while I did the next couple steps.

Step Three:

Unpick the old hem.  Fun Fact: Dress pants have a single turn hem, not the double that I was taught to use for everything.  My guess is that this helps them hang nicely.  Fun Fact #2: I double turned his pants anyway.  Yes, I realize now it would have been very easy to adjust the tutorial methods.  No, I didn’t realize that at the time.  Once the old hem was unpicked, I cut the pants at the crease of where they were originally hemmed.  That left me 3.5” to make the new hem.

Step Four:

Fold that 3.5” so that the raw edge is tucked away.  And, iron again.  Generally, I kind of like the ironing part of sewing.  But, with my current dining room table set up, and no ironing board, switching between sewing and ironing was a bit of a trail...

Step Five:

Creative folding.  The idea is to have the pants inside out, then fold the hem so most of it is inside the pant leg, leaving about 3/8^ths of an inch sticking out, and then you have a fold of the pant leg on top.  The straight stitches will be on the hem allowance while the zigzag will sneak out and catch a tiny bit of pant leg.  You might need to adjust your stitch width so that you only catch a tiny bit.  To do this, I walked my machine until the zigzag stitch, lowered the needle half way and then adjusted until the needle was in the right spot.

Step Six:

Sew.  Yes, it sounds just that easy.  It’s unfortunately harder than it sounds.  If you don’t sew in a perfectly straight line, you either don’t catch the pant leg, or you catch too much and the stitch is visible on the right side.  I did both.  Personally, I think I’d need to walk the whole hem to actually have one that is perfectly invisible.  Luckily, my honey didn’t mind having just a mostly-invisible hem.

So, I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my struggles.  If I ever find an easier way to do this, I promise to share with all of you!

Beehive- Tutorial Review

So, I wanted to do something hair related today, after talking about all the hair things I want to try.  But when I went to bed last night I thought I was going to a barn to work today, so I didn't set my hair in curls.  And that would, of course, make it difficult to check out the pin curl patterns.  Which leaves us with

The Beehive. 

I like updos, it keeps everything back out of my face and off my neck, so this seemed like a good vintage hairdo that fits my style nicely. For the record, I have fairly fine hair that's a little below my shoulders when it's down.  It has a little bit of wave when it's dry, but it's fairly straight.  Also, fairly flat, but that's another story. 

Oh look, you can see the itsy bitsy tutorial in front of me!

I'm following the tutorial at Skirting the Issue for the 'Easy Updo Version'.  I like easy!  So, step one, split hair and make a pony tale. 

In retrospect, this needed to be a solid two inches higher on my head.  Up right below the part would likely have been perfect.  You'll see at the end, but it looks like mine sits a little low.  And the coverage from the front part is a little weaker than I'd like.  I'm hoping if the poof you make in step two is closer to the part it'll cover better.  But on that note:

Sorry about the bad selfie,
this was take 4 I think...

 Step Two: A Poof.  Directions say to "Backcomb the living shit out of that pony tale"  She suggested dividing it into sections to work with.  I used three, but if you have thick(er) hair you might want more.  I don't back comb a lot, so when she said make a big scary mess I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  To say the least, it is a little distressing making a birdsnest out of your hair.  (I'm still a little nervous about combing it out later...) I also had some trouble back combing the ends, which I think would tidy the poof up.  As it was, I pinned the ends up under so I had a little loop and then pinned both sides don to open it up into a fan. 

Step Three: cover and tidy.  The instructions suggested back combing the front section, but that didn't work very well for me.  So, I brushed it smooth and tried again. And it still didn't work very well.  Option number three was to split it in two and crossed them.  One side wrapping down and across and the other side going the other way.  I'm sure that's a little hard to understand, if you need clarification, drop me a comment and I'll make a diagram.

I think with the changes I mentioned back at step one, I'll be pretty happy with it actually.  I might experiment with a tiny bit of back combing in step three to give my hair a tiny bit of volume at the front, but over all, pretty satisfied.    What do you guys think?

Hmm... my mirror looks really dirty...