Well steampunk was fun and there were loads of marvelous outfits and creations to marvel at as the day wore on. If you look at Steampunk Doncaster facebook page you be able to see lots of good stuff. And then to round of the weekend in splendid style on Sunday the lovely Dr J. took me to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Electric Cinema (the Birmingham one), which is the oldest working cinema in the UK and always a treat.But now it's back to reality which is infact 1916 for me this week as I'm back on the Wearing History 1010s sew along.
Did I mention to you that I was guest blogging on a few post for this sew along?
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I did the first one a few weeks back now, but as I prepare to finish the top half on the shirt fully and then move on the the jacket, I thought I'd share with you the post I wrote about hemming....
Well Hello Everyone, I’m Ally from Honey Pot Creations, primarily a milliner, but a dabbler in anything and everything sewing based. I’m so pleased to be able to write this guest post. When Lauren put out the call for help with the sew-along I was a little nervous and at first didn’t put myself forward but then I thought well why not, what’s the worst that could happen, and to be honest it will really spur me on to complete the sew-along if I’m involved in both sides if you see what I mean. Do bear in mind though that this is my first guest blog and be a little forgiving on me if I make any blunders. Well I thought I would help Lauren out by taking 3 small sections of the construction. I picked
- Hemming the skirt
- Pockets on the jacket
- Collar options
to write the blog posts for and very kindly Lauren agreed. So today is all about hemming and we will get to the jacket all in good time. The original instructions that came with the pattern tell us to “underface skirt 3 inches” and Lauren goes on to explain this as; ‘No hem is allowed for skirt. The longer length will work for earlier periods, since it is quite long. You can either turn up the hem, if you desire shorter than the pattern is given for, or face the hem.’ She goes on to say that she likes to face in a stiffer fabric to give extra body to the hem and I have to agree with this and will be using this method on my skirt, but for the sake of completeness we will cover both methods. As the skirt we are dealing with is not straight, we will have to look at fullness with whatever hem style we choose, so let’s look at that first. Some fabrics can be shrunk in a little and some will just need to be pressed as flat as possible, either way starts by marking your hem line. The easiest method I find is just to run a very large running stitch around the hem line in contrasting cotton.
This thread will be removed later. Also run a gathering stitch close to the end of the fabric (the white one in the pictures) Turn up the hem and baste (or pin if you are lazy like me) close to the turn.
Next pull up the gathering thread to fit the curve, on a skirt as big as this, you will find it easier to do this in sections possibly each quarter.
Once all the gathers are evenly distributed you can iron. Don’t slide the iron along the hem line, as this can stretch it, instead lower the iron onto one area, steam and then lift the iron and move along to the next area. This advice is good whichever style of hemming you choose.
To finish, overcast the raw edges and blind stitch the hem up. With this skirt though, I chose to underface the hem by this method.
This thread will be removed later. Also run a gathering stitch close to the end of the fabric (the white one in the pictures) Turn up the hem and baste (or pin if you are lazy like me) close to the turn. Next pull up the gathering thread to fit the curve, on a skirt as big as this, you will find it easier to do this in sections possibly each quarter.Once all the gathers are evenly distributed you can iron. Don’t slide the iron along the hem line, as this can stretch it, instead lower the iron onto one area, steam and then lift the iron and move along to the next area. This advice is good whichever style of hemming you choose.To finish, overcast the raw edges and blind stitch the hem up. With this skirt though, I chose to underface the hem by this method.- Cut the underfacing to size. By using the bottom of the pattern piece you draw round the outline on your facing material, I chose calico for a medium stiffness.
- Draw the bottom line and 4 inches up the sides.
- Move the pattern piece and then measuring up 4 inches from the bottom line draw another line parallel to it making a curving rectangle shape.
- Cut around the shape to give you your facing.
- (Rather late in the day I got round to ironing the calico, I did say I was lazy) Turn over a short hem on the top edge of the facing.
- Now I chose not to join these strips together instead preferring to attach them to the skirt in separate pieces that overlap and then if there is any problem with the sizing I can increase or decrease the size of the overlap to compensate, so iron down the short edges on two of the pieces.
- If you would rather join the facing together and then sew it on to the skirt just sew up the short sides and continue as before.
- Pin the facing to the skirt right sides together, placing one of the folded over edges down first.
- Place the next facing over lapping this piece and pin in place, when they are turned back over the neat side will be showing.
- Sew the facing on to the fabric
and iron, I always iron the seam as is first and then open, can’t remember who told me but I know it’s important.
- Turn the facing to the inside and press again. I like to roll it in a little further so you can see a little of the skirt fabric on the inside.
- Blind stitch in place.
Ok this is where I need to make a confession, you may be thinking that I was using a cream facing on a dark fabric to make it easy to see in the photos and I probably would have dyed the facing if I thought it might be seen, but you see I decided that the skirt was a little too long for me and for some reason I decided 6 inches had to come off, well I did a bad thing and just folded up the pattern pieces to get the reduction. The real problem came when I folded up 6 and down 6 too (not up 3 and down 3), so I end up cutting the pieces 12 inches shorter than the originals, oops. I realised as soon as I held up the cut out fabric.
Although the skirt is too short you can see the calico gives a nice fullness. Well there had been a thread in the facebook event page discussing this very problem, and some very clever person suggested putting a ruffle on the bottom, so that is exactly what I decided to do. I cut out 3 straight lengths of the fabric, joined them into a tube, hemmed top and bottom and then attached to the bottom of my skirt with small pleats.
From this you can also see the other option for hemming which is to turn the raw edge over twice and sew down. 
Although the skirt is too short you can see the calico gives a nice fullness. Well there had been a thread in the facebook event page discussing this very problem, and some very clever person suggested putting a ruffle on the bottom, so that is exactly what I decided to do. I cut out 3 straight lengths of the fabric, joined them into a tube, hemmed top and bottom and then attached to the bottom of my skirt with small pleats.From this you can also see the other option for hemming which is to turn the raw edge over twice and sew down.
I hope that you may have found something in all that useful, I have to say I enjoyed doing it and it’s interesting thinking about each step, rather than just doing them, so I’m looking forward to the jacket now. Oh and once again thanks Lauren for letting me join in. Hugs and kisses Ally
So that's what I wrote and now you're up-to-date, I'll share more later in the week. oh and if you want to see the rest of the posts on the sew along they can be found here, on the sew along facebook page.
catch you later.
Hugs and Kisses
Ally
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