PART 3 IN OUR SERIES ON KNIT FABRIC EDGE FINISHES

 

Coverhem gives a great professional & durable finish to fashion knits. Neck, armholes & hem edges on this tunic top were all coverhemmed.  See Option 9 below.

Check part one (posted 13th April) and part two (posted 27th April) if you missed them……search in the archives for April 2015 on the right hand side of the blog page.

Option 6: Here is something different – use a strip of woven fabric ( not a knit) cut on the BIAS to bind the garment using option 1 or 2 explained in Part 1 of this series (see link in first paragraph above). I have used this method on a knit fabric blanket and it worked very well adding a stability to the edge of the blanket that a knit binding would not have done.  I would also recommend this for some garments where you would like to stabilize the neck opening & stop it from stretching out.

Option 7: This is kind of the opposite of option 6. The garment is a woven fabric but the raw edge is finished with a knit binding. I recently made a shift dress in a poly cotton print  and edged the neck & armholes with a self facing of the same woven fabric. I liked the dress but was just not happy with the facings. They kept creeping to the front even though I had under stitched the facings and caught the facings in several spots on the back. So it lay over a chair in my sewing room for months until I finally got an idea of how to fix it + a few minutes to actually do the task! I used a knit fabric strip which had a lot more stretch than the woven fabric even though the facings had been cut on the bias. I pretty much used option 2 shown in part 1 and it worked……I can now wear my dress without fiddling with the facings to get them to stay on the wrong side of the garment.

Dress made with stretch polycotton: neck and armholes were finished with option 7 after the facing technique bothered me.

close up

close up of inside of dress front showing my binding made with black knit fabric

Option 8: Another way to stabilize a stretchy knit to prevent neck edge from widening with wearing & washing: ric – rac sewed in place with a triple coverhem.

Stay tape was fused to inside edge which was turned over to wrong side. A triple coverhem was stitched around the neck opening ON TOP OF a piece of matching ric-rac. Hold the ric-rac & folded hem edge in position with Clover clips or pins.

Option 9: Much the same as Option 8 except minus the ric rac. Sometimes all you want is a simple turn over edge. BUT if you sew this down with a straight stitch, it often pops when the fabric is stretched. So a Coverhem is a very good method for sewing this down…..2 or 3 professional looking lines of stitching on the right side & the hem edge on the wrong side is covered by the professional interlocking coverhem stitch. Would I use a twin needle to simulate this coverhem stitching? Not a chance when my JANOME COVERPRO 1000 CPX does such an awesome job as seen in the pic’s below.

Front neck edge is a self faced drape but back neck edge & hemline was coverhemmed.

Back neck edge on outside of garment

Inside of back neck edge – really neat and the added advantage is that it “covers” the raw edge of the fabric.

Option 10: Facings. This is a bit of extra work but the result was, in my opinion, well worth the little bit of time spent.

This was a pattern by SAF-T-POCKETS called T-shirt Trifecta. I followed the pattern instructions to make the V neck tunic top with self fabric facings which are wide and just lie really nicely flat. I dislike “fighting” with that roll & creep so I am looking forward to using this pattern again …..it worked well for me. Despite the facing edge not being sewed in place except at the shoulder seams, it behaves wonderfully.

Close up showing the top stitching around the neck edge. As it is black you probably can’t see it but there is also a top stitching just into the black inserts beyond the facing – although this does not catch the facing on the inside.