This is our best guide to creating a beautiful ‘mini-hem’ on a sheer chiffon skirt, wedding dress or any other garment made from a thin, woven fabric. This hem looks particularly lovely on ‘curved’ hems, such as those on a circle skirt. This hem is so small and creates beautiful waves at the bottom of your garment: the smaller the stitch, the ‘wavier’ it becomes. Haute couture and high-quality sewing, but oh so simple once you’ve got the hang of it.
Haute Couture Mini-Hem
1. This seam uses approx. 1.5 cm seam allowance, so add this to the hem of your garment. Sew a standard straight stitch on your machine, approx. 0.75 cm from the edge of your fabric. Backstitch at the start and end. Make sure the seam is straight and neat throughout; if the fabric edge curves awkwardly, don’t follow it, but continue sewing a neat, straight seam all the way along the hem.
2. Trim away any excess fabric along the edge using a very sharp pair of scissors, leaving a neat edge of about 2–3 mm.& nbsp;The reason you don’t sew so close to the edge from the start is that the machine thread and needle are quite thick compared to the fine threads in your fabric, and the fabric is more likely to be sucked into the sewing machine where the needle strikes, and you will end up sewing in the air with the loose fine threads hanging loosely or the fabric getting caught.
3. Once you have finished trimming away all the excess fabric, carefully fold the edge back and press it flat with the iron, so that the seam is about 1–2 mm from the edge. Then sew the same straight stitch again ON top of the previous seam.
5. Press the seam back one last time, so that it is now 3–4 mm from the edge.
6. Finally, sew the last seam. Make sure you sew RIGHT ON top of the old seam, otherwise you’ll end up with two parallel seams close together, which doesn’t look very professional.
Hemming in this way helps enormously to prevent unsightly creases that can occur when you fold, press and sew directly, without the initial preparatory seam. Hemming in this way can work when the fabric is straight, but if the fabric has a slight curve, this method is ‘fail-proof’.
Good luck with your sewing!
