Imitation Hand-Hemstitching. A Tutorial!

The other day I was looking through my fabulous Art of Dressmaking by Butterick. This is the same book that had the technique for making the lace collar for my 1905 waist. I noticed the imitation hand-hemstitching section again and thought it looked interesting to try, but didn't have a reason.

So, today, Twila and I decided to get together on Sunday to recover parasols. I knew I wanted mine to be pink, but I didn't want it to be just pink. So I decided a stripe of my cream figured silk would be nice. Then I thought of an original teens parasol that I own that's green with a stripe of cream sewn in with hemstitching, and decided to try it.

It worked beautifully!



Take your two fabrics, and layer a few layers of tissue paper in between. I gave up on the pins--too difficult through the paper! The book suggested blotter paper or other easy to tear paper. I have a tiny bit of blotter paper from my recent bookbinding adventures, but thought the tissue would be more practical. I folded all the sheets in the package three times.



Sew it! Loosen your machine tension and adjust the stitch. I didn't adjust the stitch length as a parasol does have stress on it and I didn't want it too long.



When you're done, it looks like you've piped it with paper. Tear it out!



Et voila! "Hemstitching!"

The book suggests facing it or hemming the raw edge. Since a parasol is rather small, I'm going to just press it and hope for the best. If I need to, I'll just tack it down by hand a in few places when the parasol is done.



It's very messy :)



And for good measure, the book!