Blind Hem's anyone?

So I took a alteration jobbie before my vacation and I said I could probably do it sight unseen. Well when I actually had the dress in hmy possession I WAS SCARED!!!


It was a blind hem. Let me tell you I have never in my life sewn a blind hem. IF you do not know what it is here is a picture.

Oh. You don't see a hem / stitch line do you??



Yea. Didn't think so.

Not only did this dress have a blind hem but it had a lining that needed hemmed as well, a chain tack to attach said lining to the dress (the little braided thread so that the lining does not get all twisted up inside the dress) as well as a vent on the skirt. EEEKKK!




All those other things are a whole 'nother story. In this post I'm going to attempt to teach y'all how to make a blind hem. Please, Please PLEASE if I have skipped something or if something is not clear message me so I can remedy the situation.

So let's get started...

So to accomplish this effect you need a Blind Hem foot. Which with my brother is foot R and came with my machine. What you can not see here that well is that on the bottom/underside of the foot it has a little groove or guide.

As well as the blind hem stitch setting. On my brother it is stitch #9 but looks like this--->



















**So for my next pictures I have used a piece of scrap fabric to demonstrate the fabric folding. I ALWAY recommend practicing new stitches on scrap fabric. I tried this a few times on a scrap piece of fabric in the same weight as my actual garment just to get the technique down before messing with the "real" thing.

Step 1)

With wrong side facing you decide where you want your hem. I folded my edge up so you can see that is my "edge of garment." IF this was the real deal I would have serged the edge of my garment but to same time here I have not.

Step 2)
Fold over your right side hem and I didn't see the need for pins and just finger pressed. However, for a full garment you probably would want to use them

Step 3)
Fold that "right side" fabric to the underside leaving at least 3/8" of wrong side fabric at the right so it looks like a small accordion fold like this. Line up the fold under the small groove in the blind hem foot. Drop the presser foot and GO SLOW to make sure that you are catching the edge of the fabric on the left side of the accordion fold. That is when the machine needle goes to the left for one single stitch and only is suppose to catch a few threads from the left accordion fabric.  On my machine I had to keep lifting the presser foot right before that left stitch to realign the fabric to be right at the groove in the foot.

Step 4)
Continue stitching until you have completed the hem. At the end you will have stitching that looks like this on the "wrong side" (left image) and the "right side" (right image).

Step 5)
Unfold the hem and press flat. The fabric needs a good press because it will have a groove from the blind hem foot. As you can see here -no stitches are showing on the "right side" of the fabric.