HOW TO Hem and Shorten a Dress in Six Steps | This Old Thing Workshop 

im planning to do this myself soon (all by hand) ... how was it?

Lilly Grace Well? How was it?

lily did you die

Same here. How was it?

@@fagman2011 I guess we shouldn't try to do it by hand lol

Then please help me!

You’re making me feel incapable and dumb

They used a great tailor. They used an amature photographer. Three cm, great information. They say a "SHORT" zig-zag stitch. 20 stitches/cm, or 10 /cm to stop it fraying? The camera man is shooting it from the tailor's left side. Most of the work on the machine should be from the right side.

ow well its better than paying $60 dollers a dress for a hem xx

Use a small 6 inches ruler that it's made for heming . Has a little gauge that goes up and down to pin point the size of the seam allowance . Use it to be certain your hem is the same everytime when sewing .. goodluck!

Maybe go a bit longer, then you have room to adjust. All things take practice. It takes courage ha ha you can do it.

Dee H A sewing machine’s user guide would teach you how to zig zag stitch if you can’t work it out. Also he didn’t secure anything with that stitch; it was PURELY to prevent fraying. Maybe you should watch the video properly before making LUDICROUS complaints.

Yeah I have no Idea what I'm doing, and not being able to see what the stitch even looks like let alone where to place the fabric exactly is confusing me more. And you can't even see what it looks like done because it's black on black on a small phone screen.

Perhaps, mark the hem and seam allowance like he did but mark all the way around the dress instead of just marking the front of the dress as he did. Also, don't cut the dress straight across like he did. That creates an uneven hem. Why? Your buttocks, hips, or tummy pouch typically call for extra fabric to cover those areas. If you cut as he did, once you put on the dress the length will be off in the sides or back. Here is what you can do-- mark the dress. Starting at the original hem, mark the length to remove, going 360° around the dress. Next, open up or cut an existing side seam then cut the top single layer of fabric until you've made your way around the dress. Don't lay the fabric flat and cut two pieces of fabric at once as he did. You know you've done this correctly when you get one long strip of fabric vs a circle of fabric.

Straight stitch

Do I really need to cut off the material? Cant I just turn stitch it up ?

It will be cuffed underneath in the inside

Tacking is using a very loose stitch (what he has done in the white thread, when he said he was using a straight running stitch) to hold the fabric in place.

Tacking = Basting I was confused as well

Technically yes, but because there would be so much excess fabric folded up on the inside you would need to sew further up from the folded “end” of the skirt to stop it from coming unfolded and making the edges contort strangely. You could potentially roll the edge into a sort of cuff and sew it like that but the bulk would likely make the edges of the skirt very bulky and not sit properly. Sorry if this explanation wasn’t clear I’m only a home sewer.

@@amyOMNOMNOM thank you. I managed to do it and it looked really good. There wasn’t that much to turn up in the end. Thank you though 🙂

He used the white thread just to baste the hem. He removed the basting after he sewed the hem using black thread with the machine

a long time megan

Ginger Durbin The zig zag is to keep the edge from fraying. The hand stitch is to keep the measurement from sewing crooked. That is actually the only reason i watched this video, to find out how to keep the hem straight.

Brothers Mechanics why not use pins or clips?

a bit late, but when you're sewing with a zig zag stitch it resembles, if not _is_ a blanket stitch. Basically it goes on the edge, and "off" the dress when you're sewing (I'm terrible at explaining it) and wraps around the outside so it stops the dress from fraying. If you just used a normal stitch it wouldn't actually stop the fraying because it wouldn't even touch that part, if that makes sense? I hadn't known about the hand stitch before watching this though aha, but I would assume a hem moving isn't uncommon. Edit- although for a newbie like me I didn't stop the fraying completely, but as long as it's wearable then...

It depends on the style of dress. This dress was the same length front and back. Some dresses however may have started out longer at the back, in which case you would mark the same distance all the way around (instead of just the front and cutting through both front and back at the same time) to retain the shape and cut around the full circumference of the skirt rather than the way demonstrated in the vid.