Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Word of Warning: Seam Finishes and Scallops

First off: love how more and more dresses are added to our June Challenge flickr board! Check them out here if you haven't seen them yet. I'm finished with June Challenge Dress #3 and will share pictures soon. One more to go! I hope I'll make it in time.

In other news: my black shirt waist dress has been saved! I spent some time at the weekend encasing the raw edges of the dress with grey bias tape and zig-zagging the others properly. I clearly didn't do a good job finishing the seams when sewing the dress, as the raw edges came out of the washing machine all frayed and tangled up. Now the dress looks a lot neater from the inside.


Sadly, what also happended is that the corners of the scallops at the hem started to fray and unravel on the outside. The corners of the scallops have to be clipped very close to the seam so they will lay nice and flat when turned. But since the dress is made of linen (which frays a lot) the scallops didn't hold up in the wash, but the raaw edges came through to the right side at the corners. Disaster!

I solved the problem by zig-zagging neatly around the edge of the scallops from the outside. The stitching is hardly visible when the dress is worn but the scallops have a neat finish again and will hopefully survive more machine washes.


How do you sew scallops? Has this happened to you before? Any tips and tricks on sewing and clipping scallops correctly so that they don't fray?
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6 comments:

  1. PattyJune 21, 2011 at 10:09 PM

    did you fuse the facing and then understitch it??

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  2. StephanieJune 21, 2011 at 11:06 PM

    Yes, Patty, I did use fusible interfacing on the scallop facing, but, no, I didn't understitch because I didn't think that was possible with the scallops.

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  3. GailJune 22, 2011 at 12:50 AM

    Each scallop needs to be understitched separately because you will not be able to get around the corner. Tedious, but purposeful.

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  4. StephanieJune 22, 2011 at 8:03 AM

    Gail: really? wow, that does seam labor-intensive and I still can't quite visualize how it is possible, but I will definitely try next time I sew scallops. Thanks yor your tip.

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  5. magdamagdaJune 22, 2011 at 6:01 PM

    here are my tips: http://magdamagdadesignstudio.blogspot.com/2011/05/scalloping-tips.html

    and I prefer to zig-zag them too although they never frayed...

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  6. two hipposJune 23, 2011 at 6:09 PM

    I haven't tried scallops, thought your solution was brilliant! In answer to your question the dress is salvageable, but as we are moving and I will probably not try it again thought I'd sell on the pattern. It is a thing of beauty.

    ReplyDelete

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