Why Hand-Sewn Hems Still Matter

There is a reason the finest vintage garments you will ever turn over on the ironing board have hems you can barely find. Before domestic machines became cheap enough for every household, a hem was a mark of pride, and the women and men who sewed for a living knew that a machined hem on fine cloth was a confession of haste. On silk, fine wool crêpe, chiffon, velvet and lace, a machine needle punctures the weave and leaves a ridge of holes and a line of topstitching that no pressing can disguise. By hand, you can take up a single thread of the outer fabric, drawing the hem closed without the stitch ever surfacing on the right side.

There is a practical argument too. Hand hemming is reversible. If you are shortening a 1950s wool skirt or taking up the sleeve of a linen jacket, a hand-sewn hem lets you let the garment down again years later with the original cloth intact. It is also gentler on handwoven fabric, which has a springiness and irregularity that a machine wants to flatten.

Gather Your Tools Before You Begin

Hand hemming needs very little, but the right little matters enormously.

• Needles: fine sharps, sizes 9 to 11, for silk, cotton and fine wool. Use betweens for heavier cloth, and a fine beading needle if you are working with chiffon or organza.
• Thread: silk thread for silk and wool, cotton for cotton and linen. Match the colour to the garment, not the hem. Choose a finer thread than you think you need — a heavy thread makes heavy stitches.
• Small, sharp scissors for trimming, and a hem gauge or a stiff card marked in centimetres for measuring a consistent turn.
• Glass-headed pins, tailor's chalk, a thimble that actually fits, and a pressing cloth.
• Beeswax for coating thread that tangles, particularly silk.

Cut your thread to about 45cm. Longer than that and it will fray, knot and lose its tension as you work.

Prepare the Hem: Measure, Fold, Press, Tack

Press the garment before you start, so you are not setting a hem into creased cloth. For a skirt or dress, measure up from the floor with the garment hanging, or from a hem marker pinned to your dummy, and mark the finished length in chalk at intervals of 10cm all the way round. Join the marks.

Trim the raw edge straight. Turn the raw edge under by 6mm and press, then turn the hem again to your finished depth — 1cm for a fine cotton, 2cm or more for a heavier wool. Pin perpendicular to the edge, with the pin heads pointing outwards so you can remove them without snagging.

Now tack. A running thread along the top of the fold, in a contrasting colour, holds everything steady while you sew and takes out any fullness or stretch you introduced while pinning. Press the whole hem lightly over a damp cloth, and let it cool completely before the needle goes in.

The Running Stitch Hem

The simplest of the three, and the one to learn first. Work from right to left if you are right-handed, keeping the hem over your fingers and the bulk of the garment rolled in your lap.

Bring the needle up through the folded edge. Take a small horizontal stitch — 3mm to 4mm — through the garment fabric, catching only one or two threads so that nothing shows on the right side. Bring the needle back down through the fold, then run it along inside the fold for 6mm before bringing it out again. Repeat.

Keep the stitches even and the tension slack. If you can see the fabric puckering between stitches, you are pulling too hard. This hem suits linings, lightweight cottons, children's clothes and any hem where a faint stitch line on the inside is acceptable. It is quick, forgiving, and honest.

The Blind Hem Stitch

This is the stitch for wool, tweed, gabardine and anything with a bit of weight. Worked well, it is invisible from the right side and looks like a neat row of tiny vertical bars from the inside.

Fold the hem allowance back against the garment so the fold edge is uppermost and you are working into the crease. Bring the needle out at the fold and take a tiny vertical stitch into the garment, picking up just two threads of cloth right at the fold line. Then slip the needle diagonally inside the fold for 6mm to 8mm and repeat. Space your stitches 6mm to 8mm apart.

The two rules of a good blind hem are slack tension and shallow bites. A stitch that catches too much fabric will pull a dimple to the surface; thread drawn tight will leave a permanent row of dents, even after pressing.

The Slip Stitch, and the Final Press

The slip stitch is the most invisible of all and the one to reach for on silk, crepe, vintage linings and fine lace. It is worked as a variation on the blind hem: instead of catching the garment at the fold, you conceal the needle inside the fold itself. Bring the needle out through the fold edge, pick up a single thread of the garment fabric directly opposite, then slip the needle back inside the fold for 5mm before bringing it out again. Repeat steadily. Both sides of the work stay clean, which makes it ideal for attaching a hem to a lining or finishing a bound edge.

To finish, do not bury a fat knot in the fold. Work two tiny backstitches inside the hem, run the thread through the layers for a centimetre and cut it flush. Press the finished hem over a damp cloth, using a towel or needle board under velvet so the pile is not crushed, and let it dry flat before wearing. Hang the garment overnight — the cloth will settle, and any remaining pucker will usually fall away on its own.