Back in July I offered to alter a gorgeous prom dress for my niece by October. It needed hemming, and the spaghetti straps needed to be taken in. The dress is made of acetate, and has two 'flaps' on each side, that 'flare' out as she walks. Very pretty, really. It also has a lovely beaded bodice.
The BIG problem - these flaps are cut on the bias, and the existing hem on both the flaps and skirt bottom were narrow....REALLY narrow. Then I realized after some testing with the cut-off from the hem that this sucker would stretch under the machine. And, the original hem was folded over - which after several attempts to do was IMPOSSIBLE for me to do a hem that narrow and keep it from stretching out. And, after some additional testing realized a wider hem just was not going to look good. It needed to be narrow. Yikes!
After some reading in my sewing books and on-line it looked like doing a two-thread narrow overlock stitch all along the hem with my trusty
936 just might be the ticket to taming that stretchy fabric and allowing the narrow hemming...just fold it up once, rather than twice (for less bulk) and finally sew along the edge of the serging on my Viking 1+. So away I went, fingers crossed and trying to remember to breath :)I started this project at about 1pm, it's now 9pm and I am happy to report I am now DONE and the hem looks perfect! As good as the original, and I am thrilled at the result. (And very relieved! LOL) The spaghetti straps have also been finished, and the entire dress now ready to mail down to my niece next week.
I could not have done this alteration successfully without my Husklock
936 serger. While I've always been happy I bought it, today's project came out better than I imagined and I'm just over the top!Sorry to be so long winded...just had to share with those who would understand!!
-Irene in balmy CNY