Two Ways to Finish Seams — Pin Cut Sew Studio

While most of my sewing stuff is still in boxes while we wait for the remodel to be done, I did manage to make a dress yesterday and it felt soooooo good to sew something! It's like therapy, for real.

I used a very simple shift dress pattern that I knew the fit was perfect on (I had made a muslin of it in the past), McCall's 2632. It's out of print now, but here it is on Amazon. Here's the dress unbelted, but I like it a little better with a simple belt, as shown in the other photos.

Unfortunately, I could not get my serger working! I'm hoping I just made a threading mistake and it didn't get banged up in the move, but I didn't want to spend too much time on it so I finished my inside seams the old-fashioned way. I thought I'd share with you how to do the same!

If you are making clothing for yourself, or your kiddos, or your dolls and you don't want the seams to get tattered in the wash, here are two ways to finish them so they'll always look nice.

First, a French Seam. Here's how to do it!

1. Place your fabrics WRONG sides together and sew in a 1/4" seam. Trim this down to 1/8".

2. Press the tiny seam to one side. This will help you get a crisp edge when you then fold the piece RIGHT sides together, encasing the first raw edge inside. Sew in a 3/8" seam.

Your seam will then look nice and pretty, with the raw edges tucked away, never to be seen again. This is how I finished my center back seam.

For my side seams, I needed them to be pressed open because of the way the sleeves needed to be hemmed. So I simply sewed my 5/8" seam, then turned the raw edge of each seam allowance under and sewed a tiny hem. So it looks like this:

You can see I didn't sew them down to the main fabric, I kept that out of the way as I turned the tiny hems under. A good press and it looks so neat on the inside!

I had enough of this fabric to cut out a simple top too, so I'll be working on that next. And hopefully I'll get my serger working, but there's something satisfying about finishing the insides this way too!

I know I'll get a lot of wear out of this dress. Today I found a belt of Natalie's lying around and put it on with it.

Gracie wanted to be in all the photos, she's a camera hog.

Cheers and Happy Sewing!

How to sew finished seams, two ways, without a serger