Tee shirt Dress Part IV

Time to finish things up with a hem! There are many ways to hem a dress. This is the easiest way. It's not an ugly way to finish a dress, but it's not as refined as other hemming techniques. If you know how to hem by hand or do a blind hem by machine, go for it! We'll get to that in a few projects.

Turn the dress inside out. Heat your iron up. Turn the bottom of the dress up 1/2 an inch. The little ruler in the photos is one of my favorite sewing tools. It has a little slide that makes it incredibly easy to accurately mark measurements. I know it looks like I turned things up more than 1/2 inch in the picture. I fixed it.

Work your way around the dress, turning up 1/2 inch and pressing well as you go.



Now turn the bottom up 1-1/2 inches and press all the way around. Notice how the raw edge of the fabric is still turned under from step one...



Secure the hem with pins if you want. No shame in using as many pins as it takes to make you comfortable. Make sure your machine is set for a straight stitch with a tension of 4 or 5 and a stitch length of 2.5. You want the needle to be close to the edge of the turned up hem. If you can move your needle to the left, you can experiment with that. I have a little notch in my presser foot that I lined up with the edge of the hem.



Sew all the way around remembering to secure the seam by sewing backward at the beginning and end. Try your best to keep the same distance from the edge of the hem.

Clip your threads (I always forget this!), turn the dress right side out, and you're DONE!!!!!