A blind hem stitch is used a lot in home sewing projects. It is mostly used for side and bottom hems of shades and draperies. The blind hem can also be used to hem a skirt or pair of pants in place of hand stitching.
Most sewing machines today have a blind stitch setting. You can choose to use the blind hem foot attachment if you have one, but it is not necessary in order to do the stitch. This tutorial is done without the blind hem foot. However, the foot does help by providing a guide for stitching.
In this tutorial, I am doing a side hem of 1 1/2″, but use the hem allowance that is appropriate for your project. It is also necessary to use the blind stitch on a double hem.
The stitch looks like this above. If you are sewing a home décor fabric and through a couple of layers, as I am in this tutorial, then you will want to set the stitch length and the width on the longest and widest setting. You should experiment with what works best for your fabric and project on some scrap fabric to get the right settings.
STEP 1 – To make a double hem, first turn up the hem allowance (1 1/2″ in this example), wrong sides together, and press.
STEP 2 – Turn the raw edge in to meet the pressed fold, again making sure to follow the seam allowance of your project. Press. This creates the double folded hem.
STEP 3 – To add the lining, lay the lining face side up (wrong sides together) and align the raw edge with the fold line that you created when you pressed the double hem.
STEP 4 – Fold the hem back over the lining.
STEP 5 – Pin the hem, 1/4″ from the inside folded edge of the hem, with the pin heads positioned on the inside. You’ll see why in a minute.
STEP 6 – From the wrong side, gently fold the hem back, exposing only a 1/4″ of the hems’ edge. If you have pinned it 1/4″ from the edge, this is very easy to do. You can finger press as you sew, but I do NOT recommend pressing this with an iron, as this will leave a permanent crease in your fabric.
STEP 7 – Place the hem under the presser foot. If you are using the blind hem foot you can align the fold of your fabric along the guide on the foot. If you are not using the blind hem foot, just stitch within the 1/4″ hem, making sure to ‘catch’ the fabric each time the needle crosses over to the left. In this case, the stitch is going through both the lining and the face fabric, catching a little bit of both. Remove the pins as you stitch.
This is how your stitches will look. Obviously it would be most desirable to use a thread color matching your fabric. For the purpose of this tutorial I have used a contrasting fabric so that it is easier for you to see the stitches.
When you are done this is what the hem looks like on the wrong side of your project.
This is what your project will look like from the right side. If I was using a matching thread, the stitch would hardly be visible.
Happy Sewing!
What sewing machine do you use? This is a great tutorial. I always get confused when it is time to fold the fabric and put it under the machine. This helps
Hi Maureen,
For this tutorial I used my straight stitch machine. It is a Viking Husqvarna machine. It has quite a few stitch options. Hopefully your machine has a similar stitch. I am ‘dreaming’ of buying a new Baby Lock straight stitch machine and Baby Lock serger/coverstitch machine in 2017. Fingers crossed. Glad you found this tutorial helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help.
Thank you!! This demonstration helped me understand how to fold the fabric! I get it now!! Yeah!