Stitching Large Rolled Hems

For the rehearsal dinner I’m hosting next month (see this post), I have a thirty foot table runner to hem, along with 30 napkins and 30 chair covers. That’s a lot of hemming. I decided to use a wide rolled hem attachment I have for my Viking; it gives me a 1/2″wide hem that’s durable and attractive. It works on the same principle as the narrow hem feet that are fairly common, but it’s, well, wider. I think these attachments should be more common than they are, because I find lots of uses for mine, like napkins, where a narrow hem wouldn’t be pretty or durable enough. Here’s a couple hints I learned to get consistently good results:

Here’s my attachment. It actually snaps into two holes in the front of my throat plate; I use my regular presser foot with it. You might not be able to use this exact set-up with your machine but I found wide rolled hem presser feet that would work with most machines here or here.

To get a good start on the hem at the beginning of the seam can be tricky, but I found that if you first iron or finger press the first few inches of the hem, you’ll get a nice looking hem. For my hems on crisp cotton, I finger pressed (used my fingers to rub the fold of the fabric) the raw edge toward the wrong side just under 1/2″ then turned it again 1/2″, for about the first 3″ of the hem.

Raise the presser foot, and feed the edge into the hemmer about 4″ from the beginning, then slowly pull the hem back to the beginning, letting the folds you put in the fabric guide you. Now you can lower the presser foot and start sewing and your hem should be nice and even.

The problem with creating hems this wide is it’s hard to judge how much of the fabric edge to feed into the hemmer. When first experimenting, I’d not let enough of the edge curl into the attachment and then I’d have a raw edge showing, or I’d put in too much and get lumps. The solution for me was a little prep work. Before sewing, I draw a line on the back of the cloth 1″ from the edge. That gives me a guide when feeding the fabric into the hemmer. It works well.

Let me know if you have and use a wide rolled hem attachment. I want to know what projects you’ve done with it!

 

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