Narrow hemming

One of my recent sewing projects required A LOT of narrow hemming. Like  a herculean-effort narrow hemming. Like hemming-ruffles-should-be-outlawed hemming. As evidenced in a McCalls wrap dress I just made, it required pure patience to grind through all those ruffles.

And this sweet summer dress put me to the test too.

However, I invested in a narrow hemming foot for my Viking No. 1. She’s got some age on her, but she still sews like a champ!

Here is a close up of the foot so you can see how the fabric feeds into the hemmer. It rolls the fabric as it sews, stitching it down as it is fed through.

However getting it to start the process was tricky. I came across this great tutorial on two methods to get things rolling. I use the first; take a few stitches, backing the fabric away and the feeding it through the foot with the thread tails. 

Happy sewing!