Let’s be honest – most of us aren’t buying jeans at a price point where we’re going to see a real flat-felled seam. It’s a multi-step procedure that (optionally, imho) involves an iron. It also falls down on the job when it comes to curves. Here’s the cheater version – same great look on the outside, but a whole different process.
Start with right sides together.Serge the pieces together. I took the way-back picture because I am performing a level of sewing-yoga that hopefully you don’t relate to: I’m standing 20″ back from the machine, I have just enough room to squeak my foot over to the pedal, and I actually cannot physically get both hands in to the serger at once. If you can relate to this, then honey, you really need to clean your sewin’ room… ;)Sew a line of stitch at your normal seam allowance. I am told there are magical home-sew machines out there that can perform these last two steps in one go, but I don’t own one.Open up your work and pat the seam allowance to one side. Do not even *think* of bothering to iron this one.Your first line of top stitch goes about 1/16″ away from the little humpsy-doosie of the seam allowances.Your second line of top stitch goes about 1/4″ away from the first, to the side with all the seam allowances. Instead of cutting threads and returning to the start of the work, I’ve used the infamous loop-thread-tail-over-finger-and-sew-back method here. The loop gives me better control at the start of my stitching.The seam is finished on the outside, and actually slightly more reinforced than a standard fell.Which one is the real fell? On the outside, it’s hard to tell. (I believe the real one is on top, FWIW.)On the inside, it’s pretty gosh-darned obvious. The real fell is fully encased on both sides of the fabric. The fakey-fell… Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to use it with a sheer fabric.But on a bustier, or a dance bodice, where you have some predictable curves, that fakey-fell is your friend.
It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s pretty on the outside.
