Appreciation post: My old sewing teacher's trick for making perfect bias tape saved my last project

I was making a dress with a curved hem and my store-bought bias tape just would not lay flat, it kept puckering. I was about to give up and change the whole design. Then I remembered my teacher from a class in Austin saying to cut the fabric strip 1.5 inches wide instead of the standard 2 inches for tight curves. I tried it with some scrap silk and it worked perfectly, no ironing needed. Has anyone else found a simple fix like that for a frustrating detail?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.riley3mo ago

My grandma swore by a 1-inch strip for silk.

gonzalez.grant3mo ago

Was that for a specific type of silk, like charmeuse versus dupioni?

alex_hall9125d ago

Honestly, I gotta say, going down to a 1 inch strip for silk like park.riley's grandma said, that's pushing it a bit. That's really only for super delicate work like hemming a scarf, not for a curved hem on a dress where you need some structure. The 1.5 inch trick is the sweet spot for most silks, even charmeuse, because it gives you enough fabric to fold over but not so much that it bunches up. Anything narrower than an inch and a half and you're gonna have a hard time catching it in your stitches, especially on a curve. Trust me, I've made that mistake trying to be too precise and ended up with a mess.