Prom Dress....an Adventure in Hemming

The Dot's (short for daughter) good friend is height challenged. Even in nose-bleed high heels, she needed 3" taken off her dress. This is how I mark my hems so I can serger (in this case, a rolled hem) a straight line.


First off, I had her put on her shoes and I marked the length. All that money for a dress and that was one uneven hem, let me tell you!

I go to my sewing machine and set it on a medium length basting stitch and I loosen the tension a bit so the extra fine fabric doesn't get all puckery.  I use post-its or tape to mark how deep I want the hem and then I sew a line of stitching to mark my place.

I hang it up and see if it's even. I'll mark any corrections with pins or chalk at this point.

Looks pretty good to me!  Wow, it looks like more than 3 inches too. gulp!

 Set my trusty ol' serger for a 3 thread rolled hem and made sure 

I kept the row of stitching just to the right of the cutter.

Who ever invented a serger was a genius! That rolled hem is so nice. 

I can even imagine how long it would've taken me to hand sew a rolled hem.

That's the pile of satin and chiffon that came off the dress.

Ta-daaaaaaa.....even steven

Do you have some fun tricks that help you? Share!! After all...knowledge is power!!