Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Angled Seams

A fellow sewist wrote to me and asked if I had any advice on getting the angled seam in Vogue 2988 to lie flat, as she was not looking for pouchiness at the hip.

Vogue 2988


I told her to staystitch the corner and then clip all the way to the stitching, pivot with the needle in the fabric at the precisely marked corner, and press the lower seam open and the upper seam to the side. This is all pure guesswork on my part, as I have not attempted something like this precisely for that reason. Though having looked at the line drawing of 2988 I am suddenly in lust.

Then it occurred to me that I could do better for her than hazarding a guess, I could ask the (much more knowledgeable) sewing community if they have advice. Thoughts for her?

4 comments:

NancyDaQ said...

Pretty good suggestion, except I wouldn't press the seams the way you suggested. I'd press the vertical seam towards the center and the horizontal seam towards the bottom. I think this would result in a smoother finish. And the seams should be graded first to avoid ridges. HTH!

Gigi said...

That's just how you do it. I would always fuse a square of interfacing over the dot before staystitching and clipping for a little extra reinforcement. I agree with Nancy regarding the pressing direction.

Sherril said...

Threads has a video on how to do this type of seaming.

http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/tvt002.asp

Little Hunting Creek said...

I agree with the light interfacing suggestion, or a small piece of batiste or silk organza might work nicely too. Last time I did a corner like this I practiced first - I cut out just a section of the pieces with the insert angle and tried different methods to see which would work for me.