How to Hand Hem a Skirt with a Blind Stitch

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Karen for Expert Village. Now I will show you blind hemming your skirt by hand. Choose a thread that matches the fabric so you can't see the thread at all on the fabric but for purposes of demonstration, I am going to use a light colored thread so you can see my stitches. Okay for blind hemming you are going to start with a good knot. One that won't go through the fabric and you start underneath. I usually start by a seam and you go underneath and just catch the edge of the fabric, the part that is turned up. Then you catch a very small amount. Now go about a 1/2 inch and catch the edge of the fabric that is turned up, just a small amount and a small amount of the fabric underneath and pull that through. Continue you on. Keep the threads fairly loose. Don't pull it tight because you don't want it to pucker. Go a 1/2 inch and just catch the edge of the fabric that is turned up and catch a small amount, just a centimeter of fabric underneath and continue on like that. I will show you what it looks like on the other side. If the thread was black you wouldn't even see this but as you can see you are just catching the fabric just a tiny dot and they are all about a 1/2 inch apart and continue up going 1/2 inch and just catching the folded edge, the edge that is up and catching the bottom about a centimeter. Just a tiny bit. Just as little as you can that will still hold the hem up and keep it fairly loose. Don't pull those tight. If you pull it tight, it is going to pucker and if you happen to pull it tight by mistake, you can just kind of stretch it out again like that so that you are not pulling it too tight at all. Now a skirt is flared and it is going to be wider on the bottom than it is here. So at some point, you are going to have a little bit of extra and what you do is you just fold it. You pinch that in a little bit and you fold it over and you will sew that bit like this. I'm not going in order here. I'm showing you this. You just pull that together and continue on with your hemming catching a tiny bit and moving up 1/2 inch catching the top, catching the bottom and moving up 1/2 inch. Conrtinue on all around the skirt and that is your hand blind hem. You can finish this with the regular knot. Catch a little bit of the fabric, go through that loop and pull tight.l "