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Sunday, July 18, 2010

looks are deceiving

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the hem on this dress has been giving me fits. the problem with marking an even hem is that no matter how many times you go around the garment, by the time you get back to the starting point the hemline has gone off its rocker at random places, sometimes as much as 1/2". i have no idea why this happens, but searching around for various methods of marking an even hem shows i'm not alone in my frustration.

i've been obsessing over this hem for the better part of a week. i tried a few different methods for making it even, the first of which was the vintage hem marker (twice); the second was pinning against a ruler flat on the floor; the third was a method i made up which was better, but still not quite, which is why i won't describe it here except to say that the hem was even in the front & even in the back, but the back was about about an inch shorter than the front. in these photos- the pressed line is the original back hem.

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the last & best method i read about said to let the garment hang for a week so gravity can do its thing. since this dress has been more or less hanging on the dressform for the better part of 3 weeks i figured i was ok. then you simply cut the hanging garment by sight, keeping your scissors parallel to the floor.

the scissors by sight method was sort of astounding because it was fast, didn't involve any measuring & it was almost completely accurate. now if i can just remember to do this next time i can spare myself some agony.