Friday 24 February 2012

10

Tutorial: How to sew a small cuff on to a larger edge

It can be pretty tricky sewing cuffs onto leg or sleeve edges, particularly with childrenswear when the pieces are so small. Added to that, as the ratio of cuff circumference to garment circumference increases, the difficulty increases too. For example, a leg cuff on my newborn trousers is 15cm but the leg hole I'm attaching it to is 23cm; that's a lot of stretching to match, and not a lot of space to do it in!

Before I sew a cuff on, I pin the cuff to the leg opening only at the four quarter marks and stretch to match the bits in between as I sew. I'm doing this on my serger, but the same applies on a regular sewing machine. And here's how I do it:



As the video is pretty fast and I don't do any talking, here's the bits that I think are most helpful:

Sewing on the curve:

tip one

Don't attempt to stretch the entire band to match the garment edge, it's much easier to stretch just the edge of the band as it has a cut edge that will naturally fan out. And by leaving the bulk of the band unstretched, you are maintaining its intended circumference rather than stretching it out of shape. And so you end up with a nice neat circle at the end:

tip one part two

Folding up to check edge alignment:

tip two

I tend to pause every couple of inches, and with the needle in the down position fold up to make sure all the edges are flush and to tame any of the curls. Once I'm happy, it's folded back down onto the plate, squashed down with various fingers and sewn again on the curve.

And there you go, a nice and neat cuff in no time at all.

10 comments:

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    1. My audio / video is out of sync sometimes so it was safer to be quiet. Plus my voice would have been shaking :)

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  2. I only watched this to see if you sound Scottish or American! ( I know nothing about sewing nor am ever likely to) and I also can't believe how beautiful your nails are!

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    1. Did you miss the clip from the radio show last year? You can't hear me anymore but you can read about what everything thinks about my 'unique' voice :)

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  3. I love this method but in a hurry one day I put the cuff on the bottom of the legs and sleeves then sewed them. It went fast and no pin points went into my fingers. Just make sure you line up the edges and the seams on the cuffs before sewing the sleeve or leg opening . Worked for me !

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    1. I'm altogether too nervous about sewing on the serger when I can't see the needles! I find that they can pop out easily when you're stretching so much and I'd be terrified about one ending up under the knife.

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  4. Thank you so much, these are great tips!

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  5. Hey!

    I'm currently sewing a jumper and am doing these knit rib bands for the arms. I wanted to ask what differential feed and thread length setting you have your serger on as I'll be stretching the fabric with my hand also. I've done a few testers but just can't seem to get the differential feed right when I'm stretching it with my hand also.

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    1. Hi James, my stitch length is 3 and my differential is normally 1.5ish. What problem are you having? If it helps, email me a picture of what's happening and I'll try to see what's going on! amanda at kitschycoo.co.uk

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  6. How do you know what size to make the cuff? I make dog clothes and am trying to figure this out for new patterns.

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