Lazy Tips for Sewing (Any Fabric): Easing Circle Skirt Hems with a Serger

I’ve been doing a lot of unselfish (but oh so fun) sewing for other people lately, including 3 dresses and a top for my sister and as many shirts and pants as possible for my baby niece! As a result, I’ve got nothing to blog! Instead, I’ll give you another lazy tip: 

When hemming circle skirts, use your serger to gather the curved hem before folding! 

This is another of those maybe-to-obvious tips, but I do use this trick a LOT, so I wanted to make sure everyone else was too! 

This is a 1/2 circle skirt (A Tiramisu, of course! :P) Because of the flare shape of the skirt, the folded hem will need to be eased to fit the smaller circumference of the skirt. (Seriously, i can’t figure out how to explain that any more clearly. I just hope you know what I mean! ;) 

This could be done by careful ironing, or using a curved hem template… but I prefer quickly gathering it with my serger!

Here’s a fuzzy shot of my Brother 1034D. 

I set my serger to gather slightly, and serge the whole bottom edge of the skirt.

Voila! After serging, the bottom edge of the skirt naturally flips up and eases into shape, ready for hemming. At this point I iron a fold, and stitch it in place with my regular sewing machine. 

This particular dress is a super-stretchy ITY knit, but I still just used a  regular straight stitch. The 1/2 circle skirt is so full there is rarely much pressure on the hem stitching, so for me, a straight stitch is plenty strong enough! Of course, you could do a lightening bolt stitch, or a nice double needle hem… but those both take extra time, and I’m LAZY!

Bonus: Easing hems with the serger works equally well with woven fabrics, or with a curved hem on a knit top!

If you are lucky enough to have a serger, do you do circle hems this way? If you don’t have a serger… Sorry! Do you have any tricks for easing hems?

ps. Are you following the new Sewcialists Blog? We’ve got some fun Red October round-up posts and inspiration for the Grunge Sewalong coming up!