If the fabric is reasonably tight woven, and your seam allowances are
not too narrow, it should be OK. When you wash it, it will fray a tiny
bit, but it will also felt a bit to stick the frayed bits together. Of
course, you don't wash it every week (I remember trying to explain to a
colleague of my husband's that you don't wash wool jumpers every time
you wear them!) but it will survive washing often enough not to be
smelly.
Jean
Caroline <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
Betsy - you have described my normal method of heming here. Visibility on
the front is not necessarily undesirable - it certanly looks like some of
the medieval stiches were both functional and decorative. I think I may go
for a sewing the seams down with running stich.
My only worry is that this will still allow the fabric to fray. I suppose
if the tunic is never washed................. authentic but possibly a bit
smelly.
On 02/12/05, Betsy Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This may or may not help- I've been using a whip stitch shaped
like a "Z"- diagonal as it goes from stitch to stitch, but
parallel/perpendicular to the warp/weft in the stitch itself- catching
only
1 or 2 threads on the visible side; and if the sewing thread is close to
the
fabric color it virtually disappears.-maybe an indentation due to thread
tension, but that will likely ease out in the next wash.
HTH Betsy
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Caroline
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 11:40 AM
To: Historical Costume
Subject: [h-cost] Seam finishing on wool
I have just finished the long seams on a new 10th/11th century woollen
tunic
for my husband. In the past I would now switch on the zig zag and do the
bits that are likely to fray with that. I've only ever hand sewn hems
before
(what the public can't see etc) However, I have just spent a month
doing
run and fell seams on a linen tunic and it would be nice to finish the
woolly one also by hand.
I have had a look at the York and London stiches and the main option seems
to be to flatten the seam and put a running or whip stich up the seam
allowance. The running version would I think leave two parallel lines on
the front of the garment (either side of the seam) and the whip stich
might
leave a series of diagonal lines on the front.
Does anyone have any other techniques they know about or have tried. I
don't think run and fell is particularly aproproate the seam would
probably
be rather bulky.
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Caroline
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Jean Waddie
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