Squaring Up

A while back, I threw a silk scarf panel into one of my online fabric orders.  It was ten bucks, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to practice my hand rolled edges.  One of the very first classes I took from Cynthia Guffey was her hand stitching class, and it included a marvelous technique for doing hand rolled hems.  Of course, it has taken me 8 years to get around to actually trying it...

The first step, though, is trimming the scarf panel down.  There was actually a little  void in the weave indicating where the panels were to be separated; that I can tell you it is there indicates that the fabric was NOT cut on the mark.  So I measured the narrowest bit of border and discovered that I needed to trim that black down to 2 1/4". 

Here's a tip I stumbled across...the panel was somewhat wrinkled when I laid it on the table, so I thought it would be smart to iron it out smooth before I tried to cut it to exact edges.  However, I found that the wrinkles were very stubborn...and I was afraid my steam iron would leave waterspots.

So, I quickly gave the panel a very gentle bath in some cool water and baby shampoo, blotted it with a towel and began to iron it again.  But I noticed that, damp, it didn't slip around nearly as much as it did dry.  Inspiration hit, and I laid the damp scarf out on my cutting table and trimmed it down.  MUCH easier to work with!

I took one of the long scraps to practice the hand stitching.  I didn't exactly remember how it was done, so I did an internet search for techniques, thinking I'd spot something similar.

Nope.  Not so much.  So I dug out my binder with my collection of Expo notes and found the notes I'd taken in the class.  Played around with it a bit and saw what I had to do to make it work, technique wise.  But it was tricky to do it by guesstimate;  all the tips recommend machine stitching a guide on the fold line.  I had skipped that step to just practice the technique itself

So I took one of the scraps to the sewing machine and stitched a line 1/4 inch from the edge so I could see if having a stitched line as a guide made a difference.
 
But, when I sat down to actually roll and stitch the edge, I was alarmed to see a very subtle, but noticeable, pull line at every single stitch.  So I pulled out a brand spanking new needle (60/8 Universal), stitched a bit on the other strip and...got the same thing.  The Universal needles apparently are not right for this fabric, and the smallest Microtex needle I have is  an 80/12, which I think would be much too large for the silk.  So I'ma gonna do what I did on the first sample and carefully eyeball that baby at 1/4" and see how it goes.  I just can't see putting those pull lines in my scarf...

'Cause I intend to start on it tomorrow; The Artist has managed to damage his knee again and will be having a bit of a procedure to try and correct it once more.  This is a minor outpatient arthroscopic deal, but we will still be at the surgery center for 4ish hours.  I expect to get a good bit of scarf hemming done while I'm waiting...