Need Help Sewing Hemp Fleece Edges?!?

[angel86]

Hi
I am hoping that one of you clever sewing ladies can give me some advice...
I have cut some bits of hemp fleece with the intention of keeping them single layer and just folding them up to use as inserts for my pocket nappies. Think hemp flats I guess....
Anyway, I want to finish the edges to keep them from curling/wearing away. I tried using a zigzag/overcasting stick to go around the edge, and at first it was just stretching out the material and making the edges not sit flat...but eventually after tweaking width/length settings I managed to get it working so it sewed the material without doing that (well maybe still a tiny bit, but it sat pretty much flat). However, when I tried to sew in the other direction to do the sides that naturally curl a little, it was back to be super stretching it out and there is no way that I can fold them up neatly after that...

...so what do I do?

Thank you so much in advance!

[Anthea]

do you have a walking foot?

[angel86]

I don't know lol

I don't think so...

To be honest the "feet" are something that confuse me a great deal (I don't know much about sewing...can you tell?)

My machine is an old singer SU, and it came with about 4 different feet...but I am yet to really work out what is what.

What would one look like if I had one?

Do you think a walking foot would solve this problem?

Thanks so much for your help

[Anthea]

you'd know if you have a walking foot i think. its one that sort of steps (goes up and down) to feed fabric through without using the constant pressure of the foot, and the feed dogs to push the fabric through.

Id peobably start with reducing the foot pressure a bit, and putting the feed dogs down. you will have to push the fabric through fairly consistently without pulling it through iykwim, to try and reduce the stretch.

[Happy@home]

I made some years ago with minky one side and hemp fleece the other. With lots of pins they turned out fine. All the best.

[nakigal]

Do you know anyone with an overlocker? That is by far the best way to edge inserts. With some of my earlier inserts I pre-folded them into 3 (the right size to fit into the nappy) and then I overlocked over one short end to keep them folded, but left the other short end and the long end "free" so they would still dry quite quickly. Hemp won't fray so it isn't essential to hem it, although like you say, it will curl.

[sjl]

Yep, overlocker is the easy option for sure.
You can try running a couple of rows of straight stitch around the outside edges first. Lower your foot pressure if you can on your machine and pull up your thread tension fairly tight (although not so tight that your thread breaks!) then straight stitch around the edge a couple of mm in and then another row about 6 mm in. If you can get it tight enough it will sometimes even look like it's starting to gather in - this is good!
Then do your overcasting or zig zag stitch around the outside. (resetting your tension correctly first ) The rows of straight stitch won't stretch (much!) and should help to counteract the stretch of doing the overcasting stitch.

[angel86]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

No I am pretty sure I don't have a walking foot then...maybe something to invest in in the future!

A couple of good suggestions though...so I might have to have a play around and see how things go. Trouble is we are moving house on Saturday (yeah I know...who moves this close to xmas!?!)...so I am kind of tempted to not do anything to them at the moment I really don't want them to curl or stretch too much though....hmmmm.