How to Do a Blind Hem Stitch on Your Sewing Machine

This is the go-to hem for anything more formal where you don't want to be able to see a line of stitching on the bottom. It is called a blind hem for obvious reasons -- you can't see the hem! Amazing! And professional! Threadbanger visits Diana Rupp of Make Workshop to get this tutorial. Thanks Diana! Check out her book Sew Everything Workshop! To see this tutorial in live action, check out the Threadheads video. If you're craving more diy style, subscribe to Threadheads on iTunes!

To do this, you need to have a blind hem presser foot for your sewing machine.

Step 1: Folding and Pressing Your Hem

Turn back the raw edge to the wrong side of the fabric to one inch. You can eyeball it or measure it with a ruler.

Iron it back so the fabric stays how you just folded it.

Fold this under to the desired amount of hem you would like (ours is about 2 inches), so that there is a fold that is created with the fabric right sides together. Iron the fold into place.

Lay it flat again, wrong side up. Take the fold line and line it up so that you only see 1/8 inch of the original hem that you pressed. Press this fold down.

Step 2: Preparing and Using the Sewing Machine

Get out your blind hem foot and put it on your machine. Set your machine on the blind hem stitch and use an average stitch length, between a 2 and a 3.

Slide in the fabric wrong side up, and put the foot's plastic straight edge guide right up against the fold. The needle should just barely be piercing the fold of the fabric. Put the needle in the fabric, drop your presser foot, and you can start sewing.

What will happen is the machine will do a little stitching on the part of the fabric you don't see, and then it'll jump over to the right side.

In our example, we used slightly lighter thread so that the stitching is visible to the camera. When you're done, if you use matching thread the hem will be invisible from the right side!

Comments

[craftyv]

I learned to blind hem stitch over 40 yrs ago but I have never done it by machine. Nice job.

[Eryne]

Thanks! I couldn't remember how to fold blind hems until I stumbled across this.

[Nneave]

Really useful thank you. Did have to watch how you folded the material about 4 times though, to work it out. Guess that's what's so great about video.