continuing education

The way to increase your skills and ability is to both practice what you know, and continue to try new things... For this simple t-shirt (made as most of mine are from thrifted bits) it seemed like a fun idea to try a new-to-me neckline binding technique. The clever "reverse binding for single knits", posted on Shams blog, is a technique that I had never attempted before...

Of course, the fabric I was using was very different from her example; I figured that using a narrower strip would just give me a narrower binding, as proved the case. Rather than using a ½" seam allowance for the initial stitching, ¼" proved to be suitable, and I cut away the stitching from the hemline of the grey t-shirt that I used for the revised center panel on the cave horse shirt, which left me with a nice even strip, that was only about 1¼" wide. My new machine, 'lil Nina, really showed her stuff, as the dashboard allowed me to set a zigzag stitch that was barely wider than straight stitching, which gives just enough stretch to the neckline stitching.

Initially the extra fabric beyond the binding didn't really curl up, but a bit of judicious stretching and patting and it now looks rather like some kind of double-piped edge, and will be a good addition to my edge binding repertoire. A great Big thank you to the amazing Shams for this, as well as all the other wonderful sewing information that she shares so freely!