French Seams

This is a really basic post and i know you could find a tutorial just like this on hundreds of sites, but i was doing this the other day and took pictures of my steps, so i thought i would share. It is a brilliant solution if you have a really sheer/woodgy fabric that needs a clean finish for the seams, don't have a serger and would like all your seams contained, or you have a really fray-y fabric that needs some extra attention.

First: Put the fabric wrong sides together. This is opposite of a normal seam, so be sure you consciously do it the wrong way. 

I like to clip my seam so that i can get a smaller finished seam. I recommend doing this. 

Look at me cutting with my cute Ginghers and cute orange nails... adorable. p.s. it's hard to take a picture when you are cutting with your dominant hand. 

The next step is to turn your project to the "wrong" sides. Pin the fabric over again to make another seam. This step will contain all of the raw edges and will leave you with a clean, contained seam.

Stitching... see how this works? It's brilliant. 

Niiiice...

Make sure to match your patterns!! It bothers me that these ended up slightly off. But it was on the bias, so give me a break...

This was pre-pressing (the MOST important step in my opinion.), but you get the idea.

And now you know how to do something that sounds fancy, and looks fancier than a plain-jane seam... but is in reality very simple to execute. The hardest part is making sure that you do it wrong sides together first... i have accidentally done it right sides together so many times... and had a little quality time with my seam ripper... so check before you stitch!!