In yesterday’s podcast, I mentioned that I was supposed to use a felled seam for the sleeve/armhole seam but that the instructions confused me and I clipped off the wrong seam allowance. I decided to do a little research on this topic and this is what I’ve found:
If you’re not sure what a flat felled seam is supposed to look like, get out your jeans. Almost every pair of jeans has a felled outer seam. The advantage of a felled seam is that it encloses the raw edges of the fabric for a clean look while cutting down on bulk.
There are several video tutorials out there that skip the trimming step. If you are using lightweight fabric, I can see that you don’t necessarily have to trim one of the seam allowances. However, if you are using a heavy-weight fabric, it totally voids the benefits of this type of seam.
Making this seam is really quite easy: sew seam, press seam allowance to one side, trim back seam allowance, fold other seam allowance in half–enclosing other seam allowance, sew near the fold.
I’ve included two tutorials. One is a photo tutorial that shows the process step by step using denim and the other is a video that will give you a good overview
Photo Tutorial From About.com: http://sewing.about.com/od/techniques/ss/flatfelled.htm
Video Tutorial from Expert Village: Click here if video player doesn’t work below
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