Magical Veils

I made a veil out of the amazingly light wool Meisterin Johanna gave to me.  I'm leaving it as a rectangle - that's as reasonable as anything else for conversion era. This would not usually be worth a blog post, but...

Meisterin suggested finishing the edges with a rolled hem embroidered with little knots that resemble tiny pearls.  There was a video.  I gave the technique a go, but 1) the rolled hem defeated me, and 2) my little tiny pearls were very sad.  I tried the rolled hem on its own, and still no love.  I am not very good at them.

Enter: Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch (link goes to a Word document for download).  It is, truly, magical.  There are so many things that promise to work, easily, quickly and 100%, and the reality is rarely there.  Whenever I try a new craft technique, I expect it to go south, somehow.  It never seems to work right without some practice - which is pretty reasonable, actually. But still frustrating when you're told "just do this, it works!"  No, it doesn't.  

This did.  This totally did.  I followed the instructions, made my little Z's of thread, and gently pulled to tighten. I expected fabric edge to roll in somewhat, and splay out somewhat, and generally make a mess until I figured out the right way to make it work.  Nope!  Pull thread, hem rolls.  I tried it again.  Pull thread... hem rolls!  It works beautifully.  Going around corners has been the only tricky bit, and that still works pretty darn well.  (I may need to go back with a few extra stitches to tie things down.)

If you are studied in the mysteries of the rolled hem, your way is faster.  It's one stitch instead of two.  This way is faster for me, because it prevents the cursing and the swearing and the tearing out of the work that always seems to occur when I roll. 

 

Comments

[Grazia Morgano]

I do consistently get ugly splat from doing this. I think the distance below the raw edge you need to go is understated, because what I see happen is that the folded section gets folded in half, the hem is 4 layers thick, and the raw edge stays next to the stitches, and the space between the stitches is constantly trying to unfold itself.

I just plain double fold my hems now. Linen takes a nice finger press.