Bias Facing Techniques with Liesl Gibson I Creativebug

[Music] one of my favorite ways to finish an edge like a neckline or an armhole is to use a bias facing I'll show you what bias is why it's useful how to make it and how to apply it to finish an edge [Music] I'm making a little t-shirt out of a wool Shelly this is a very lightweight wool and because it's such a fine weight I don't want to add a lot of extra bulk to the neckline so I'm going to add this little bias facing out of it an equally lightweight very sheer cotton and it's important to remember with a bias facing that if you're using something very sheer like like my shirt is the bias facing could potentially show through the fabric it won't show on the outside edge but if the fabric is sheer enough you could potentially see the facing through it so keep that in mind especially if you're sewing something that's white and sheer it may show through just keep that in mind when you're when you're selecting your fabrics another thing to think about is that you probably don't want to use something heavier than your garment when you're making your bias facing one of the advantages of a bias facing is that if for example this was a very heavy weight or a very thick fabric I could use something very lightweight and not add any extra bulk to the neckline but on the other hand if this was lightweight and I added something very heavy to it it might be a little odd and be a bit bulky at the top so always go either the same way Chaz your body fabric or lighter and I think that's a good guideline to follow this is the fabric for my bias facing bias runs at a 45 degree angle to the threads in my fabric this is the selvage edge of my fabric it's the tightly woven side of the fabric when it runs off of the bolt or off of the roll the bolt will be running this way this is one of the two edges that are naturally built into the fabric the threads of the fabric will run parallel to that selvage edge this is the warp thread or the length thread you'll also have another thread that's woven up and down in between the warp threads this is the left thread or the the cross-grain thread in order to find a bias let me just show you the cross grain will be moderately stretchy the length grain will have almost no stretch at all but if I go at a 45 degree angle to both of those threads and I pull like this you can see I have a tremendous amount of stretch that's called the bias and the 45 degree angle itself is really considered to be true bias it will give you the most stretch and another advantage of it is that it will contour really nicely to a curve like to my neckline so I'm going to cut my strips of bias that I'm going to apply to the neckline and in order to do that I'm going to starch I've torn or pulled a thread at the cross grains so that I know that the fabric is running on grain along this edge and of course it's on grain along this edge because I've got that Salvage I'll position it on my cutting mat or on the table just like this and there's a nice grid on my cutting mat if I can see through it you can actually cut right along from corner to corner and that will be your bias if you don't have that it's also easy enough with a ruler let's say I measure in about 10 inches and make a mark I'm measuring 10 inches from the selvage edge I'll do the same thing from the cross grain edge right there and where those two 10 inch measurements intersect that tells me that it's a 45 degree angle to the corner of my fabric so if I line up the ruler from the corner of the fabric through that tick mark that I've made I can use a rotary cutter or a scissors you could always draw a line with your chalk or use the rotary cutter to simply cut that angle and I'll continue that all the way up to the edge of the fabric I'm working with about a half yard of fabric here and that's more than enough but it's nice to have a long enough section of fabric that I don't need to seam pieces together to get all the way around my neckline so there's my bias edge I've got a nice 45 degree angle now I'm going to cut my bias strip to be one inch wide so I'll position the ruler again one inch from my cut edge and then I'm going to cut it a second time to make a 1 inch wide strip and now we have the bias strip that we're going to use for the facing let me just set that aside for a moment since we're going to be applying the bias to the neckline of the shirt we want to be sure that the neckline will have a quarter inch seam allowance if you have a pattern that has a larger a wider seam allowance just trim it down till it's a quarter inch if you don't have any seam allowance at all then you'll want to add it on to the your seam line just one quarter inch and also be sure to stay stitch your neckline because you don't want this to stretch all of this fabric is cut on bias because it's curved and this is very susceptible to stretching and since the bias is going to be stretching we want to be sure that this doesn't stretch and distort so we'll do a quarter inch seam allowance all the way around and the state stitching will just hold it in place and prevent it from getting any bigger or stretchy we also want to be sure that the bias is long enough to get around this neckline if your bias isn't long enough you can always so two pieces of bias together to get the long enough strip but otherwise it's really nice if you can get it in one piece so there's only one seam making it into a loop so keep that in mind when you're cutting your bias I'm now going to take the bias over to the iron and I'm going to get this ready to stitch in place to prepare the bias strip and get it ready to attach to the neck I want to fold both of the edges in and get a really nice finish on it and in order to do that I general like to fold the strip in half and press it to get a really nice crease right down the center and while you're doing this really try not to stretch it you want to keep this as at the same witch that you cut it as much as possible just gently folding and pressing right down the center once you have a crease down the center you can open it back up and that crease will serve as a folding guide so that you can fold and press each of the edges in to meet at that crease and that way they meet at the center of the bias so here I'm folding one edge and pressing it watch your fingers here and then I'll go back whoops mess that up a little bit that's okay we'll have extra there so we'll just leave that then I'll fold the other edge in to meet it at the center ooh there goes a finger you can always turn down the steam setting on your iron too just to prevent any scalding from happening I also have this little contraption that will prevent all kinds of burned fingers to use this this is a half inch bias tape maker and you can take your bias strip it's helpful if it's cut in an angle like this one you feed it in through the wider end there's a little slot here that it goes into and it always takes a little bit of finagling to get it through here but if you've got a pin you can kind of push it through the groove to get it down towards the tip there it goes and you can see that this nifty little contraption folds both ends of the bias and gets them all set for you to press so usually what I like to do is put a pin somewhere over there in the end just kind of hold it in place and then it's still your job to keep the fabric centered watch your fingers when you're getting it started but as you moved along move your iron right along with it and you'll be pressing both edges into the center so you're keeping your fingers away from the iron a little bit and you are skipping that center crease because it's automatically folding the two edges in this will save you time and burned fingers pin it again to hold it in place and you can continue to fold and crease the idea here is by folding both of the edges in we're getting a crease that we can sew through in order to attach the bias to the neckline and we're also getting a nice folded edge on the opposite side that will give us a clean finish on the inside of the garment and will help us to finish that bias once you've finished pressing the strip like this we can take it over to the sewing machine and we can start attaching it to the neckline here's my neckline and here's my bias and before I get started the first thing I want to do is just trim one end of the bias so that it's at a 90 degree angle I don't need that that angle bit anymore then I'm going to open it up and I think I'll start sewing it someplace near the shoulder I think it will just be a little bit less visible up there so preferably not Center front somewhere in the back would be okay too but I think I'll start at the shoulder because I have a seam there already what I'm going to do is unfold one edge of the bias and I'm going to be attaching the bias right along that crease that's my quarter inch seam so I'll be sewing it to the neckline with right side of the bias to right side of the fabric right along the creased edge of the bias before I do that I'm also going to fold that end over and that will give me a nice finish when I come back around you'll see that shortly I'm just going to put a pin in there to hold it and then I'm going to take it over to the sewing machine and I'm going to start to sew the bias all the way around the neckline right in that crease as I'm stitching this I think I'll actually use a slightly wider than quarter inch seam allowance here simply because I want to be sure to cover that stay stitching so I'm stitching in the crease or maybe just to the left edge of the crease and that's making sure that my State stitching doesn't show on the finished garment as I line up the bias and get it ready too so I might stretch it just a little because I do want it to be a little bit narrower than the neckline don't stretch it very much you don't want this to really be cinching up the neck itself but just the tiny bit will be okay I'll stitch right over that folded edge at the very beginning and then just carefully line up the edge of the bias with the neckline and again keep an eye on that seam line and keep it right at a quarter inch or a little bit beyond a quarter inch closer to 3/8 of an inch just slightly wider and you can use that crease in the bias as a guide again and I'm going to go all the way around the neck like this take this section really slowly just continue aligning the two fabrics together keep watching your seam line and your seam allowance make sure that you're stitching it about a quarter inch or right in that that crease and stop frequently to get yourself set up for the next little section if you want to pin you can but I sometimes find it's a little bit easier not to pin only because the bias is a bit stretchy and it will tend to get longer as you're sewing along as the sewing machine pushes it so if you do pin it you might find yourself adjusting it periodically which is not a problem but I sometimes find that it's easier just to keep going I'm reaching my starting point here and I want the bias to overlap at this point so I'm going to cut it to be slightly longer than my starting point maybe a half inch or so and then I'll stitch right back over the starting point in order to finish that edge I'm stitching through all the layers of the bias at that point we've gone all the way around the neckline now the next step will be to take this to the iron and I'm going to press the bias away from the shirt toward the neck and once I've pressed everything up away from the neck like that then I will press it around to the wrong side and we'll edge stitch that inside folded edge and that will finish the facing the bias will already sort of want to come up away because it's already creased there we're just going to help coax it along try to keep that second fold in place don't open that up but you're just pressing the bias itself and the seam allowances up away from the church here's the joint I'll just press them both going up and just to neaten that up a little bit I think I also shortened the fold so that they match there and then repress that section there that will look better when we sew that down and I'll just continue around like this I'm using the end of my ironing board here because I can sort of get the neckline over that if you have a ham you can use the ham for this step too that'll allow you to press the curve easily without flattening the entire shirt and once we've gotten all the way around like that then we just turn it over and press the seam roll it ever so slightly to the wrong side of the shirt so that the seam won't show and you won't get those little glimpses of pink when you're wearing it and we'll press it again I think I might actually turn it inside out for this because then I can slip it right into the neckline that'll make it easy while I'm at the iron I like to make sure that that facing is laying really flat up against the neckline before I go back to the sewing machine and one thing that can really help is to turn it inside out and press it down and then pin it in place so that it's not moving around at all while you're sewing it so I'm just going to put a few more pins in here and then I'll be ready to go over to the sewing machine and you can see it's really laying nicely along here once it's nice and flat all the way around the neckline and I've got it pinned into position then I can take it back to the sewing machine and I will stitch right along that outside edge as close as I can to finish it and here we go I'll start up near that shoulder where the two ends meet if you have a free arm on your machine it can be nice to take advantage of that you can really get the neckline over the machine that way and you have better control over your stitching I think I'm using thread that matches the fabric of my shirt so that it will show just as little as possible and I'm stitching this close to the edge as I can take your time with this [Music] and again this is just really finishing that neckline it's giving the the bias and almost invisible finish really should only be showing from the inside of the garment because I picked this hot pink for my bias the alternatives to a bias facing would be a lined garment or a full facing but a full facing adds quite a bit more bulk and it can be a little floppy and just not as neat a finish as a bias facing I think plus it's just kind of fun to have that nice little pop of color on the inside you can also do a bios facing on the edge of a hem say a sleeve hem or an armhole if you have a sleeveless garment so think about this as an option when you're doing your sewing and when you're picking your finishes for whatever project you're working on and as I come back to where I began and I'm reaching the point where these two ends of bias meet each other you can kind of fiddle a little bit with the folds and get them tucked under as much as possible if you want you can also hand stitch this to finish it but I often find that you don't need to if you're being nice and neat in tucking them under you'll have a pretty good result and then I'm just going to finish stitching that and come right back to meet my starting point I'll back stitch a couple stitches and we have a bias facing and let me just turn this right side out here's our bias facing this is a great way to finish the neckline an armhole a sleeve even a hem and it's also a great way to add a little pop of color on the inside so think of that as a design detail when you're thinking about how to finish your garments you

Channel: Creativebug Studios

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Keywords: sewing, bias, bias facing techniques, sewing tutorial, Facing, creativebug, Pattern, Clothing (Industry), dress, How To, Do It Yourself (Hobby), DIY, How to Sew, Sewing (Industry), Sew, Learn to Sew, Liesl Gibson, bias facing, creativebug.com, creativebug.com tutorials, creativebug.com tutorial, tutorials, Tutorial (Media Genre), creativebug tutorial, creativebug tutorials, Bias Facing Techniques with Liesl Gibson I Creativebug, Creative Bug

Id: BHH875sjsHQ

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 18 2014