Behold a blind hem which can be made really fast on a serger. No need to attach a special foot or fiddle with the settings if your serger is set on the 3-thread setting.

Here’s the back story. I realized that there was a dire need for dish towels in my kitchen – yes, dire. Like a good DIY girl, I went immediately into a pile of fabric, pulled out a couple of home dec fabric pieces and cut them to the appropriate length and width. But wait. I was in no mood to patiently turn & press the four sides for a double fold hem and change the thread on the sewing machine to match the fabric.

I noticed that my serger was threaded in a somewhat reasonably close thread color.  A light bulb moment ensued.   Here’s how I finished the raw edges and serged a blind hem in one pass . It took less time than using the sewing machine, and even less time and effort to get into the car, park at the store and buy a couple of dish towels.

1. Cut appropriate fabric to the desired size of a kitchen towel. I rotary-cut out a rectangle 18 x 24.

2. Press under 5/8” to wrong side, on all sides. For a deeper hem, press down 1”, or more. You will work on one edge at a time. No pivoting the corners here.

3. Lengthen serger stitch to it’s longest setting.

4. Turn back the fabric at the edge on itself, exposing the raw edge, as shown in picture below. This is the same method of folding when you’re using the blind hem on a sewing machine.  I folded back the fabric to expose just enough edge so the knife could cut through a little bit on the right side; the important thing is for the needle to catch the fold on the left, just barely.

5. Locate the needle marking on the serger. That is where you will align the fold. How much to leave exposed for the knife depends on how deep you want the hem to be. For this project, the hem depth was kind of a moot point.

6. Serge all the way, and off the end. Note that the needle catches the fold on the left.

7. On the right side, pull the hem a little to flatten it out. You will see the needle thread on the right side resembling a hand hem – almost. Press.

8. Repeat the process on other three edges of towel.

9. Sometimes, you may miss the needle stitch on the fold (if you went too fast or were not paying attention).  In that case, run the serger again just on that part.

Where can one use this really fast serger blind hem besides the lowly dish towel? How about children’s play clothes? Anywhere you can think of?   Try this technique on a casual project; I think you’ll like it!

Samina