This image landed in my Pinterest feed and blew me away; what was about this outfit? (It is credited to shamacollection.com).

It was the high contrast brocade facing in a high-low hem. It started to live in my mind, and is now culminating in a blog post. To my eyes it gives off more polished vibes than a regular turned up hem would have. I mean, the usual turned up hems have their rightful place in garments plain and fancy, couture and non-couture; but, like I mentioned above, a faced hem is still occupying a corner of my brain.

Hem facings are sisters of neck facings, and related to other edges where we apply another piece of cloth, i.e. facing, to finish that edge, rather than turn and stitch the fashion fabric. There are several reasons that come to my mind — and my mind is wont to dig into the weeds of every sewing concept.

Hem facings are practical and useful when a regular turned-back hem is questionable or, in some cases inadvisable in the case of thick fashion fabric, or a curved edge, or when there is shortage of fabric. In other cases, garment beauty is the only purpose.

Wait — didn’t I just use a faced hem in the recently sewn kurta set? .

Thinking back, here are a couple of where I used a facing at the hem.

The Pant Lengthener:

A pant lengthening trick by adding a deep facing in a glitzy fabric, even if the pant fabric is regular cotton. The original pant leg had a deep-ish hem with a side slit. Letting out the hem, sewing in the facing with a narrow seam not only made the pants and the side-slit longer, but the linen/cotton/lame fabric on the inside gave it a surprise element.

The Bulk Reducer:

An oldie but goodie project was given a faced hem; my neon yellow top has a plain creamy cotton-faced hem cut on the bias, and edged with vintage lace. Turning up the hem of the yellow cotton as a regular hem looked a bulky edge; therefore, a lightweight ecru bias faced hem to the rescue. I added vintage lace to the upper facing edge because why not. Just ignore the drag lines, please.

Variations to be addressed

A variation of a faced hem is visible on the right side — that is, turning it to the outside of the garment. A sub-variation to this one is when you finish the upper edge creatively as in shaping that edge into scallops or scrolls — so haute couture. Or, apply a braid or lace to the upper edge.

A second variation is applying a facing without having to turn over the seam. lol! Intrigued? I’m planning to visit those and more in a future post so we can dig more into the seemingly utilitarian hem facing again, and the hidden creativity therein. Until then, keep on sewing and thinking about sewing.

Keep cool.

Samina