An Easy Rule(r) To Follow

For those of you looking to step up your game from ‘home-made’ to ‘hand-made’, a sharply-pressed, even hem can work wonders.

To help you along the way I have created a nifty little ruler. You simply pop it between your layers of fabric, line it up with the correct measurement, press and voila! A perfect hem, every time.

There are a couple of things to note about the ruler.

1. I have only included imperial measurements. As a British-Australian this feels a little odd since I don’t use inches anywhere else in my life. But since I was taught to measure hems and seam allowances in inches, my quilting rulers use inches and my pattern drafting reference books (being American) all use inches, my brain is now forever programmed with sewing = inches. In my patterns I put both metric and imperial alternatives (eg. ‘turn up 25mm or 1″ as a hem’). However, whilst 25mm or an inch both make a perfectly good hem, 25mm does not exactly equal 1″, so it didn’t feel right to include both on the ruler.

2. I obviously can’t include every seam allowance and hem measurement used in every single pattern out there. However, if there is a measurement you often use that I haven’t included you could easily create your own ruler.

3. I recommend printing onto heavy card, or printing on paper and pasting to card. This will make it far more hard wearing than paper.

You can download your ruler from HERE.