Sewing with Wool: Seam Finishes

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Duration:   4  mins

Wool is a great fabric to use for projects like pillows, blankets and other home decor. It can also be used to create wonderful garments and outerwear, however it can tend to have rather bulky seams. Nicki LaFoille shows you some easy seam finishes to use on your next project that reduce bulk when sewing with wool.

Lap Seam

A lap seam is a great seam finishing technique to use when sewing with wool because wool tends not to ravel. Nicki demonstrates the seam finish and explains how to make the seam stronger with a second line of stitching. A lap seam is not only good for sewing with wool, but is also great when sewing fleece and other thick, non-raveling fabrics.

Welt Seam

Another great seam finishing technique to use when sewing with wool is a welt seam. This technique creates a very strong seam because it utilizes two lines of stitching, much like the welt seam. Nicki also shows how it creates a slightly raised edge along the seam, which can be a great decorative element to outerwear like jackets.

Finishing While Stitching

If you know ahead of time that you will be sewing with a bulky fabric like wool and want to finish the seams, the lap seam is great for finishing while stitching the project. As demonstrated in the video, one fabric is lapped over the other by ½”. This means that if you are using a different seam allowance on your project you will need to adjust the amount that is lapped over. Also, because the fabric is lapped over one another and then stitched, rather than stitched with right sides together, it’s best to make the decision to use the lap seam finishing method before you start a project and use it throughout so every seam matches.

If you complete a project and then decide that the seams should be finished, you can still add the welt seam finish to your project, however it may be easier to finish each seam immediately after you stitch it no matter which seam finishing technique you use.

Seam Finishes

Whether you are sewing fabrics like cotton that need to be finished because they can ravel, or sewing with wool or fleece that have bulky seams, or even sewing silk that can also tends to ravel; using the right seam finishing technique can give your project a professional look and ensure your seams hold up.

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10 Responses to “Sewing with Wool: Seam Finishes”

  1. June Smith

    Material too dark in colour to see but, what I could see was noted.

  2. Joanne

    Your demo would be useful if lighter coloured fabric were used to facilitate better visual clarity

  3. Penny Dickenson

    The material the tutor was using was too dark - I could not make out the look she achieved. I could only see the light coloured thread she used. This sort of thing is why I will not join as tutorial was a failure.

  4. Dona K Ritchie

    41345 The math is off here. Taking ¼ inch off one side, then lapping the fabrics by ½ inch means you will not have the correct width of fabric. Even if you take ¼ inch off both seam allowances, you will still end up with a larger piece than called for. To make a ½ inch lap seam come out correctly you must remove ⅜ inch strip from EACH seam allowance.

  5. Janet Hammond

    None much the wiser - you can't see what is being done because of the dark fabric and dark quality of the film.

  6. murielle.evraire

    Hi, have you considered redoing this video with a light coloured wool material and contrasting thread?

  7. Karin Mueller

    Same as Joy. Using dark material is just dump. Cheerio Karin

  8. Bonita Watts

    Have you considered using contrasting thread for better visibility?

  9. Kathy A

    Why would you think that 2 pieces of dark fabric would work when demonstrating a technique??? Worthless.

  10. Joy Mann

    Very difficult to see...why use two pieces of dark fabric, surely using contrasting material would show better also no explanation of terms used,

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