So, silk charmeuse is evil to hem, it’s slippery, it doesn’t take a crease (unless you accidentally press a crease where you don’t want one, then it stays forever).

My hem is also not totally on the straight, so trying to do a standard double-fold hem would be kinda bubbly. I’ve also found that on slippery fabric, my hems end up narrower where I’ve pinned them, and wider between the pins where the fabric shifts. UGLY. Everyone who sees your hem is all

Also, silk charmeuse frays like nothing else.

Enter this article!

Steps to get a perfect hem on evil fabric:

Pin up your hem at the right place. Can I tell you how evil this was too? It’s pretty much impossible to tell if your hem is even when working with such a drapey fabric. The fabric also liked to spit out pins whenever I walked or turned around.

Yes, I hand basted the entire hem to stop the fabric wiggles

Enter the blind hem foot. Ignore what blind hemming by machine actually is, you just want the fact that this foot has a bar on the edge which keeps your fabric from moving around. Pin or press (or baste, if you are nuts like me) your fabric over once, so there is still a raw edge. Sew a nice narrow seam.

Trim the excess fabric as close to the seam as you can get.

Press the fabric over AGAIN, with the seam on the inside, which encloses the raw edge. Sew again with the blind hem foot.

What this looks like on the inside:

Here you can see the two stitch lines

And the outside:

One seamline for one amazing hem!

The few downsides – it uses a ton of thread since you are going around the dress twice. Psh whatevs so worth the lack of headache to sew this.

The hem does a bit stretched when you fold it over a second time. But for a fluttery 1930s dress, this is actually a great look that I have no problem with.

Final step – revel in your EXTREME GENIUS and BEAUTIFUL HEM!