Flat felled seams and backstitching

[Blum]

Hello,

I hand sewn cw garments for more than ten years and I have always the same problem. Maybe somebody can help to clarified that ?

When the garment is lined, you backstitching the main seams and just press open the seam. The thread is hidden.

When it is unlined, if it is drawers or shirt for instance, you also backstitch and use flat felled seams to finish.
But with backstitch, one side of the sewing is neat but the other is not. Each time I use flat felled seams I must calculate before doing the backstitching witch side of the cloth must be upside and will be view after the seam will be flat felled !

Is it normal ?
Does cw seamstresses also take the time to calculate that ?

Thank you

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

A neat backstitch is just a matter of careful progress, being sure to use the same holes each time. When done very precisely (and it comes much more quickly with practice), the work is neat on both sides. As the same holes are used, the threads lay flat on top of one another, and present a straight, neat line of work.

[Blum]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

Thanks for your answer.

When my wife sewn an heavy linen shirt, she cut the rectangular pieces by pulling a thread and after cut along the line.
After, she sewn catching only two threads at a time for each stitch and of course she use the same hole each time !
Her job is really very well done, better than mine, but when she sewn with double heavy waxed linen thread, the underside isn’t as neat as the upside !!!

Do you really think it is possible to have the same neat stitching on both sides with heavy double linen thread ?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

I think the underside is always going to look *different* from the top, since each top stitch ends where the next one begins, so it looks like a machine-sewn line. The understide needs to have longer stitches that overlap like shingles, so you're never going to get the same machine-sewn look.

To address the question about whether period sewers needed to decide which side of the back-stitching should show, the answer is yes, typically. The original hand-sewn garments I've seen all put the stitching that looks like machine-sewing on the most visible side of the fabric.

I saw a shirt with cuffs which were top-stitched with a backstitch by pulling a thread like your wife did, and the maker had been careful to change her stitching around so that when the cuff was buttoned and turned back, the correct side of the backstitching would be on top. It looked wrong compared to all the other stitching on the sleeve, when the cuff was lying flat, but would have kept the right side up when the shirt was actually worn.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Blum]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

To address the question about whether period sewers needed to decide which side of the back-stitching should show, the answer is yes, typically. The original hand-sewn garments I've seen all put the stitching that looks like machine-sewing on the most visible side of the fabric.

Ah nice ! This is exactly the info we need ! :)
Since years we always trying to show the machine-sewing looking like stitching and to hidden the other side.
It is not easy especially with the shirt’s arms gussets and it is fine to read we had doing it right !

Thanks a lot Mr. Trent

[KittyK]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

Jean-Marc, thank you for bringing up this topic. I have been wondering about this myself, lately. In the last two months I took a deep breath and started sewing things by hand for the first time, so my backstitches aren't so great. (Although you can "date" the order seams were sewn by their relative niceness.)

Mr. Trent said that the side with the machine-stitching-like stitches were usually on the visible side. I have two questions,

1. When you make a flat-felled seam, one side has two rows of stitches, the opposite side has one row of stitches. Is the one-row side of the flat fell out, or the two-row side?

2. If the one-row side is the outside/visible side, and you do the machine-stitch-like ones on the outside/visible side, do y'all have any tricks to tell where the fell ends on the underside? How do you keep your stitching going through all the layers and not meandering off the fell, or is it something you just develop a feel for?

Sincerely,
Katharine Kolb

[Hank Trent]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

1. When you make a flat-felled seam, one side has two rows of stitches, the opposite side has one row of stitches. Is the one-row side of the flat fell out, or the two-row side?

The one-row side is the outside. Actually, the stitching will show very little on the outside, since the felling stitches just barely catch the outer fabric.

2. If the one-row side is the outside/visible side, and you do the machine-stitch-like ones on the outside/visible side, do y'all have any tricks to tell where the fell ends on the underside? How do you keep your stitching going through all the layers and not meandering off the fell, or is it something you just develop a feel for?

The felling stitches don't need the strength of backstitching, so you use a hem stitch for them. Thus you can work from the underside, where the folded-down fabric is visible, and catch a few threads of the single layer of the main fabric, then a few threads of the edge of the folded-down fabric, and so on.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Spongebucket]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

Hank is correst in the process, but there are some garments, mainly men's, of only a decade prior to ours, where the felling was on the outside. This was found on men's shirts, cotton/linen trousers and jackets (military) and some drawers. This was mainly do to the fact that the garments were snug fitting and one did not want the felling to rub so close to the body (especially in the trouser and drawers category. And if I am not mistaken, some drawers of the 1860s era are felled to the outside.

may have caused more trouble than good

Joe Blunt

[KittyK]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

Aha! I did not know that I could hem instead of back-stitching a second time. At least I am starting from the inside out, and I will fell it the appropriate way from here on out. It is interesting to know about the shirt and drawers variations.

Thank you all for the help!

Cheers,
Katharine Kolb

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Flat felled seams and backstitching

Just to stir a pot, I've seen a handful of women's chemises that had the fell on the outside, from the 50s-60's decades judging by other stylistic elements. The fell was held down with a hemming/whip stitch, not really visible as anything other than little pinpricks on the non-felled side.

Hank, truly excellent information! Thank you!

[Carolann Schmitt]

Re: Using period terminology

As we strive to produce garments using appropriate period construction techniques, I think it's important that we use the correct terminology. This discussion and many previous discussions on this forum and others repeatedly refer to the seam under discussion as a "flat-felled" seam. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has primary source documentation from this period that uses the term "flat-felled". The period sewing references I have all refer to this seam as a run and fell seam. I don't have my reference library at this location, but IIRC the term "flat-felled seam" doesn't come into use until much later in the century and perhaps not until the 20th century.

And from a seamstress's view (and we're positively nit-picky about things like this :) ), a flat-felled seam is constructed by sewing the seam with the two layers of fabric placed wrong sides together before stitching so that the felling is on the right sides of the garment, the opposite of how a run-and-fell seam is traditionally done.

I'm not disputing the point that some seams may have deliberately been felled to the outside, especially in the case of tight-fitting garments such as military trousers or riding pants; or inadvertently felled to the outside (which may have been a possibility on some of the chemises Elizabeth referred to; those seams are so finely felled it would be very easy to finish the remainder of the garment wrong side out!). If accuracy and authenticity is a goal, it should be a goal in every aspect of our research, including using period terminology and descriptions instead of modern phraseology.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Using period terminology

Carolann Schmitt wrote:
And from a seamstress's view (and we're positively nit-picky about things like this :) ), a flat-felled seam is constructed by sewing the seam with the two layers of fabric placed wrong sides together before stitching so that the felling is on the right sides of the garment, the opposite of how a run-and-fell seam is traditionally done.

Below are instructions found in several period needlework books. "Sewing and Fellling. - If you have slevages, join them together, and sew them firmly. If you have raw edges, turn down one of the edges once, and the other double the breadth, and then turn half of it back again. This is for the fell. The two pieces are pinned together face to face, and seamed together; the stitches being in a slanted direction, and just deep enough to hold the separate pieces firmly together. Then flatten the seam with the thumb, turn the work over and fell it to the same as hemming. The thread is fastened by being worked between the pieces and sewn over." _The Ladies' Work-Table Book_ (1850), _The Ladies' Self Instructor_ (1853),_The Seamstress_ (1848).

"Felling is but a form of hemming, used when a selfage has been joined to a raw edge turned down, or when two raw edges have been turned down and joined together. The only thing to be taught about felling is the mode of turning down and arranging the two edges. The one to be hemmed has to be turned down twice, and the other only once." _Handbook of Plain and Fancy Needlework_ (1879)

[Hank Trent]

Re: Using period terminology

The period sewing references I have all refer to this seam as a run and fell seam.

Okay, to descend into the lower depths of nit-pickiness, :) would a seam in which back-stitching (i.e. "stitching) is used still be called "run and fell"? Or is that only for seams in which the initial joining was done with a running stitch?

"Running and felling is considered by some people a slovenly way of making a join, and named 'scamp work' in consequence. It should not be taught until a sew-and-fell seam can be worked well." (Smith, Needlework for Student Teachers, 1893)

The modern book in which that quote appears (Plain Needlework by Melissa Roberts) describes "sew and fell" the same as Virginia Mescher: the two pieces are joined with a seam stitch, like a very small whip stitch, so it's neither a back stitch nor a running stitch. It describes "run and fell" just as the words imply--the two pieces are joined with a running stitch.

So was there such a phrase as "stitch and fell"? Or did "run and fell" apply to all joins that were either run or stitched before felling, while "sew and fell" applied to joins that were seamed before felling?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Carolann Schmitt]

Re: Using period terminology

[QUOTE=Hank Trent]Okay, to descend into the lower depths of nit-pickiness, :) would a seam in which back-stitching (i.e. "stitching) is used still be called "run and fell"? Or is that only for seams in which the initial joining was done with a running stitch?

I'm going to have to go back and look at the references in full context before answering that question. But just to stir the pot a little further, I've found a much higher percentage of hand-sewn original civilian garments (male and female) sewn with a running stitch before felling than those sewn with a backstitch before felling. :)


[Quote=Hank Trent]
So was there such a phrase as "stitch and fell"? Or did "run and fell" apply to all joins that were either run or stitched before felling, while "sew and fell" applied to joins that were seamed before felling?

"Stitch and fell" does not sound familiar for this period. I'm not sure if I correctly understand what you mean by "sew and fell applied to joins that were seamed before felling?" Seams that were sewn with the tiny whipstitch you mentioned rather than a running stitch? Again, context is going to be an important factor; there's sewing and then there's sewing! :)

I don't have access to my reference library at this location, but I'm in the midst of doing a quick check of the entire run of Godey's Lady's Book for each phrase. So far I have over 50 references for the phrase "run and fell" (and still counting), but I haven't yet found one for the phrases "sew and fell" or "stitch and fell". It will be interesting to see if and when they turn up, as well as what my other sources reveal.

Question for Virginia:
Does that exact same paragraph appear in each of the sources you referenced? If so, are the three books by the same person, or was the phrase just plagerized?

Sometimes printed sources aren't sufficient; looking at how the garments were actually constructed can often help clarify what they actually meant.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Using period terminology

Question for Virginia:
Does that exact same paragraph appear in each of the sources you referenced? If so, are the three books by the same person, or was the phrase just plagerized?

Carolann,

The wording is the same for all three sources. There were no authors listed on the books and the publishers were all different. I did make a mistake on the book _The Seamstress_, the original publishing date was 1843. I expect that the contents were plagerized the entire books were not copied. _The Seamstress_ was originally a series of books published and the entire title was a listing of the six smaller books. The entire title is _The Seamstress: A Guide to Plain and Fancy Needlework, Baby Linen, Millinery and Dressmaking, Embroidery and Lacework, Knitting, Netting and Crochet-work, and Tatting" and the book has almost 400 pages. _The Ladies' Work-Table Book; Containing Clear and Practical Instructions in Plain and Fancy Needlework, Embroidery, Knitting, Netting and Crochet_ only has 168 pages. _The Ladies' Self Instructor in Millinery and Mantua Making, Canvas-work, Knitting, Netting and Crochet-work_ has 207 pages.

It seems that the authors just picked and chose what they wanted to copy from the other.