How to Sew a Curved Hem on Knits

Use this trick to hem curves on stretch fabric

Hey y’all, today I’m answering on of your questions – how do you hem curves on knits? This question about hemming curves came up on Instagram after I posted the picture below, though usually I answer questions submitted via my question form.

That t-shirt is a hack/mash up of my Austin T-shirt and Abrazo T-shirt patterns, (Abrazo to armscye, Austin below, with a hacked neckline and hemline). The questions about the hem honestly took me by surprise, but then I realized that while I have covered how to hem curves on woven fabrics, I haven’t specifically shared my tricks for round hems on stretch fabrics.

So here’s the post with my one trick to getting a smooth knit hem on a curve! Hint: You don’t even need a special machine to do this, your regular sewing machine will work just fine. You can watch the video below to see how or watch on YouTube here if it won’t load for some reason.

How to Sew Curved Hems on Stretch Fabrics

1. Set your machine to do a basting stitch.
2. Baste a row of stitching at the depth of the hem you want – for example if you want a 3/4 inch hem, baste 3/4 inches from the raw edge.
3. Use the basting stitch as a pressing guide. Fold the fabric on the stitch line toward the wrong side. On concave curves, this means that you’ll stretch the raw edge of the fabric to keep the outside flat. On convex curves this means that you’ll have extra fabric on the wrong side that will wrinkle slightly. Don’t worry about those wrinkles on the inside, the important part is that the outside lays flat.
4. Stitch the hemline. Need help with knit hems? See this post.
5. Remove the basting stitches and press the hem once more.