Sewing essentials. Double stitched seam

Sewing essentials: Double stitched seam

Double stitched seam is one of the basic seams that are used for sewing shirts, swing blouses, jeans, sport trousers, bed linen, etc. If you only have a sewing machine and no overlocker, no need to worry about it. Thanks to the double stitched seam, both right and wrong sides of your garment will look perfect.

Ready? Let's go!

Before you start working on the actual garment, find some leftover pieces of fabric and do some tests. In this tutorial, I’ll be using a piece of middle-weight fabric, but keep in mind that double seam is also suitable for delicate fraying fabrics as cheesecloth and batiste. I strongly advise against using it on highly stretchable knits, unless you’re an owner of a coverstitch machine with adjustable differential feed.

Creating double stitched seam

Far left needle position
Standard Brother sewing machine presser foot
Pink upper thread and turquoise lower thread
Blue-colored wavy line on the right side of the fabric

Put the fabric pieces with their wrong sides together. Stitch at a distance of 0.5 cm from the edge. To get a nice straight row of stitches, use the scale on your standard presser foot.

Keep the width steady by using a seam guide on your throat plate.

In the photo, you can see the two details stitched together from the wrong side. Press the seam allowance with an iron. Put the details with their wrong sides together, circumventing the protruding seam allowance. Stitch at a distance of 0.7 cm from the edge.

You can choose a different value if you want. Play with the stitch width, do several test pieces and decide which one works best in your case. For the purposes of this tutorial, I set the values as follows: ready double stitch width 0.7 cm, seam allowance 1 cm (0.3 cm will be “lost” in turndowns).

As a result, the wrong side of your garment will look like the one in the photo below. The edge of the fabric is hidden inside the seam allowance. After that, not a single loose thread will escape.

Press the seam allowance with an iron. Right (the photo above) and wrong sides (the photo below).

Now all that’s left is to add a finish. It’ll kill two birds with one stone: secure the seam allowance on the wrong side and serve as a decoration. You may add one or two lines of decorative stitches.

If you chose the latter of the two options, place the fabric under the foot and stitch the first line of decorative stitches at a distance of 0.25 cm from the joining stitchline. For the sake of convenience, you may draw a line with an erasable pen on the foot itself (see the photo).

Or, you may skip this and proceed to the second line of decorative stitches.

It will be just as durable, but on the right side, there will be less decoration.

The second line of decorative stitches should lie at a distance of 0.7 cm from the joining stitchline. Use the scale on your presser foot while doing that.