Mar 21

Mar 21 Stylish and Practical Ways to Use Decorative Stitches for Garment Sewing

I have a lot of decorative stitches on my sewing machines, and I bought these machines partially because of the variety of decorative stitches they have. But it’s easy to follow directions in patterns, and forget to use the decorative stitches. In this post I’m going to share the ways that I incorporate decorative stitches in stylish and practical ways into my garment sewing, in the hopes of inspiring you to do the same.

Top Stitching

Top stitching is an easy way to incorporate decorative stitches into your sewing; simply replace the top stitching with a decorative stitch. Using a decorative stitch emphasizes design features, and can help you emphasize a design element of a pattern you particularly like.

One recent example of this is my Brumby Skirt (Megan Nielsen Patterns). I replaced the top stitching on the pockets with an antique hand embroidery stitch from my Pfaff Creative 3.0 (stitch # 3.3.7). The Brumby Skirt has very large and deep pockets, and using a decorative stitch helped the design feature to stand out.

The decorative stitching really accents the pockets on this Megan Nielsen Patterns Brumby Skirt.

Hemming

I use decorative stitches for hemming, sometimes to make a bold hem, and sometimes to minimize the appearance of the hem.

My husband recently refashioned my jeggings into a jean skirt, and used a large decorative stitch, framed by straight stitches, to make a very distinctive hem. I think the hem looks nice; it elevates the refashion of the skirt, by adding some freshness to the fabric, which is a bit worn.

A great refashion, made even better with decorative stitching.

Sometimes, I go less bold with my decorative stitches, and use them as a way to blend into a busy fabric. For example, on my first dress that I sewed, I didn’t want the hem to be straight, and cut across the print. So instead, I used a swirly design to blend into the fabric a bit more.

My first dress with its camouflaged hem.

Another example is on the edge of the scrub caps I sew for my husband. I normally finish the caps with a narrow hem. I sew the hem without a narrow hem foot, using a regular foot instead. That way, when I get to the final line of stitches, I can use a decorative stitch to keep the hem in place. I like doing this because it really spices up the scrub caps. Depending on the person’s style or the print of the fabric, you can chose different stitches to suit. I tend to use decorative stitches that are very cute to play up the whimsical fabrics. Other times, I use more understated decorative stitches.

A star hem pairs well with this super cute Japanese fabric.

This decorative stitch suits this fabric design.

Seam Finishing

When I sew facings that have fusible interfacing I sometimes use different decorative stitches in place of a zig zag. Because no one will see the facing, it’s a nice chance to experiment with different decorative stitches, and see how they perform on curved edges, for example. Helpfully, this is also how I realised my old Janome needed to be serviced, as the stitches were not stitching out correctly.

Children’s Clothing

I especially like using fun decorative stitches for children’s clothing. In the case of a recent baby gift, I used a star stitch to make a fun hem, to play up the cheery fabric. I also used a different decorative stitch for the neckline.

I hope that through these examples of how I used decorative stitches in my garment sewing you are able to find fun ways to incorporate decorative stitches into your own sewing! If you have other suggestions, please put them on my instagram post about this blog post, so as many people as possible can see them.