How to do a beautiful french seam

Let's see how to make a french seam. This type of seam has a normal appearance on the right side of the fabric, however it looks as if we have folded the two edges of the fabric to the centre in the inner of the fabrics. I love the french seam because it leaves a very professional, clean and beautiful finish, which is also more resistant than a normal simple seam because not only are you protecting the edges of the fabric from friction that can contribute to fraying, but also because it has two stitches, it has more resistance.

French seams are great for chiffon fabrics as they are more prone to fraying. Besides, as they tend to be a bit transparent, a completely neat seam will always look better than a seam in which all the threads of the overlocking can show through. The French seam is also widely used in fabrics such as satin, creps… fabrics that are used for more delicate and elaborated garments such as wedding dresses.

Step 1. We are going to join the bad side of the fabric with the bad side of the fabric. Normally to make a simple seam we join right sides together, but in french seams it’s the opposite.

Step 2. We sew a stitch 0.5 cm from the edge.

Step 3. We have the edge of the fabric on the right side, that is, on the visible side. We are going to cut the edge of the fabric to leave it as close to the backstitch as possible but taking care that it does not fray, about 2 or 3 mm.

Step 4. We turn the fabric right sides together and iron the edge to make it easier to handle. This is the key point of the French seam, the selvedge is hidden as a sandwich between the two layers of fabric and we stitch at 0.5cm so that the selvedge is enclosed within the fabric.