Staystitching

Most patterns require stay stitching. Stay stitching is a single row of straight stitches designed to prevent stretching. It is sewn in the seam allowance, usually 1/8" from the seam line, so for a 5/8" seam allowance it would be sewn 1/2" from the cutting edge, so that it will not show on the outside of the garment. Staystitching should be done before any other construction as construction can cause considerable stretching.

Try an experiment with a small scrap of fabric. Cut a curve, take either end of the curve and yank on it. Once you release you will see how much it has stretched out of place.

Most patterns will tell you which edges you should stay stitch; if they don't, any curved edge can be staystitched including necklines, armscyes, princess seams, waistline, and pants crotch seams. Stay stitching should be done in what is called directional stitching. This means to start at the top and continue to the bottom. So one would start at the upper edges of the neckline and stitch down to the center. For the armscye start from the shoulder and sew down to the underarm.

When staystitching there is no need to backstitch just use a regular straight stitch and clip off the extra thread. Staystitching can be done with a normal stitch length but it is best done with a smaller stitch length. If you have a computerized machine 1.5mm stitch length is ideal.

This time our instructions tell us:

"1. Stay-stitch front neck edge 1/2" from cut edge in direction of arrows.
This stitching stays in permanently and helps prevent stretching on curved edges.
Stay-stitching will not be shown in the following illustrations."

Here I have used a seam gauge to mark 1/2" from the cutting edge.

Always staystitch top to bottom

Finished staystitching on the front neck.

Part one also instructs us to sew the pleats but that's for the next post.