Monday, June 8, 2009

Sewing your Kameez

Please remember these drawings aren't to scale!

First, make the neck facing. Cut out fusible interfacing using your neck facing piece, and then fuse the interfacing to the neck facing following the directions given by the manufacturer.
Finish the outside edge. I like to mark the center line and the seam lines down the center front with my disappearing marker so that I get a properly spaced V-shaped opening down the center front.
Pin the facing to the neck hole, right sides together. Sew as indicated by the red line below. Make two small stitches across the bottom of the "V" so that you can press the facing down nice and smooth there.
Trim and grade your seam. Cut (with sharp, small scissors) right to the seam at the bottom of the "V". Fasten the facing at the shoulders with a couple of hand stitches. Turn your kameez right side out and press the facing down smoothly. Then topstitch aroung the neckline as indicated by the red line below:

Well, the neck if now finished. It is time to attach the gussets. Gussets can be finicky, just take it slow and use lots of pins! It's really not that hard.
Right sides together, sew the gusset to one side piece. (Hint--lay out the four side pieces and make sure you've got a front and back side piece for the left, and a front and back side for the right.) Sew just to the dot, ie the seam line. Sew directionally as the red arrow indicates. Press.

Then, right sides together, sew the gusset to the other side piece--just to the dot or seam line.
Press.
Now, sew the two side pieces together from the dot on down to the bottom. It should look like this:
Now, most kameez have a slit part way up the side. See the right hand purple drawing. Sew down to where you want the opening to start, and then finish off the remainder of the opening.

Repeat for the other side.

Now, sleeves! Right sides together, attach sleeve to side piece just to the dot. Repeat for the other side.

Now you can finish sewingthe sleeve closed--sew the sleeve seam from the green dot down to the hem of the sleeve.
The rest is easy-peasey.
Right sides together, attach the side piece to the big main piece as shown below by the red lines. Stitch directionally from top to bottom (front then back) as shown below.
Turn right side out, pin up hem of sleeves and at the bottom. The length should be at knees or a little above the knees.

It's done!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good idea for when you are short on fabric

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