How to Hem a Straight Edge – Beginner Sewing Tutorial

This sewing tutorial will teach you how to hem a straight edge with your sewing machine on any woven fabric. This technique is perfect for hemming shirts, pants, sleeves, curtains, blankets, etc, where you want a hem that’s folded twice.

By the way, if you’re looking for a tutorial on how to hem by hand, the Seamwork blog has this lovely one! It shows five different hand stitches that you can use to hem.

What is woven fabric?

First of all, you might be wondering what I mean when I say “woven fabric.” Basically, most fabrics can be grouped into two categories: woven and knit.

Woven fabric is quite literally woven on a loom, with vertical and horizontal threads that cross over each other. It has very little stretch, unless there is spandex added. The edges will fray if they are left unfinished/exposed, which is why we fold twice to hem. Think quilting cotton, linens, home decor, dress shirts, jeans, etc.

Knit fabric is your basic t-shirt type fabric, active wear, etc. It has stretch, even if there’s no spandex added. The edges don’t fray, even if left unfinished, so they’re hemmed in a different way.

How to hem a straight edge

Sew the project together

First you will want to sew your project together, according to your pattern’s instructions. Here I’m hemming a toddler dress, and I’ve almost completed it. All that I have left is to hem and do buttons and buttonholes.

Measure, fold, and iron

First you are going to measure and iron the first fold. The width of this fold will depend on your pattern, or whatever you’ve decided.

The widths of the folds can either be the same, or different.

For this dress hem, I’m making the first fold 1/4 inch, and the second fold 1 inch.

I like to lay the dress on the ironing board in the following way:

So, fold to the wrong side and double check the width with measuring tape or a seam gauge, and iron.

Tip to keep the fold from shifting out of place

This next picture is a step ahead, but it shows the way I move along the fabric. I iron away from myself (up in this picture). Then when I move the fabric to iron the next section, I move it away from me as well. This way, I’m always ironing toward the section that I already ironed. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but I do this because it helps to not shift the folded section to either side. On some fabrics it doesn’t matter much, but on fabrics with a looser weave, it can get quite wonky as you go along.

Repeat and pin

Now measure and fold again, and iron in place. This time, use pins to secure your hem. I move my fabric in the same way, to prevent the fold from shifting.

All pinned and ready to go!

Edge stitch

To sew the hem, you will edge stitch it in place. Do this with the wrong side facing up. I aim to stitch 1/16 inch or so from the edge, and I start somewhere discreet (usually next to the side seam, on the back), so the backstitching won’t be as noticeable.

So, position your fabric under the presser foot and lower the presser foot.

Make sure you’re using a straight stitch (I like to make mine a tiny bit longer than the default stitch length. I just think it looks better and is more forgiving if I wobble a little).

You can turn the handwheel to make sure the needle is going to come down in the right place. Then, sew forward about 1/2 inch, and reverse/backstitch the same distance. Then sew forward again and work your way around the entire hem. Remove the pins as you go. Once you get back to where you started, overlap a little and sew forward and back a couple times to make sure it’s nice and secure.

Trim your tails, give it a final ironing, and you’re all done!

And now you know how to hem a straight edge!

I hope you enjoyed this simple sewing tutorial. I’d love to hear if this helps you on your sewing journey, and be sure to let me know if you still have any questions about how to hem in the comments below!

If you’re wondering about how to hem square items with mitered corners, like napkins and tablecloths, I have a tutorial on the absolute easiest way to sew mitered corners here. The hemming is the same as in this tutorial, but the corners have a little trick to get them perfect easily.

Thanks for following along today!