Quick Tip for Binding Tabs…

…without anyone looking at the finished tab and asking if you were drunk and wearing mittens when you sewed it. I mean, everybody “knows” that if you want to bind rounded tabs you just have to use bias tape. Like, duh. But be honest with me – how well does that action really work when you try it? Between you, me, and the interwebs, when I try to machine bias onto a rounded tab in one swell foop, it usually looks poo.  But a miracle happened last week, and my brain kicked in.  There’s a little bitty-bit of magic from millinery that makes the difference between the top corset (the drunken-mittens approach) and the bottom corset (so much nicer…). And it’s fast, people. It’s faster than fighting the normal Battle of the Bias…

There’s a thing milliners do to to petersham ribbon before applying it to the edge of a brim. The term I know for it is “swirling”. It’s a magic trick with an iron that turns your straight piece of petersham into a curved piece of petersham, making it infinitely easier to smack it around the curved edge of a hat brim. It’s one of those preparation things that my millinery teacher was pretty adamant about.

I’ll be blunt: I’m not the biggest fan of prep steps. I only do them if they actively make my life easier and my finished work better, without taking up a lot of time.

This one, I will do every time I have to bind rounded tabs, from here until the time I die.

I mean, unless I lose my clue. That happens a lot. ;)

Anyhoo, here’s what you need:

• Bias tape
• An Iron
• <5 minutes of your life

I’m not going to put all the trouble into making beautiful shiny silk bias just to have it pucker. That’s silly. (Yes, yes, I could do it The Right Way™ and sew it by hand/put it down with two passes on the machine/pin it (however you define “right”), but I really don’t see me doing any of that. Fat chance!)

Here’s what I do see me doing:

I approach the ironing board calmly, taking care that the iron does not sense my fear of it… ;)

I mean, unless I send Mr. Bias Strip back to the ironing board for a bit of “re-education”. But let’s not think about that. Mr. Bias is finally cooperating…

My stitches are woefully uneven here. :( Don’t judge me!

So, ye sewing denizens of the interwebs, free yourselves from the shackles of the straight bias! Take off your drunken mittens, and bind your tabs ease and a relative minimum of cursing.

Ahem. Sorry – I’m a little over-festive today. I got to fit my very first pancake tutu this morning, and it went well. Surprisingly well. Like, it looked *exactly* like a proper tutu. Tee hee!  :)