Narrow Bindings

I have been toiling away at my machine, sewing up ballet costumes for a local concert.  At the moment I am working on 14 caterpillar costumes.  Whilst the sewing itself gets tedious, I enjoy the process of working out my patterns and construction methods for maximum efficiency and minimum number of fittings.

These caterpillars are all wearing green satin bolero vests.  The fabric is heavyweight and frays terribly.  The boeros are for 6 yo girls.  This is the neatest method I came up with to bind the edges of the boleros, which have some rather tight corners.

Step 1  - Keep the bias binding folded.  Lay the binding with the folds facing upward on the right side of the bolero, matching the raw edge of the bolero with one folded edge of the binding.  Stitch down the centre of the binding.

Step 2 - Trim away the seam allowances (my seam allowances were 6 mm).  It is okay to trim off some of the binding.

Step 3 - Fold the binding, and about 1 mm of bolero fabric to the inside of the bolero and stitch along the folded edge of the binding.

This is what it looks like from the inside.

This is how it looks on the outside.

 This is the completed bolero.  Not perfect, but as neat as I can get it.