 In today's video I'm going to show you two stitches that are both called a rolled hem. They both finish off the edges of delicate pieces of fabric that go into very delicately made garments with a very neat, tidy, quite impressively small edge. The common name, notwithstanding, they are each actually quite different. We can see both of them in use through the centuries in antique garments, however in most periods we see one much more commonly used than the other. So I'm calling this video the rolled hem then and now. Both manipulate the fabric, however in very different ways the travel of the thread as it moves through the fabric is very different and is that different travel and resulting appearance in extant garments that helps us identify which stitch has actually been used. Firstly I'm going to show you the one that looks like magic. You need a folded seam allowance, very carefully on the grain, your thread is started, knotted in the end, in the tail end with that knot then buried up inside the fold, then you come down to the main body of the fabric, not the folded in seam allowance edge, and pick up just a few threads, just a tiny, tiny stitch there. And it's that first stitch that actually will anchor this line of stitching. Then you go back up to the fold, insert your needle right along the top, quite close to where the thread came out, that you can see it keeping out there visible, advance along, generally speaking no more than the length of that stitch to what your seam allowance actually is, ideally you want it closer to half and you'll see why in a minute. Then back down just a few threads and you can see on the right side of the fabric it is literally a few pricks, just a couple of threads, you can see that starting to form there, again bounce back in and notice the travel thread from that stitch onto the next is within the fold, completely hidden, advanced the needle right inside the fold that that thread is not, that this needle has not poked out, again that travel from one stitch, travel happens inside the fold. Now you can see all this thread forming here that's showing, it's a bit like a ladder stitch, only with one side of the ladder somehow really really super short and the other side of the ladder longer, which would be a very peculiar ladder. Now when you've done perhaps half a dozen depending on your fabric you can do a longer run. Let's say we've got here one, two, three, four, five, essentially six. When it's like that and finished off with that last bit there, what you do with this to actually complete the hem stitch is pull and you see what's happening there as it pulls, it's pulling the folded edge to fold over on itself to join where the little prick stitches go in. So when you pull the whole thing it all folds in on itself. Now think about what you saw with that thread, what it was doing, the thread was what was manipulating the fabric and it's created from a single fold, it has now created a fold, a folded fold if you like, so it's folded in on itself and what you see on the inside it's almost invisible with the thread pulled tight all of the travel is inside that first, that major fold and just nothing peeking out and on the right side, let's see I caught more than a few threads there, but what you see on the right side which would be the outer edge of the garment, say this was a skirt or the hem of a blouse, it's very fine and you do that in the same colour fabric because it was white on white, it's virtually invisible and that is the beauty of this hem, it is virtually invisible. Now if you think about how that's actually happened you might see some analogies or some similarities to a blind hem, it's just achieved differently where you just, the work of your hand is to create the path of the thread through the fabric and then it's this pulling that zips it all closed into one lot, very narrow and very flat hem, so that's one rolled hem, the other rolled hem actually works quite differently, I'm just going to snip that off, not on my end again, this can be worked from the top edge, but I have actually spent a lot of time practicing it from this, from working from this edge, you will see it done both ways. Now for this it usually helps if you don't start right at the edge, you can come back and finish up that edge later. With this rolled hem the work of manipulating the fabric isn't done by the thread, it's done by your hand and it works quite differently. A little moisture in your fingertips helps, a finely woven even fabric also behaves very well, but you are literally rolling the fabric between your thumb and a finger, forefinger or middle finger, different people find a little bit ergonomics and efficiency and I think effort and works a little bit differently, you see that, you've literally rolled it, there's no fold, you have a roll, now rolls are thick, nice and round, it's a lovely little profile and your goal then with the thread is simply with the top of burying that knot and then you are literally a standard stitch, oh thimble, don't forget thimble and that is holding your rolled edge to not crush that lovely roll that you have created. Now with this hem you are simply catching few threads on the outside and then coming through at a slant, this is absolutely standard hem, hem stitch, all that's changed is the manipulated fabric that you are working with. Now to take the demonstration I am not taking super care of making my stitches as tiny, I want as much contrast here so you can see the travel of the thread, so I'm making slightly big stitches in this black silk thread so that you can see what's happening here. So you have a roll and as you carry on doing that you simply keep rolling a bit more but you can see this is on the inside, this is where it shows in a standard hemming pattern that creates this little slanted sort of a whip that is over the edge of your rolled fabric and on the right side of the fabric the outer hem which will be visible and of course with color matched thread or if you wish to have contrast like this but on the front side you've got the little short stitches showing through. You can see how the travel of the thread through the fabric is a standard hem stitch, nothing particular magic happening about the thread itself, the magic is in what you have done with your hands and the result is quite different. What you have here if you don't flatten it is a profiled three-dimensional edge that on a fine garment, for example an 18th century cap in a silk organza, the sheerness of the fabric is allowed to shine through with a little white solid with a rolled trimming, a little edging and that will look quite different than if you were to do the same thing. Now you may have a preference with your aesthetic but the question is the time periods of these were used in. There's a lot of excitement when I think everyone when they discover this because this takes attention to detail but it doesn't take actually much time to learn it as a skill that you need to practice to master. This does take some investment time and practice. They both produce a nice finish and the crucial aspect to achieving that is in following a grain, really, really learning, paying attention as to where you prick through. For this hem it's particularly crucial on the outside for this rolled hem with that invisible stitch, it needs to be pricked through with the grain on the right side and in the fold or it will be lumpy. I hope that's shown you demonstrated the two stitches they're different. The difficulty is that these days they both get called a roll hem. Now that a little investigation reveals that's a little bit of a misnomer. This is a modern stitch and what I modern I basically mean from late Victorian post sewing machine so late Victorian right through the 20th century and it is highly prized really in couture sewing and tailoring. This is a modern technique and we see it in lovely vintage clothing from the 30s and 40s. This hand rolled hem with that skill is the 18th century millenary technique. This is what we see in extents from the 18th century in fine millenary. We do not typically see this on outer garments such as gowns, jackets, petticoats. Another aspect to that is that they did not call it necessarily a rolled hem. They would just call this hemming and if you refer to hemming something what stitch you used depended on the context you knew a milliner of the period knew which stitch was meant because how she'd been taught that certain garments in certain places in an application just took a different a particular stitch and that's what she would have would have learned. She would not have been learning this stitch. Speaking from experience when I learned these two techniques I expected to find the modern zipping version to be the faster of the two and in fact much to my surprise I have found that with a little practice the rolled hem is much faster approaching twice as fast. It does take little practice but the end results are well worth it. I hope that that has clarified these two. They are both these days called a rolled hem. I prefer to call the method that involves a mechanical movement with your hands. I prefer to call this one a hand rolled hem. This one you'll see a lot of talk about it. I mentioned on the internet quite a lot and shared in social media people call it a rolled hem and I'm not going to propose another name for it but just be aware that technically there is no rolling involved and be aware that as useful as this is, as wonderful as it is, it is not original practice for 18th century historical garments or historical projects today.