Fuchsia Sew Along #3: Sewing the scallops

This post is all about sewing the scallops. When we left off in the last post, we had done all the cutting and marking of the fabric and are ready to begin sewing. If you missed the first few posts, you can find them all here.

Sewing the Scallops

Place your fashion fabric and lining fabric right sides together. This will make sure the scallop marking line is face up since you marked on the wrong side of the lining. I found that placing one pin per scallop worked well in slippery fabric.

Next, sew along the scallop marking line. It is important not to cross over your stitches at the point of the scallop. When you do this, it catches too much fabric in the point when you attempt to turn right sides out. So make sure you do your best to sew your scallops as shown in the pictures below—not like the ones in the picture with the big red no symbol on it.

If you look closely at the wrong scallop, you can see that the stitches crossover each other at the top. It is much better to sew the scallops as seen in the previous two pictures where there is no crossover. Even if you do have some crossover by accident, you can press most of it out so do not stress about any mistakes.

After you sew across the scallops on all 6 pieces, we need to cut slits into the valley of the scallops. Cut as close to the stitching as you can without cutting through it. If you have fabric that frays a lot, you may consider sewing the scallop stitching with a shorter stitch length. However, I used a very shred prone polyester taffeta and had no issues with trimming closely to the scallops. They are not part of a high stress area, so it did not end up being an issue.

Then trim the scallops to around 1/8 of an inch. It is perfectly acceptable to just eyeball it and cut as close to the stitching as you can without cutting through it.

Now we want to turn all the fabrics right side out. I usually do this using the curved end of a bamboo point presser first, to help push out all the corners. The picture below shows what my scallops looked like after using the point turner but before pressing with an iron.

 Next, make sure you press each scallop very well with the iron making sure to turn the lining just the slightest bit underneath so it does not show from the right side. I make sure to push each scallop out a second time with the point turner right before pressing it so I do not end up with accidental tiny “pleats” from some fabric not being pushed all the way out to the right side. Here are my scallops after a good pressing. Don’t they look beautiful???

If you are using a lace or eyelet type fabric that requires lining behind it, you should now go ahead and place the strips of interfacing where the zipper will be attached that we discussed in the previous post. Piece 7 and 10, where the zipper is attached, are now completely right side out and the lining is in place.

That’s it for this post! This step may seem like it is simple and quick–and it is. The reason we made it in a post by itself is because it has to  be done 6 times! This method produces such smooth scallops. How about posting some pictures of your gorgeous scallops in the Fuchsia Flickr Gallery?

As always, if you have any questions, leave a comment here or email us. The next post will cover gathering and attaching the layers together. The plan is for the next post to go live on Sunday, February 17th. See you then!