Bound seams are a beautiful way to finish the inside of an unlined garment. They differ a little bit from Hong Kong seams in that the backside of the bias binding is folded on a bound seam and left raw on a Hong Kong seam (to reduce bulk). A bound seam may use purchased bias tape while you might prefer to make your own bias tape for a Hong Kong seam since you will not have that extra fold.In this case, I did a one-step bound seam. I call it the “easy” method, though it’s not uncommon and is in some of my sewing books. Another method is a two-step method. I’ll cover that and the Hong Kong method in separate posts.
Supplies
(Click fabrics for direct links for purchase at Warehouse Fabrics Inc.)
Buttercups
Double-fold bias tape
The process
This is just an example, so I’m just using a couple of pieces of fabric and some store-bought double-fold bias tape. You can pretend that this is some portion of a garment that I want to make purty.
First, sew your seam as you normally would. I sewed a 5/8″ seam allowance.
Press your seam allowance open.
Notice how on store-bought bias tape, one side is slightly smaller than the other side. Here, the top is just a little narrower than the bottom. We want that narrower side to be on top.
With the narrow side up and the wider side underneath, sandwich the raw edge of your seam allowance inside the bias tape and pin. Sew close to the open edge. I lined up a line on my presser foot with the edge on the right and also moved my needle to the left position so that I sewed close to the edge yet had something to guide me.Because the narrower side of the bias tape is on top, the wider tape on bottom is sure to get caught in the stitching. See how nifty?
Repeat on the other side of the seam allowance.
Here is the view from the back side of the seam. You can press these types of seams to the side or press them open. Because the back side of the seam allowance is just as finished as the front, it looks pretty either way. (Of course, if you’re going to press to the side, might as well just bind them both together, in my opinion, to reduce bulk.) On a Hong Kong seam, the edge of this back view would be a raw edge, so you’d want to leave it pressed open.
My finished seam. I might just want to wear this inside out, if it were a real garment.
From the outside of the fabric, it just looks like a normal, ol’ seam. but on the inside, there’s a lovely surprise. Isn’t that fun?
