Easy Scarf and a new technique

About 2 weeks ago I returned from the fabulous PR weekend in New York.   I enjoyed lots of walking, sightseeing, eating, sewing talk and shopping during my 4 days, and if that wasn’t enough we made a quick stop in New Jersey to a Jo-Anns on the way home.  That’s where I found this great lightweight fabric with attached pom-pom trim.  If you’re looking for it on line, it seems to be called “Earth Child Cotton Feel Apparel Fabric with Pom Pom” it feels like rayon, but the website says it’s polyester.   I bought a scarf length, and hemmed the edges using this great technique!

First, you need to get some ban-rol (I spelled it Ban-roll in my tutorial, but apparently it’s ban-rol) It is a stiff stabilizer with an open weave that comes in different widths.  My local Fabricland won’t carry it anymore after this lot is gone; and they only had a narrower width, but it worked just fine.  Here’s the technique; there are other tutorials on line too.    Prepare a couple of meters/yards, as it’s re-useable.  I got a 5m length.

1. Prepare the ban-rol:  cut off the tightly woven edge (on mine it was one thread).  Pull threads from the edge so you have a fringe.  Your finished hem will be the depth of your fringe.  I think I ended up with a 5-thread depth in total, but it’s totally up to you.
2. Line up the ban-roll with your even cut edge
3. Stitch along the ban-rol, catching only the “comb” or fringe of the ban-rol with your stitches.  My stitch length was 3.
4. Here’s what it looks like after the first pass of stitching from the reverse side:
5. Flip over the ban roll so the “comb”/fringe is enclosed.  Everything is now rolled to the wrong side of your fabric:
6. Edgestitch your rolled edge. Go slow so you only sew on the “Comb”/fringe part of the enclosed ban-roll.  When you’re done the ban-rol will pull easily out of the two rows of stitching leaving you with an impressive straight & tiny hem.  With no pressing needed!