Comfort and Style Tips
Hi everyone,
In my last post I talked about using a few special sewing machine feet to accomplish steps more easily and effectively. Today I'll follow that up by showing you a sample of attaching the band to the kimono in Comfort and Style, using a couple of the same feet to do different things.
First, I'll show you my Comfort and Style kimono.
The first step is to hem the kimono itself. That means staystitching, pressing twice, and finally machine-edgestitching the kimono hem.
I used the blind hem foot to do the edgestitching. It's the one with the higher left toe that sits on the thicker layers of the hem. I adjusted my needle position to catch just a few threads of the hem.
Next step is to prepare the band that finishes the front and neck edges of the kimono. I interfaced the half of the band that will show on the outside of the garment and staystitched 3/8" from the edge of the band, using the edge stitching foot. You can see the metal flange on the right side of the foot. Adjust your needle position if needed to get an accurate 3/8".
I used one of our Pressing Templates to press the 3/8" accurately to the wrong side of the band.
I pinned the other side of the band to the wrong side of the kimono. I pinned by picking up only a few threads right at the 3/8" stitching line, which makes pinning a straight edge to a curved edge at the neckline much easier. The idea is to control only where you are actually going to stitch. Note that the band is supposed to be longer than the hemmed kimono.
I stitched the band on and pressed the seam allowances toward the band.
I folded the band onto itself, right side to right side. Then I marked a stitching line just a thread past the hem of the kimono to allow for turn of the cloth, and sewed across the bottom of the band. We've drafted the pattern so that the band is intentionally longer than the kimono, so you can't come up short!
Once that was stitched, I trimmed the seam allowances, clipped the front corner on the diagonal, and pressed the seam allowances open over a point press.
The band gets flipped right side out and laid down a thread or two past the stitching of the seam.
I slid strips of Steam-a-Seam under the pressed edge, pressed lightly, removed the paper backing, and fused the band into its final place.
Finally, I used my blind hem foot to edgestitch the band to the kimono.
I've found that using the various tools I mentioned today really makes my sewing better (and I unsew much less than I used to!).
I hope you'll find my tips helpful when you make your own kimono. Let me know if you have questions about what I've showed you today. You can reach me at
