Making lemons into lemonade

French seams -- a nice detail, and double strong, a photo by Kerri9494 on Flickr.

Ever have one of those moments in sewing where things don't go according to plan?

I was at Open Sewing last night and I heard one my the students say, "Oh no!" She was holding what looked like a finished pillow cover in front of her. Only there was one problem.

She had sewn the pieces together backwards, aka wrong sides together. Drat!

My first thought was to reassure her that this is something that happens to all of us at one time or another. It's certainly happened to me more than I care to admit, especially when I stay up until 1am because I just... have... to finish... the project...

I was about to tell her that she could grab a seam ripper and start picking out all of the stitches, but then it hit me.

French seams!

If you aren't familiar with French seams, they're a great way to create a finished seam on homesewn garments. And they start by putting the fabric WRONG sides together, which is what we were dealing with. (FYI -- You can find plenty of French seam tutorials online, including here, here and here.)

I showed the student how to trim down the existing seam allowances, flip the project inside out, press the edges, and then finish creating the French seam. It was definitely the easiest way to remedy the problem (anything to avoid picking out more than a yard of stitches!). And better yet, I got to introduce her to a new technique that she can add to her bag of tricks.