What is horsehair braid? 

Horsehair braid is a crinoline netting, made from polyester (but used to be made from horse hair). It has many different usages, but a common usage is to hem dresses and skirts with it. It stabilizes the hem and gives it structure and fullness. I love it and this is my favorite method of hemming circle skirts! The result is amazing.

Both dresses below are hemmed with 1" wide (2,5 cm) horsehair braid, and for both I used my sewing pattern Victoria, although with the blue dress I mixed 2 patterns and used the skirt from the pattern Olivia (Olivia has a full circle skirt, while Victoria has a half circle skirt. On the left pic you can see that I used black horsehair braid to hem with.

And here's a better picture to show you the hem. Here I used white horsehair braid, the very one that I sell in my shop. It's a perfect one! The width is very suitable for children's clothes, it is also thin and soft.

Hemming with horsehair braid

Here I describe how to use 2,5 cm (1") wide horsehair braid to hem a circle skirt. 

1. Place a small piece of fabric, preferably the wrong side of the same fabric as the skirt’s, approx. 2,5x2,5 cm (1x1”) around the cut edge of thehorsehair braid, since that can be sharp.

 

 

2. Pin the horsehair braid all around the skirt, onto its right side. Don’t stretch the horsehair braid as you sew it. When you’re back to where you started, let the horsehair braid wrap-around itself.

 

3. Sew 1 cm (3/8”) from the edge, with a narrow zig zag stitch.

 

4. Turn the horsehair braid to the wrong side and press the fabric. Be careful when pressing horsehair braid since it might melt. Pin before you sew in the next step so that the fabric doesn’t shift while sewing.

 

5. Sew the hem from the right side. Use for example a twin seam or zig zag stitch and sew approx. 2 cm (3/4”) from the edge so that you’re now sewing through the skirt fabric and the horsehair braid. You can also hand stitch the hem.

 

This was an extract from my sewing pattern Victoria. That tutorial is 20 pages long in total, including 12 full pages for the step-by-step instructions.