Tutorial: Using Piping as a Facing

Did you know that you can use piping in place of a facing? This is a technique I learned from inspecting a vintage dress. It's especially well suited to anything sheer, like eyelet or lace, because it provides clean, minimalist finish. Here's the inside of a piping facing:

It looks like a bias tape finish from the inside, and provides a decorative touch on the outside. It's a good choice for unlined dresses (as almost all vintage dresses from the 40s and 50s are). Because piping is made with bias tape, this finish works beautifully on curved areas of a garment.

You can use pre-made, packaged piping or make your own. I'm using regular old packaged piping here.

Here are some pictures of this technique used on a kimono sleeve. First, you pin the piping to the seam you want to finish. The corded part of the piping should sit just to the garment side of the seamline. In the picture below, there's a 5/8" seam allowance, and the piping cord is just above that 5/8" mark. Measure your seam allowance as you pin the piping in place.

As you can see, I overlapped the piping at the underarm seam. You only have to worry about this if you're finishing something that's sewn into a tube, like a sleeve.

Next, stitch the piping in place with a zipper foot, getting as close as possible to the cord.

Trim down the garment seam allowance to about 1/4".

Turn the piping to the inside of the garment. You have two options for holding it in place: topstitching or hand stitching.

To topstitch, use a zipper foot to stitch close to the piping cord on the outside of the garment.

To hand sew, use an invisible catch stitch or slip stitch to secure the piping on the inside of the garment. I used contrast thread here so you can see my stitches.

Voila! An easy finish that's both clean and decorative.