Sewing: Preventing Fraying

Using Heat-Bond

To make an example piece, I cut out a heart shaped piece of fabric out of Satin which tends to fray a lot at the edges and sometimes even in the middle when a needle catches a part of a thread. To prevent the fabric heart from fraying and becoming a huge mess, I bought heat-bond. 

To use heat-bond, you have to cut out a piece that would fit the size of the fabric. If you want to save heat-bond, then you could only cut out enough for most of your project, but I wanted to cover the whole piece so I cut out enough to fit it. 

To actually stick the heat-bond onto the fabric, I needed a damp towel to help the glue stick and an iron to heat up the dots of glue that are scattered on one side of the heat-bond. I placed the damp towel on the heart and placed the iron on top, letting it sit for a bit before picking it up and moving it to another spot.

Once I finished that and let the fabric cool down for a bit. I used a straight stitch, which is the best for a simple hem to make sure that nothing pulls the two pieces apart from each other by the side. Straight stitches are the most common stitch there is because it is the easiest way to sew something together(Quindt 11). After sewing around the edge, I cut off any extra material to have a Satin Heart!

"The Book of Cosplay Sewing" by Svetlana Quindt