Upper Thread / Bobbin Thread / Finishing

Dear users, dear authors,
what’s the difference between the top thread and the bobbin thread? How does finishing work? Tell me more about it.

Without upper thread and bobbin thread, sewing on a sewing machine is hardly possible. They hold the fabric together by interlocking as you sew, which creates the stitch.
Finishing the raw edges is what you call enclosing the fabric edge with a special stitch using a special machine; it is usually an overlock stitch. As shown in this picture, the fabric edges are finished this way. Here I was sewing a pair of jeans for my husband.

Best regards, Inge

When sewing by hand, can't you replicate the technique used in machine sewing?

The overcast stitch is easy to work by hand, and when sewing fabric together by hand, you don’t need a bobbin thread; the needle is guided through the fabric in such a way that both pieces of fabric are sewn together. There are different stitches you can use to do this, such as the mattress stitch or the stem stitch.
You can clearly see the overcast stitch on the Schildi; I once sewed the Schildi by hand for my daughter as a pincushion.

Best regards, Inge

It’s great that you know your way around this. :-)

@ Josefa, It’s great that you know your way around this. :-)

That’s part of the training when you’re learning to tailor—we even had to sew by hand, even though I’m actually an industrial seamstress. But our master tailor came from a traditional craft background, and that was our good fortune; that’s how we learned a lot of things that aren’t usually taught. On top of that, I first learned this trade as a retraining student in the mid-’80s—and best of all, at the same time my oldest daughter was learning the craft of women’s tailoring. I joined the program about five months later; the look on the vocational school teacher’s face was priceless when we were all accepted into the theoretical classes. My daughter’s and my master tailors were sitting in the room with us, but they didn’t say a word—they just grinned. When they said my daughter needed to get something signed, she said, “That can be taken care of right away—Mom, please do it.”

Love, Inge

Wow :-) I think it's great that you were able to do this together.