Rolled Hem on Voile? Need help!

I'm making a dress for my daughter out of voile. I have some ruffles that need to be hemmed, I was planning on using my rolled hem foot to accomplish this. The fabric is just so light weight that none of my usual methods are cutting it. I don't know what to do differently!

Are you using a serger?  If you are, then you can just use the left needle instead of the right.  It will make the hem a tidge bit wider, and in doing so, it will give the feed dogs a little more to grip onto as it goes on through.

Have you tried using a zig zag stitch instead of a straight stitch with the rolled hem foot?  That may give you a bit more stability.  Good Luck!

Thanks for the replies. I am using my sewing machine. Because it is a dressy dress I didn't want to use a zig-zag stitch. I'm making this pattern: http://www.etsy.com/listing/71250397/vintage-girls-dress-pattern-strawberry (etsy link to the same pattern), which is a vintage Butterick pattern. The sleeves are made with 3" wide lace, but I couldn't find any lace to match the voile, so I got the *brilliant* idea to cut the pieces out of the voile.

After looking online and watching several tutorials, I finally figured it out and got a better hem on the sleeve pieces. One of the things I did (my own idea) was to starch the fabric. It really helped the process. I'm done with the sleeve pieces now, whew...this dress is a huge undertaking!

What a great dress.  It'll be so sweet when you finish it!

Thank you, Elizabeth! I have the sleeves done:



The top "ruffle" get's gathered with the rest of the sleeve, which is why it is not gathered yet. It's not "perfect" but my daughter is 2, and I don't think she holds still long enough for anyone to notice whether the ruffles are perfect or not.

Now on to the rest of the dress. It's my daughter's Easter dress. So I have no choice but to finish it by Sunday!

When I was sewing a sheer chiffon I had the same problem.  I used tissue paper under and over the fabric to hold it in place.  When I was done I pulled the tissue paper off carefully and I ended up with a very neat stitch.

The sleeves are darling.  Forget perfect, they're adorable.

I can't quite picture the tissue paper on a hem. Did you find a tutorial or just figure it out? I'd be interested to try that out.

Thank you.

Here's a link to pictures of the finished dress: http://lovetocrochetandknit.blogspot.com/2011/04/finished-dress.html .

You make a sandwich with the tissue paper as the "bread" and the fussy fabric as the filling. The paper adds some stability to the fabric, but it is perforated by the needle as you sew, so it is super easy to just pull it off at the end of sewing.