UPDATE: I did this the easiest way possible - took it to someone else to do! The more I tried and failed with the narrow hemming foot and the more I thought about struggling with seven pairs of curtains with generous lengths of ruffle, the less appealing the job sounded. There's a shop not far away with an excellent reputation that agreed to do it for a fair price. (I had to wait a couple of weeks before she could get to it, hence my delay with the update.) When I brought in the fabric, I explained why I wasn't doing it myself. The tailor (seamstress? What's the proper term?) said she's been sewing for more than 30 years and she could never get that foot to work properly. ("Maybe I'm just impatient." she added.) I asked her how she did the narrow turn required for a ruffle and she described the technique in Prism99's post below. So, a belated thank you. (How do we know which suggestion is the right one for us when there are so many options?)
Originally Posted by
Prism99
What I have done in the past (alas, many years ago!) was to stitch a line 1/4" from the edge, take to ironing board and iron the fabric along that line (just barely hiding the stitching underneath), then turn the edge again and iron, then take back to the sewing machine to stitch the double turn down. The first row of stitching becomes hidden in the hem. It sounds like more work than using a hemming foot, but for me it ended up taking a lot less time as I was never able to master the hemming foot for a neat result.
Curious about this method (and an inveterate glutton for punishment) I bought some more similar fabric and am in the midst of making a couple pairs of this style of curtain for the two kitchen windows in my house. The stitch-close-to-the-edge narrow hem technique is slow going, but so far, so good.