Loop Turner
A tool that you can use for turning narrow tubes of fabric is a loop turner. The fabric for this video was kindly gifted by Lamazi Fabrics
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SewHayleyJane
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If you are turning a loop of fabric that is particularly narrow, a tool that you can use is a loop turner, which looks like this. It has a circle on one end that you can hold on to to pull through, and on the other end, it has a little hook and a little bar that will poke through your fabric.
Now, word of warning: this isn't my favourite method, it is very very fiddly, but it definitely has its place. This works best if you are sewing a loop of fabric that is open on both short ends. Be cautious though if you are using a very delicate fabric, as it can put holes through your fabric and if it frays very easily it's going to be really tricky.
So to start off with we want to fold our strip of fabric in half right sides together and sew all the way down the long edge. Once you've sewn down your strip of fabric, we need to trim down the seam allowance. This time we want to get as close to the stitching line as you can, probably a couple of millimetres away. The less fabric that has to go through the inside of the tube, the better, but of course, we don't want to encourage any fraying. Now take your loop turner and we're going to push it inside the tube of fabric all the way through to the other end. Once you get to the other end, now this bit takes a little bit of patience, so take your time. Open up the hook. We want to put the fabric underneath the hook and then push the bar through the fabric so you are going to make a little hole on the end so you can see the bar has gone through.
We've got the fabric, end of fabric hooked underneath the hook. Now we're going to gently pull it down and pull it through. This is where you really need to exercise some patience. There are times when the hook is going to come off and it's going to be really frustrating. You're just going to have to keep on trying. So very gently, the first bit is the worst, just trying to get it through without it coming off the hook.
Okay, that took a couple of minutes of teasing and trying again, but now it is starting to pull through, so just very gently pull the loop turner through to the other end, allowing the fabric to slide through as it goes. Do not let the fabric bunch up at this end, otherwise, it will never go through. So you just want to take it a little bit at a time until you get to the end, and then you can lose the loop turner and just pull the rest all the way through, and there you have a very very narrow loop of fabric.
Give that a press gently using your fingers to roll the fabric so that the seam line is all the way along the same edge consistently. So now we have a super narrow loop of fabric. You can see how narrow that is compared to the one I did in the previous video. This is where the loop turner is really really useful.
Now, word of warning: this isn't my favourite method, it is very very fiddly, but it definitely has its place. This works best if you are sewing a loop of fabric that is open on both short ends. Be cautious though if you are using a very delicate fabric, as it can put holes through your fabric and if it frays very easily it's going to be really tricky.
So to start off with we want to fold our strip of fabric in half right sides together and sew all the way down the long edge. Once you've sewn down your strip of fabric, we need to trim down the seam allowance. This time we want to get as close to the stitching line as you can, probably a couple of millimetres away. The less fabric that has to go through the inside of the tube, the better, but of course, we don't want to encourage any fraying. Now take your loop turner and we're going to push it inside the tube of fabric all the way through to the other end. Once you get to the other end, now this bit takes a little bit of patience, so take your time. Open up the hook. We want to put the fabric underneath the hook and then push the bar through the fabric so you are going to make a little hole on the end so you can see the bar has gone through.
We've got the fabric, end of fabric hooked underneath the hook. Now we're going to gently pull it down and pull it through. This is where you really need to exercise some patience. There are times when the hook is going to come off and it's going to be really frustrating. You're just going to have to keep on trying. So very gently, the first bit is the worst, just trying to get it through without it coming off the hook.
Okay, that took a couple of minutes of teasing and trying again, but now it is starting to pull through, so just very gently pull the loop turner through to the other end, allowing the fabric to slide through as it goes. Do not let the fabric bunch up at this end, otherwise, it will never go through. So you just want to take it a little bit at a time until you get to the end, and then you can lose the loop turner and just pull the rest all the way through, and there you have a very very narrow loop of fabric.
Give that a press gently using your fingers to roll the fabric so that the seam line is all the way along the same edge consistently. So now we have a super narrow loop of fabric. You can see how narrow that is compared to the one I did in the previous video. This is where the loop turner is really really useful.