I once worked with a girl who swore that whoever invented the chain stitch was guaranteed a spot in heaven. I have a hard time disagreeing. Over the years, chain stitching has saved me countless hours of unpicking seams and has likely saved a good amount of fabric being accidentally nipped as I use a razor blade to open a non-chain stitched seam. Not sure if your seam is chain stitched? Check out both sides. One looks typical with a single thread, the other looks like this: |
The chain is actually formed by the bobbin, so when you're trying to pull out a chain stitch, first visualize which way the seam would have been made on the machine. With the chain on the bottom, and the seam moving away from you, the bit closest to you is the end of the thread, and where you want to start pulling. In this picture, once I snip the thread, it will run to the right. If you're familiar with crocheting, the concept is similar. |
Here you can see where I've started to unravel the chain stitch. It's really just a series of loops on the bobbin thread. It takes a bit of eyesight, but once you have snipped the thread, use your nipper tips to remove the end of the thread from the loop it's going through, and start pulling. If it isn't coming, double check to make sure the end is loose. If in doubt, snip again and start over. I usually find that if I hold the blade of my nippers to the left and snip away from the direction I'm going to be pulling, it usually pulls easily. |