Saree
A Complete Guide To Saree Falls
Much like a petticoat and a blouse, a saree is incomplete without a fall. Since sarees took over the ladies’ apparel sector, falls realized their vitality. Despite being so essential for sarees, falls are highly undermined. I see women getting enthusiastic about sarees, designs of blouses, and tight-fitting petticoats but missing out on saree falls. Mostly choosing a saree fall, and keeping it remains unknown.
So, for throwing light into the darkness of neglecting saree falls, I decided to bring forth a complete guide to saree falls.
What is a saree fall? It is sturdy cloth attached to a saree at the hem. It is usually attached from wrong side of a saree and covers the border part only.
Is it necessary to put fall in a saree? Well, falls are essential for good draping as they add some weight at the bottommost portion of the saree, ensuring that the attire has a better fall. Also, falls safeguard the saree and the hemline from wearing, tearing, and stretching.
After knowing about so many underlying importance of saree falls, you wouldn’t want to take falls for granted, would you? So, follow along for knowing the falls and keeping them with your saree better.
Is it Necessary to Put Fall in A Saree?
Sarees, being unstitched outfits, give you the freedom of creative draping and shaping your appearance the way you like. However, such unstitched fabrics have some difficulties as well. Such flaws are tackled and eradicated by the saree falls completely, making sarees the timeless feminine attires. Let’s dive deep into why it is necessary to put fall in a saree.
1. Prevents Wearing and Stretching
Since sarees are unstitched fabrics, the bottom-most part of the sarees have lots of coming-off and hanging threads. The lightweight sarees like cotton, chiffon, and georgette are more prone to getting torn. There are chances that the threads might drag on the ground, or get tangled in your footwear, and continue to stretch and tear the saree in no time. So, an absence of fall in the sarees will damage the fabric easily.
2. Perfect Draping
Sarees cannot appear as they must, without the falls in place. Without falls, you will encounter difficulty in pleating some lightweight and free-flowing sarees. Saree falls add some weight near the bottom part of the saree and assist you in pleating well. So, fixing falls near the hemline ensures that the outfit falls in place ideally.
3. Adding Weight to the Hemline
Sarees fall better in place whenever there is some weight near the bottom hemline of the fabric. Saree falls to support the hemline by adding weight to it and ensures that the draping stays in place for long correctly. Thus, regardless of how long you wear a saree, the fall will make sure that the saree does not come off easily.
Now, can you imagine the difficulty to wear a saree without affixed falls? Continuously hanging thread loops, tearing of your attire, and coming-off pleats – falls keep all of these problems far away at bay.
How to Choose the Right Fall for Your Saree?
As you know that saree falls do not come attached to the sarees from the market, so you need to purchase a suitable fall separately. Despite remaining invisible externally, saree falls can make or break your saree look. So, shopping for falls is a challenging job until you are aware of how to pick up the right falls for your saree. Let’s find an answer below.
- Fall Color
Regardless of the opacity of the saree fabric, the fall must remain hidden underneath the saree. For obtaining the best camouflage, go for falls of matching colors with your sarees. Since the falls are attached near the bottom-most part of the saree, buying falls matching with the base of the saree might be incorrect at times. Consider matching the fall with the color of the border and hemline of your saree so that the falls do not appear visual externally.
- The fabric of the Saree Falls
Stitching falls must be restricted to one time only. You would not want to stitch the falls repeatedly, as they keep getting damaged frequently. So, going for stiff and tensile fabrics like cotton, rubric cotton, and polyester ensures that the falls stand durable with your saree for a long.
- Fixing of the Fall Color
Say that you stitched a fall to your favorite saree, gave the apparel into the laundry, and came up with the color of the fall spread on the saree all over to the extent of ruining it. What a horrible nightmare, isn’t it? Prevent such mishaps by ensuring that the color of the fall is fixed properly. To remain on the safer side, wash the fall, allowing the color to bleed freely, dry, and iron it well before stitching.
Once you have the saree and fall right with you, you must be intrigued to know about how to affix the fall to the saree. Let me unveil the steps of attaching a fall to the saree below.
How Do You Keep Saree Falls?
Learning to attach falls on the saree keeps you among the wiser section of saree lovers. However, managing the six yards of saree and attaching falls on to them is a cumbersome task. You might face difficulty in stitching the falls if you are a newbie. So, choose between getting the fall stitched by a tailor, or doing it all by yourself, depending upon how old or new a fall stitcher you are.
1. Getting the Falls Stitched by a Tailor
Well, if you are new to stitching falls to a saree, then getting it done by a tailor saves you a lot of time and effort. The tailors get the saree ready in a very short span, against minimal charges.
Know that, nowadays, the shops get all the sarees done with falls and pico before handing it over to you. Whereas, some of them offer the fall stitching and doing pico service only to the sarees above a certain price range. So, ask the shopkeeper about such aided services beforehand, and get over the tedious task of finding matching falls and getting them stitched by a tailor.
2. Hand Stitching the Falls By Yourself
If either you want to learn fall stitching by yourself or want to improve your stitching abilities, then you need to practice attaching falls to the sarees rigorously. There are two ways of attaching falls to the sarees – hand stitching and stitching using a sewing machine. Let’s discuss hand-stitching the falls to a saree first.
Prerequisites: You must be familiar with a basic running stitch and backstitching.
- Collect the best falls for your saree that matches with the saree base and border-color has good quality and fixed colors.
- Gather stitching tools like some all-purpose pins, matching threads, and a fine sewing needle.
- The fall will be attached at the bottom of the saree on the wrong-side, and end right before the pallu starts.
- Keep the lower end of the saree flat on a plain surface, and attach the fall to the saree using the all-purpose pins.
- Now, begin attaching the lower side of the fall to your saree using running stitches.
- Use back stitching in-between for the stronger and durable association between the two fabrics.
- Repeat the stitching on the upper-side as well.
Caution: Use small stitches so that the threads do not appear on the right side prominently. Remain extra cautious while sewing the upper-side of the fall. Moreover, ensure that the fall is attached, without any wrinkles in the fabric of the saree. A neat and plain attachment of falls to the saree will make the outfit appear to be done professionally. If not so, then you will end up ruining how the saree appears externally.
3. Machine Stitching the Falls By Yourself
Hand stitching the falls consumes a lot of time and effort. When an event is lined up soon, and you do not have much time for getting your saree ready with falls, then machine stitching can be a wise way-out. If you are already familiar with sewing machines, then you can stitch the fall mechanically as well. Here are the steps for stitching the falls to a saree using a sewing machine:
- Adjust the fall on the saree such that it remains hidden externally from the right side. Use all-pins, if necessary.
- Keep the lower ends of the saree and the adjusted fall under the sewing machine, and start running stitch for attaching both the fabrics.
- Pull out the stitched part outwards so that the unstitched parts of the saree and fall keep coming under the sewing machine.
- Once you are done with sewing the edges and the bottom-most portion of the fall, begin sewing the upper edge of the fall just as before.
Caution: Keep the fall aligned with the edge of the saree throughout stitching. If, somehow, the fall askew from alignment, then it will ruin the entire look of your saree. Avoid any wrinkle and crinkle in the saree or the fall else, the appearance of your outfit would not come out as expected. Moreover, ensure that you are using matching threads for stitching the fall with the saree. Any discrepancies in thread color will highlight the stitching line prominently from the outside, creating a fashion disaster.
With all the materials by your side, stitching the fall at home may seem convenient to you. If time permits, you might be willing to stitch all the falls by yourself only, without getting it done by a tailor. Your proficiency in stitching falls to a saree improves with practice.
But in case of some severe time constraints, or if you are a noob to stitching, then getting the falls stitched by a tailor comes as a savior. Regardless of how you get it done, you must attach falls to the sarees before draping the attire for the first time.
How to Wear A Saree Without Fall?
Until now, I was emphasizing the necessity of attaching falls to the sarees. Such a swift flipping, and arriving at the section of wearing a saree without fall might be somewhat hard for you to register. Yes, falls are essential as they increase the longevity of the saree by providing strength and durability to the fabric. But in scenarios of haste where you forget to attach a fall to the saree or did not get enough time for stitching, you can wear sarees without falls.
With the heavyweight, stiff, and sturdy sarees, you are likely to get an escape from attaching fall to the outfit. Also, you won’t encounter much pleating and placing problems in the absence of falls in the heavy sarees. However, if you are carrying any lightweight saree like net, georgette, chiffon, and cotton, then pleating the saree might be difficult.
For pleating and keeping intact the lightweight sarees, you can use safety pins wherever needed. But make sure that no pins are visible externally. Also, trim the hanging threads from the lower edge of the saree to the level of the corners before draping, so that the chances of tearing gets reduced.
Irrespective of whichever saree you are wearing, walk gradually and keep the steps wisely. If somehow, any thread loop gets entangled in your sandals, spare some time to stop walking, and detangle the loop as soon as possible otherwise it will damage the whole saree.
Moreover, do not risk wearing silk sarees like Banarasi silk sarees, Kanjivaram sarees, or handloom sarees without falls. Let me tell you that the silk sarees have delicate edges and are prone to stretching and getting damaged by the loose threads that come-off from the edges.
So, did you realize how protective falls are towards your sarees? If you do, then never risk your favorite pieces for wearing and stretching by omitting the falls.
Buy best saree falls online
My best picks for buying saree falls online are as below:
Choose the best-matching, high-quality, and color-fixed fall for your saree as early as you pick up blouses and petticoats for the outfit. Get your saree ready from the shopkeeper, by the tailor, or do it all by yourself. Be it through anyway, ensure that all your sarees have the falls in place before you drape them for the ease of wearing, and keeping your sarees safeguarded and lasting for a long tenure.
