i was wondering if anyone knew of a script to create a hem or edge on clothing to give it the appearance of  thickness?  and if not, where to go to learn to script?  because it should be fairly straight forward (i think)

take user input thickness "t"
take user input width "w"

find all open edges.
for each edge
extrude the edge t amount in the direction of the normal of the edge's polygon.
extrude that edge w amount in the direction perpendicular to the normal of the edge's polygon.
extrude that edge t amount in direction opposite the direction of the normal

i would hope that this could be done without needing an extra step after that to join the pieces, but i would guess it would depend on how you can actually script construction.

just in case someone besides me cares about how this can be done:

http://blender.dothelp.net/tutorial-list/using-solidify-selection-script-to-make-nice-edges/

i may look at that script and see if i can't make it just make a hem.

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't know about this one and it is really useful. I have switched to Hexagon in the past when I needed this function.