Oh! The Things You’ll Sew

There seems to be a boatload of glittery fabric, as always, at this time of year. I was at my local independant fabric store where this display confirmed my suspicions that heat transfer sequins are the glitter fabric of choice. I am having my own moment of agony with this fabric, and thought some of you might also be in the throes of working with it too.

 

I just finished the first half of my year as artist-in-residence as costumer in the Theatre Tech department at San Francisco School of the Arts.  The upcoming  production is Seussical: The Musical. There is a heavy Cirque de Soleil element in the show, as SOTA  has a circus arts program included in the dance department. All of the cast and crew are in full body unitards, so costuming this is whimsical and fun.

 Though many of the costumes are created by the students, I have been asked to make some of the principal characters. Imagine my horror when the director brought me 3 yards of this tissue thin lurex jersey with heat transfer sequins to make the Ringmaster’s tailcoat.

The first thing I did was block-fuse the entire yardage with a medium weight tricot fusible. For this task I put a beach towel on my cutting table, laid the sequin fabric face down with the fusible on top, fusing the 2 layers together. Only then did I cut the jacket. For the pattern I adapted a Burda menswear jacket from the 1980’s.

I fused an additional layer of weft insertion on the collar and lapel facing, as the fabric was still pretty soft and drapey. I used a matching color of cotton for the undercollar. I did tape the roll line and around the lapel edges just to give some kind of structure to this otherwise limp piece of goods.

The real problems started when I sat down to sew and the machine absolutely refused to stitch – missing stitches, gummed up needle –  all the nightmares you can imagine. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I remembered Diva Ann’s advice to use wax paper while sewing this kind of fabric. It worked like a charm.

Just tear away the wax paper and your seam is perfect.

I was amazed at how well this fabric tailored up.

To finish the edge of the tails I used a lurex flat border from an old sweater project that was a perfect match. Lurex fiber comes in standard colors, so I am guessing that this royal blue is the same, even though the sweater project had to be about 10 years ago. I am hoping that the director agrees with me that the unlined tails are a good thing  – just say no to lining this!

The bi-colored look for the Ringmaster is a nice touch added by the director. (Somewhere there is another pair of black/white boots just like these.) The hat is probably a Mad Hatter hat from Alice in Wonderland.

It Only Comes Around Once a Year

Christmas is the only time of year that this sweater can be worn. Not exactly a candidate for the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest, it  only comes out in December.

It was a sample, made in China,  for a collection I worked on a couple of years ago. It got rejected for its ‘unusual’ color combination. The factory just  decided to use what they had on hand, not the colors I had requested. That’s often the way with prototypes, they use what’s lying around, just to give an idea of the design, so that the next piece can be corrected. This poor sample never had a chance to go any further than the first piece.

It’s beautiful, its flawless embroidery and dazzling rhinestones are perfection. But everyone blinks when they see it, and it languished in the showroom until I rescued it and put it in the archive.

Here is the inspiration for the artwork of the embroidery – a Persian carpet my friend brought back from Turkey.

The beautiful but lonely sweater is the result.

Season’s best to all. It’s so great to share this sweater with those who might appreciate it for the little gem it is.

Sew your own ribbing fabric

For a lot of patterns you need a knit fabric, like a jersey or wool plus some ribbing to finish the sleeves or sew a neckband.

I know it can be difficult to find a matching ribbing for the knit fabric you want to use. I have bought cotton and acrylic ribbing in bright colors when I was making sweaters for my kids but I never found a wool ribbing.

If you can’t find the right matching ribbing you can make your own faux ribbing, using the same  knit fabric, and a twin needle.

I learned that technique from a Threads magazine article “RIBBING” FOR ANY KNIT FABRIC”
by Dorothy Amo back in 1996 April/May issue 64.

Years ago I made a wool jersey sweater and made the ribbing from the same fabric using a twin needle size 4.0×75

I made the neckband from a folded pin tucked piece of the wool.

After the pintucks were sewn I measured the needed wide and sewed the band together with a regular stitch and finished the outer edge and attached the band around the neckline with a 3 thread serger/overlocker.

I topstitched the band seam allowances around the neckline again with a twin needle.

For the sleeve cuffs I sewed pintucks for a length of 20 cm and finished both edges with a 3 thread serger and traced the part of the sleeves which I wanted in pintucks , sewed the ends together , attached to the sleeves and used 4 cm for the hem wide and hand stitched the hem since I did not want to use a visible line of stitching.

As you can see the sweater is old but it is only to show what is possible if you make the matching ribbing your self.

I made a new sample from a purple knit

I marked the knit fabric on 10 cm and starting to sew pin tucks, the wide between the pin tucks is 4 mm and I have 13 pin tucks for the 10 cm wide fabric which leaves me with 8 cm wide faux ribbing.

The size of the stitch length I used was 2,5 and the tension on high at 8. I used my normal sewing feet and set the needle on 4 towards the right.

I used my sewing foot as a guide for the previous sewn pin tuck.

wrong side

I used the sample to make a cuff for the sleeve .

The amount of stretch depends on the stretch factor and stretch recovery of the fabric plus the amount of pin tucks. In this case the cuff 10 cm wide and it can stretch towards 14,5 cm.

It is best to make a sample first.

but did not finished the edges as you can see inside the sleeve.

If you want to explore more about this sewing technique try to find a copy of Threads magazine issue 64 which shows detailed pictures and a lot more information.

   or find a copy of the “Book Sewing with Knits” by Connie Long , she also covers this type of sewing ribbing in her book.

Warm Winter Sheath Secret – Tricot Lining

(Crossposted at The Stitchery)

I made this simple sheath in the early 2000’s.  I call it my walk to church dress because it is so warm. It’s only been washed by hand, never dry cleaned.

Front of Wool Jersey Sheath

It hangs ignored in the closet for most of the year until it becomes very cold outside.

"Old Faithful" Winter Sheath

I lined this wool jersey dress with nylon tricot and the tricot lining is what makes this dress so perfect for when the temperatures are at, or below, freezing.

The substantial, low static, and inexpensive tricot, a nylon knit, is from SewSassy.  This little company is a wonderful fabric and notions source and I’ve gotten excellent advice over the phone when I’ve needed it.  If you haven’t tried this sewing source you should do yourself the favor of adding them to your list of trusted suppliers.

I am not affiliated in any way with this shop, just one who, almost 10 years ago, purchased elastic that remains fresh and stretchy and this lovely 40 denier tricot in black and champagne.

But back then I was returning to sewing after many years without a sewing machine and I didn’t use commercial patterns.  All my sewing was based on patterns designed by me and generated using the pattern drafting software and there were no how-to instructions.  I relied on the training I had from growing up with my mother; and information I could get from the software’s message board.  I don’t think I had even joined Pattern Review yet since I didn’t use patterns.

So here I had rather scratchy wool jersey from FabricMartFabrics.com.  I had never sewn wool jersey before but I knew I didn’t want it next to my skin!  The tricot would feel so much better and it would stretch!

I dove in and lined this dress by joining the tricot to the dress at the neckline (Amazing, I remembered to  under stitch)

Inside of dress at the collar band

and hand hemmed the sleeves after serging the jersey and tricot together at the cut edges (I didn’t have any way to get a correct sleeve length at the flat pattern stage, oh my! and I was in love with my very first serger, a used Janome LOL)

Sleeve Hem - What a Mess!

and hemmed the bottoms separately

Machine Hemmed with Twin Needle and Wooly Nylon!

Today, I would worry more about the construction details like thread colors, stitch length and seam techniques but back then I was hurrying to finish for a function where I needed to wear it.  I remember stitching the sleeve hems in the hotel room.  You just never know when the inside stitching will need to be gorgeous!

Little did I know back then I’d be blogging this dress so that you could make something very warm this winter if needed.  But enough of my illiterate wanderings in the sewing desert that was my life:  the point of this post is:

Tricot: it’s not your old clingy slip, anymore