A lovely fabric choice on the part of a customer.

Just a quick post this week to show you a customer's lovely fabric choice. Upon hearing that I was off on maternity leave in the not too distant future one of my regulars went on a little shopping spree at one of the local fabric shops and brought me material to make her a number of dresses to tide her over until I return to work. The dresses themselves are all variations on a style I've made for her before, which we know suits her and she feels good in, but normally she chooses a plain fabric. Not this time though! She fell in love with this fabulous Rose & Hubble stamp print cotton, so I was set the challenge of turning it in to a dress.

I have to admit that lining up the pattern repeat of the stamps so that there was no visible break at the waist was a little bit of a challenge, but what a result...

 

fabric haul!

Should I admit now to having a fabric addiction or has everyone already worked it out?

You know you've really got a problem when vans start pulling up outside your house loaded with the stuff and all you want to do is jump in and roll around in it!! Which is exactly what happened today...

To roll the clock back a little, yesterday I got a call from Fabricman saying that he sold roll-ends and offcuts of Scottish Mill fabrics, he was in the area tomorrow and could he call in and meet me, give me an idea of what he sold and his prices. I will admit I was expecting more swatches than actual lengths, but this morning Fabricman pulled up with a van full of fabrics... wools, wool/linens, wool/silks, silk/linens, wool/cashmeres. Really high quality material, a lot of it more lightweight than you usually find on sale here in the UK (a lot of the finer weights that are exported straight to the Middle East) plus some lovely coating weights.

All things considered, I was really quite restrained! I got a few samples for a customer who's looking for the perfect material for a full-length coat, then the following two lengths of material:

1) The softest dark grey cashmere/wool blend with a brushed finish. This is so soft you could swaddle a baby in it and they wouldn't complain, although given babies propensity for dribbling I'm not going to test that tomorrow when I see my friend and her little one. This is definitely mine, no amount of begging will make me part with it, and it's going to be made in to a hip-length cape probably with a jacquard lining if I can find one in the right colour.

2) The other length was another cashmere/wool blend with a less obvious brushed finish that is still lovely and soft but not quite so soft as the grey (slightly lower cashmere content). This one is in black, and is going to be made up in to another hip-length cape, this time for general sale.

I have a lining in mind and the cape I'm planning will go on sale for £80 but if anyone wants to snaffle it up before I get round to it (i.e. in the next couple of weeks) and get it custom-made with their choice of lining colour instead then I'd be happy to give you a 10% discount on that price. Just email me.

2013 remnant sale

In a flurry of organisation and tidying when I started back to work this week I went through and sorted out a lot of the remnants of fabric that I've accumulated over the past year or so. 

A lot of the bundles I kept because they are enough material to be usable for small projects, and range from polyester lining fabric to satin dupion, fleece and even some sequins. Lovely as it would be to sit down and plan projects to use all these up, I think I have to be realistic and admit that as it stands at the moment I don't have the time to spend doing so! Rather than stash it all until some point in the future I've decided to start listing my remnants in my eBay shop for others to use and enjoy.

It's a bit of a mammoth task as I've started off with an enormous bag full of bits to get through first off, but the plan is to keep on top of it better in the future... once I've got through this lot! 

I've put the starting listing for each one pretty low as I'm wanting them to go to a new home rather than make a big profit for me, so why not head over at some point - there are a couple of absolute bargains to be had!

Sewing with tissue lame

After finishing a recent project which reminded me how daunting tissue lame can be if you haven't used it in a while I thought I would share some tips to take some of the mystery out of it. Please don't launch straight in to a precious piece of fabric with these though, test them on a scrap and play around with the settings on your machine as they all behave slightly differently!

Cutting the fabric

Don't use your best dressmaking shears to cut the lame. The metallic threads will blunt your shears in no time. If you can, buy a cheap pair especially, or clean-up and use a different pair of household scissors.

Needle  

If you don't use the right type of needle it will catch as it sews, resulting in 'ravels' and pulls all up your seam. Although it's not a jersey fabric at all, you will probably find that a jersey (aka ball-point) needle works best. Make sure your needle is new and change it more regularly than you usually would - as with scissors, the metallic threads wreak havoc on the needle. You'll be able to tell if it's too blunt as you'll start to get pulls in the fabric again.

Tension

You should find that normal sewing tension works fine, however if you get a rippled effect on your seam the best way to remove this is to use the same trick as with chiffon and other fine fabrics - while feeding your material through to sew, pull gently on the seam coming out from behind the presser foot (not enough to drag the fabric through faster than it otherwise would but enough to increase the tension in the fabric)

Enclose all your edges

You need to finish all your edges on tissue lame otherwise it will fray within minutes. Don't try to overlock them, however, as it looks messy on this fabric. The best way to finish them is some sort of enclosed seam - I would suggest either a french seam, or even better a 'run and fell' seam (both sides shown below):

The same goes for your hem: chose a rolled hem if at all possible. If you've got a rolled hem foot for your machine the fabric should go through fine, if not, leave an extra hem allowance and do a thicker hand-rolled hem.

If you do particularly want to leave a raw edge, run a narrow zig-zag stitch about 1/2cm from the edge to reduce the likelihood of fraying reducing your fabric to bare threads.

Oh, and take your time! Tissue lame is not a fabric you want to have to unpick a long seam from!!

Once you've done it though, you'll be able to stand back and feel proud of your work. It is a fabric that can create amazing garments!

You don't have to sew it to de-stash it

Ok so I know the plan for this weekend was to spend more time sewing through my stash, but I decided instead to take some time to dig it all out (yes, this took up most of the surfaces in my workroom to do!) and have a good look at it and work out what I wanted to keep and what had been added at some point in the past but no longer fits with what I wear at the moment / projects I'm likely to be doing.

In the end I decided to get rid of 10 lengths of fabric. You'd think this would make a big dent in my stash but the drawers are still groaning under the weight of their contents! The fabric is up for sale on my eBay shop and there are some absolute bargains to be had, including 4m of lightweight cotton, 2m striped crepe and 1m of loose-weave fuschia fabric which is perfect for a bright spring skirt! 

Yet more fabric!

I may have a fabric problem. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, but I think I do have to finally admit that I may be addicted (in fact, it may just be a general fibre addiction, as although I have managed 5 months 'Cold Sheep' I don't think it's cured it, just reduced the stash a little bit).

Under the premise of looking for fabric to match to a dress I've been asked to alter, and in need of some white cotton (for a corset) and an invisible zip, I came back from delivering some clothes to a customer via Fletcher's Fabrics. I had said to myself that I was allowed to have a look at their new summer fabrics and buy a couple of fabric lengths to make up some sample tops & skirts, problem is...how do you choose when they're all lovely?! In the end I decided to come home with the following poly-cottons, some of which I have definite plans for in my head whilst others I have a small idea but not much more than that: 

The first was bought to be used in combination with some black cotton on a skirt, although it would make a great top too...

The second is one I couldn't resist (I do have a bit of a reputation for shoes as well after all!) and I think will probably be a skirt...

This next one will probably be a summer top of some sort, and is actually along the lines of what I was planning to get...

And finally, a length that I could hardly leave behind (yes I do also have a tendancy to collect handbags!) I think this might also end up in a skirt too...

Having said that they're planned for samples, if anyone wants something making up for them out of any of the above I'd be happy to oblige...then head back armed with another excuse to do a bit of shopping!

The joy of pot luck parcels

Sometimes it's nice to take a risk and leave your fabric selection fate in the hands of someone else. When I ordered some fabric from Abakhan the other day I decided to try out one of their cushion fabric bundles - 5 metre long pieces of 5 different cushion/upholstery fabrics - perfect for bag making I thought...and oh what lovely pieces I got:


A large-ish flower pattern...

A large piece with an equally large vine/ivy patten...

A charming bright flower pattern on lightweight fabric...

A wavy geometric pattern...

And some ducks and hens...

While the animals are slightly off the wall (although I can see them looking great on a tote bag!) I love the flowers and am already designing bags & peg bags in my head!

And once I've used them all up, I might have to order another bag...