Getting through the brocade

I'm trying to use up one major piece of fabric per week for the Patternreview Fabric Stash Contest.
Last week's fabric was the green rayon/silk brocade I'd mentioned in my initial post on the aforementioned contest.

Most of that's become ca. 1969 Vogue 2156, reviewed here; the rest became the clutch from New Look 6092. It was the first time I'd sewn brocade of this particular fiber content, probably around 75% rayon/25% silk or so. Not surprisingly, It was much easier to handle, and in particular press, than the synthetic brocades and brocade-look satin prints I'd worked with before. To the contrary of what Sandra Betzina's More Fabric Savvy says, and unlike the synthetics, it does hold a crease quite well, especially if you've got a decent iron. (I think everything else said above brocade in that book was on point.) While I liked this fabric a lot, and I'm pretty happy with the finished items, I was very glad to be done with them, what with all the fraying.

This week's fabric has been a piece of Bemberg that seems endless, which is why I've been sewing rather than posting. Not a very interesting fabric to look at, but for the record, here it is. The idea is to make lots of dark brown breathable lingerie that can substitute for the black non-breathable kind that's the only (less flattering on me) dark-colored option in RTW.

Patternreview fabric stash contest 2015

Patternreview runs a fabric stash contest every year.

The object is to sew the highest number of (linear) yards of fabrics that you've had for at least six months. Though I've mostly sworn off contests for this year, I'll participate in this one. While I don't expect to get near the top of the list, I'm usually sewing from my stash anyway, so I may as well join.

In the interests of juking the stats efficiency, here is a preview of a few of my longest, narrowest pieces of fabric. These may or may not be among whatever I end up sewing in the next month.
I'm not including a couple of heavy coatings I have lots of—I can't see forcing myself to sew them into finished coats within one month, even if the weather doesn't make that prospect unappealing. The above include cottons, rayons, silks, and one synthetic. I'll see how things go.

Rokko's and the Punjabi Market fabric stores

I went to look in Rokko's Sarees & Fabrics the other day; while I didn't end up buying anything then, if I had no fabric at home (yeah right), or had more of a need for formalwear, no doubt I would've found something. Rokko's seems to have quite decent prices and a very good selection of certain types of fabrics. I noticed dressy synthetic and silk fabrics, sheers, allover laces in many different weights and colors, costume fabrics of the types you'd use for dance or figure skating, wool suitings and coatings, many velvets and stretch velvets, some faux furs, and, of course, many saris, as one would expect from the store's name. There were also ready-made skirts, blouses, and children's clothes, and fleece blankets at low prices. Some old Yelp reviews of this store said it was very disorganized, but that no longer seems to be the case.

Also, I went through the Punjabi Market area briefly on the way back. I didn't have time to try to do any shopping there, but for the record (and what is not always clear from sites such as Yelp) many of the area's fabric/sari/bridal stores have closed over the past few years, or moved to Surrey, following the majority of their customers. This is definitely true of Frontier Cloth House, Rani Fashions, Guru Bazaar, and Arora Cloth House, which have all moved, some of them quite some time ago. As of early May, the fabric/clothing stores I remember seeing still on Main were Mona Cloth House, Nurmahal Fashions, Amrit Fashions, Wescana, Mohan Cloth House (possibly very soon to close) and a few smaller stores.

Tricot and oldish Kwik-Sews

I've finally had the chance to sew some of the Antron tricot I got from Bra-maker's Supply the other month. I got pink because it was the one color they've got that I don't already have in RTW slips (the others they have being white, ivory, and black — come to think of it, I don't think I have ivory, but I guess I figured it was so close to white, pink would be the more interesting choice). It isn't a color I typically wear, but eh.

So far I've made Kwik-Sew 2394 and 2467. Unfortunately, both of these are now out of print (and I figure it's a matter of time before that 2467 link dies). For what it's worth, occasionally I see Sewingpatterns.com selling these older patterns as downloads long after the printed versions are out of production. I've shortened both of them by 4", because the problem I currently have is that most of my RTW slips are too long for my knee-length skirts. Hey, I'm short.

The full slip has lace edging and ribbon shoulder straps from Dressew. I considered making the straps adjustable, but I think they may be a bit too thin (thickness, not width, if you know what I mean) to stay in place in the sliders I have.

 
The half-slip hem is done with my machine's "M" stitch, which sort of looks like its mock blindstitch; the technique is described in several Kwik-Sew patterns as well as their Beautiful Lingerie book.

I must admit my tricot-sewing skillset is far behind some of my other sewing abilities (such as they may be). Until fairly recently, I've avoided sewing many lightweight knits, for a few reasons:

• I feel like there are already too many lightweight knits in RTW. I can see why the industry would want to do this; they presumably save on costs and encourage the customer to buy more layers to wear.
• I don't especially like layering (takes more planning than I enjoy doing) and I try to avoid wearing very thin knits on their own.
• My sewing machine doesn't always sew thin knits well. There's no presser foot pressure adjustment, and I haven't got a straight-stitch throat plate (I don't know if one was ever manufactured for this model), so I tend to run into problems with the fabric being stretched as it's sewn, or being sucked down into the machine... and that's assuming I can find a needle that will consistently pierce the fabric rather than sort of bouncing off, or more precisely, getting through at the wrong time to form a stitch. Now that I've got a serger that does a better job, this is less of an issue, but in the past it's meant that I've avoided those fabrics and therefore I've had less experience with them.

That means I didn't enjoy sewing this fabric all that much, and I'm thinking I'll probably prefer to stick to Bemberg for my slips in the future, not least for the greater variety of colors. Also, I suspect only the black color comes very close to being opaque. Still, the Antron does work quite well as an anti-static layer, and there's a lot to be said for Bra-maker's standard colors: their tricot should match their other pink, white, ivory, or black fabrics and notions well.

December's new fabrics

As I'd mentioned before, I raided the Vancouver location of Gala Fabrics during the last month or so it was open. As far as I know, it did indeed close in the middle of December; I have not been back by it again, but the website says it is now closed. Anyway...
There's what I got. Almost all of it's from Gala Fabrics, the exception being the streaked red knit, which came from Fabrics Etc. In order, they are:

• A wool jacquard skirt length.
• Bemberg lining for the above.
• A short length of heavy silk twill. I'm not sure what I'll do with this, but I really liked the color and the weight.
• Rayon/silk blend jersey; I have some of the Drape Drape books and this might do nicely for something from one of them.
• The aforementioned streaked red knit, which should become a cardigan.
• Linen blend crinkle gauze, for a summer dress.
• A heavy embroidered organza.
• Crushed stretch velvet with a paisley pattern. It's a dark gray that doesn't scan well at all.
• Heavy Bemberg lining. I will probably use this and some of the others from last month for slips.
• Wool/mohair coating.
• English wool doubleknit.

November results (or lack thereof) and new fabrics

I got a few projects close to being finished last month, but nothing completely done.

• The Kwik-Sew rayon georgette dress still needs hemming, and needs the bow piece attached assuming I'm using it (I probably am, though I may not do a bow as such... more on that later.)
• The copy of the black bag in tapestry fabric needs, at least, the shell and lining to be topstitched together around the upper edge. I may need to clean up some of the existing topstitching as well; I was fighting my machine a bit to get it to sew with the very heavy thread I used.
• A knit cardigan I've been working on for weeks; all the main pieces now exist and need to be sewn together, and after that I have to decide whether it needs any borders, closures, etc.

So the only things that count as coming out of my stash for that month are the two fabrics I used for the bag, for a mere 1.667 yards.

As for what's gone into stash, boy howdy. Here's a preview:


Fuzzy wool bouclé knit, Chinese brocade, the lining for the aforementioned bag, wool georgette, wool challis print, eight Bemberg linings, and embroidered organza. With the exception of the bag lining (from Dressew) all of these came from the apparently soon-to-close Gala Fabrics location on South Granville. The total is... uh... in excess of 31 yards. Maybe not quite, since I did use up some of that bag lining, but still, it's a net addition of nearly 30 yards, and there'll be more for December. I need to get going.

Gala Fabrics Vancouver location closing

I'm disappointed, but given what has to be a very expensive location, I'm not surprised. They are closing in two weeks and have 30-50% markdowns on most of the fabric. Last I heard, whatever is left will end up at the Victoria location. Some things definitely are disappearing, but there's still a varied selection and the store is well stocked — no empty shelves so far.

I've bought a lot; I'll need to update my inventory before I figure out my November fabric turnover, but suffice it to say it's definitely a net positive. I didn't get all that much sewn last month, though I have several projects that are either in progress or that I'm eager to get to. I've just lacked motivation and had other things taking up my time. I hope I'll get back to working faster soon.

October results

To get this out of the way: October was a net stash gain month, and I completed only the Schnittquelle Oslo coat. I'm going to consider the boiled wool in question gone.

I do still need to swatch from the scraps for my shopping swatchbook, and it's possible there are enough scraps that I could make a hat or something. On the other hand, it's probably little enough that I wouldn't feel bad if I didn't use it. That's 2.22 yards out.

Incoming:

1. A cut of navy linen from Fabrics Etc., 2.56 yards 58" wide. Should be more than enough for trousers.
2. Gray-violet mystery-synthetic jacquard from one of the Our Social Fabric sales, 3.69 yards 44" wide. The thought was to use this to line some sort of raincoat, though I don't have fabric for such a thing yet. It survived washing and drying with no trouble, so I presume it isn't acetate.
3. Moleskin print from the same sale, 2 yards 44", for a skirt. It's a nice weight with a satin back, and seems not to cling at all. It must be synthetic, which is just as well for wet weather IMO.
4. Silk charmeuse from the same sale, 2.19 yards 42", for I-don't-know-what-yet.

That's 10.44 yards in, for a net +8.22.

In other news, today I graded down the Butterick Retro '36 skirt pattern I mentioned yesterday (I have a copy that's a too-big size range, either because I thought I was that size at the time, or more likely because it was part of a group of OOP Retro patterns I got on eBay, several of which were too big or too small.) I suspect an excessive amount of the waist shaping is being done at the side seams, but I'll have to play around with it to be sure. It remains to be seen whether I'll get that all done in time for this week's contest deadline.

Fabrics Etc.

The other place I went a couple of weekends ago was this new store, which also has (at this point more complete) Facebook and Google+ pages. It turned out there was a meetup right about the time I got there, so I stayed for that. The location seems a bit far for me to get to often — I wish it were closer, but it's probably quite reasonable for the sorts of customers they mostly want to attract. It's not as much of a special-occasion store as Gala. The focus is still garment sewing, but it might cater more to less-experienced sewers, and anyone who would like to rent time on some (nice-looking) machines they've got; I don't really need to do that, but they do have a nice iron.... There will be another meetup next month (see the Facebook page for that).

They've got a big space with lots of well-organized bolts of fabric, as well-labeled as at Gala. My impression of the selection was: a fair amount of quilting cotton, knits (cotton, wool, synthetic), denim, rainwear, linings, interfacings, home dec fabrics, special-occasion fabrics, and a very good selection of notions, Sewaholic Patterns, and some older sale patterns from the Big 4. I bought a lovely linen remnant to make some trousers I've been meaning to copy, and there were some water-resistant fabrics I'd consider, next time I'm there.

WIP: Kwik-Sew 3473 in "chiffon-crepe"

Having dug myself out from a lot of work, I've started cutting this pattern. The fabric came from Alfatex back when I was in Germany:

I don't like the print as much IRL as I did in their pictures, for two main reasons. Firstly, the colors are clearer, brighter, and cooler than they looked on the site. Secondly, though it's meant to be a tossed (i.e. somewhat random-looking) design, the repeat is not very big, and it isn't offset diagonally, so you can see obvious motifs marching down the length. I'm hoping that the bias cut of the skirt in this pattern will mitigate the latter problem to some extent.

The print looks imperfectly registered, too, but since there are other white outlines in it that are clearly meant to be there, I can't tell if that's intentional or not.

Notwithstanding all that, I'm sewing this anyway because I do like the drape and fiber content (supposedly viscose, and I believe it; the selvedge fringe looks very much like viscose threads). It doesn't seem that easy to find high-quality lightweight woven rayons these days, so I might well settle for something like this in RTW, even if I wasn't completely happy with the color. The actual, structural quality of this fabric seems nice enough. Alfatex called it "chiffon-crepe"; I might call it georgette.

The pattern is odd in that the bodice, and only the bodice, is lined. Evidently it's their way of finishing the neckline without needing a facing. Because this fabric is semi-sheer, it will need a lining or a slip anyway, so I'll line either the whole body or none of it. For a lining I'd use dark gray or navy Bemberg from stash. That should complement the outer fabric, and with luck, tone down the colors slightly.

I don't have quite as much fabric as I'm supposed to for the long-sleeved version, but we'll see — I think I can get the skirt cut out more efficiently than in the given layout. If it comes to it I'll use the short sleeves and/or leave the bow off.

Knit fitting, etc.

I've meant to write about choosing knit sizing, but check out Lena Merrin's post -- this method is pretty much exactly the same as what I do. Knits are so varied in stretch and recovery that I feel this is the best way to judge what the finished measurement of the piece should be. I use it for anything that touches the hipline, not just skirts. Where it may get more complicated is applying this to other parts of the body that may need their own alterations (bust vs. upper back, for example)... but I think the hip is generally a reasonable place to start.

Stuff update: my sewing supplies were last seen in Brampton, after cooling their heels in Montreal. It'll be several days yet.

Wool crepe

Today I cut Butterick 3421 from some stashed black wool crepe. (I've recently been trying to avoid buying more black because I don't think it's my best color — dark brown, gray, and almost any other dark color would be better —but this was a sunk cost, and I may have a use for it in any case.)

Before I cut, I looked in some of my books to make sure it really could be cut two-way ("without nap" and so forth). I was surprised to see all the contradictory information: Shaeffer says not to have wool crepe preshrunk at all (at least in my old edition of the book), Parker says to have the drycleaner do it with little or no steam, Betzina says to have it preshrunk (by the drycleaner or in the washing machine) or it will shrink a whole size; the first two say to use as little steam as possible while pressing, while Betzina says to "steam iron".

Be that as it may, I'd previously ironed the whole piece with as much steam as my iron would produce (admittedly not much) and observed no ill effects. Maybe it's because it's so dark; it's also probably a pretty coarse weave, as far as crepe goes. I could see seam imprints as being something that could happen with this fabric, so I will be careful in that regard.