Tag Archives: fabric

June 22, 2010 · 9:07 am

Moratorium

Denim

Denim, denim, knit. The greyish denim is actually slightly sparkly.

might be too big of a word for it, but it’s gotta be almost time to stop buying fabric and start SEWING. Yesterday I bought 3m of sparkly blue, slightly stretchy denim, and 4m of a stained, really fine white knit ($2/m!!! yes it looks like crap, but even if I can’t get the stains out I can use it for muslin/knit-sewing practice without feeling guilty!)

Lovely stains!

The picture also shows a bit of the 1m remnant of dark-blue stretch denim I picked up last week. I think I’m set for denim for a while.

In my own defense, the sparkly denim is for the Burda kids’

Burda kids' jean jacket pattern

jean jacket pattern that I picked up last week. I also grabbed a variety of topstitching and denim thread for upcoming projects. And I still need to find a fabric if I want to make my hubby a shirt for the mediaeval faire later this summer (it’s not until mid-August, though, so that’s not too big a deal). And I wouldn’t mind some white cotton to make me a few more summery blouse/tops…who knows, maybe even a summery white sundress. Ok girl, getting ahead of yourself. Quit justifying. Start sewing.

I did (by dint of some tantrum-throwing) get some work done on the Danielle dress last night, which I will photograph later. Now that it’s sewn to the band, the bust is doing something wonky, so I will a) have to re-sew that seam, and/or b) wear the Cast-Iron Bra* underneath. I still have to cut out the lining, too. I really shouldn’t let myself get this far ahead in the construction before everything’s cut out. I hate linings. Actually, I just hate cutting, so it’s better to get it all out of the way at once, while I’m in that space. But I did the cutting early last week and didn’t get the lining fabric until Friday, so I’m kinda hosed on that front.

*the Cast-Iron Bra is a heavy duty, add-a-cup-size, molded foam bra. Its shape and fullness are lovely and absolutely unrelated to what I happen to have to fill it with. The first time I wore it to work, I kept waiting for someone to call me on it… “c’mon, we saw you yesterday… who do you think you’re fooling?” 😉 )

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June 11, 2010 · 10:41 pm

What to do?

With 1.5 m of this:

I

It’s a lovely, heavy-weight striped denim. The colour in the photo is crappy—it’s a fairly standard dark-wash indigo between the lighter stripes. I was not bad—a co-worker gave it to me. Cool! It’s not stretch, so it can’t become my next pair of Jalies (too bad, really). I’ve been dreaming of jean-jackets, but aside from lacking a pattern, it’s a little too gorgeous for a casual, slouchy kid jacket (and I already have a perfectly good jean-jacket for myself).

Skirt? tailored blazer out of denim? (that would be nifty, actually… especially with some edges left raw? hmm. It’s only 1.5 m long, but it’s really wide so there’s actually a lot of fabric. Enough extra for a pencil skirt?)

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June 10, 2010 · 7:56 pm

Ooopsie (Part II)

I went with a friend to Fabricland today, just to nose around.

The stretch denim I’ve been agonizing over ($18/m) was buy 1m, get 1 free.

I walked out with four metres of black stretch denim.

I didn’t really need groceries this week, did I?

I guess I’m set for my Jalies for the fall.

In other news, the cheap, crappy (but only ones they had) jean button just broke off my daughter’s jeans. If this becomes a trend it will suck mightily. 😦

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May 26, 2010 · 1:23 pm

Ooopsie

Today I bought fabric. Not randomly, I might add—ok, mostly not randomly. I could have bought MUCH more, especially since somebody appears to have donated an entire stash to my (usually lame) local Value Village recently. But I was restrained. Especially after I found out about the $500 vehicle tune-up we have to pay for tomorrow. Oopsie.

Black cotton... won't this make an awesome blouse?

Anyway, although I could cheerfully have bought much more, especially at Value Village, I was comparatively restrained. I bought a black cotton with a bit of a woven-in stripe. I probably don’t need four metres of it… but on the other hand I know I will use it, here and there, sooner or later. And won’t it make the CUTEST JJ? Also I have plans of a Danielle dress with this and some horrendous black-and-white pattern synthetic I bought years ago… but more on that later.

Giving in to the Jalie jeans pattern that has been sitting, traced out, silently calling my name, I also

Stretch denim... blackish with a bit of vertical stripe

bought 3 metres of this stretch denim; it’s black with a subtle vertical striping effect. Fabricland had exactly three kinds of stretch denim (that I could find) and this was the only one that wasn’t $18/m. (Now… if I get to the point where I can put together a top-notch, kick-ass jean, $18/m is still less than $40 for a pair of jeans and thus roughly half the cost of the jeans I typically buy, even allowing for notions. But for a first go… this stuff came to about $8/m, which is at least halfway bearable if I create a complete wadder. Of course, when I checked the stretch, instead of the 20% Jalie recommends, it’s more like 30 or 40%… so I went and retraced the pattern a size smaller. I bought three metres (what was left on the bolt)… I’m hoping it will be enough for a set of capris (the trial run) and a full-length, but we’ll see. If not I’ll get a couple of pairs of capris for the summer and my oldest daughter will get the jeans she’s been asking for.

Wool... I'm thinking that blazer I'm always talking about.

Then we went to VV and I picked up this grey wool… three metres for $10; I know, not a real steal thrift-store wise, but VV seems to get by on “prices just a little bit better than Walmart” /sigh. I could’ve bought a lot more, too… someone must’ve donated a fabric stash recently because there was a TON of fabrics, some of them very nice. Unfortunately my hubby called with the news about the vehicle repair halfway through my shopping excursion, so I restrained myself to just this wool. Can’t you see a nice blazer out of it? heck, it could even have a matching pencil skirt if I got really ambitious. (Would I WEAR a pencil skirt? this is my dilemma.)

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May 12, 2010 · 2:21 pm

Stash Envy

I wish I had a stash.

Ok, I know a lot of sewists spend a lot of time bemoaning their massive stashes and even trying valiantly (and vainly?) to whittle them down. And I do have a stash, of sorts… a whole rubbermaid tub full of bits and pieces of fabric. But a lot of them are scraps, scavenged or collected here and there over the years. A few Fabricland remnants. There’s three yards of an orange crinkle-fabric-with-lace that I got at Value Village years ago and keep meaning to make into something for my best friend (It was going to be a tiered skirt, or at least the bottom of a tiered skirt, but since it doesn’t seem to be getting there yet and neither of us is dancing right now, maybe I should make her something else. It might make a nice JJ top, but I don’t know her measurements, I don’t really want to guestimate something like that. There’s a set of nice, heavy, grey-tan curtains that would make a nice jacket or even “jeans” (I was going to use it for my coat muslin until I found that wool at VV), but they’re actually really nice curtains… I’m tempted to just keep them as curtains. If we ever get a rod, we could use them in our bedroom, or the livingroom. There’s some slinky, slithery polyesters that I’m not that interested in actually wearing (though they’d make nice costume elements). And that, really, is about it.

I guess I just think it’d be really nice to be able to sew something without going to the store. I’d like to have some linen (especially handkerchief linens, not that I’ll be able to find that at Fabricland). A whack of cotton broadcloth. Some nice knits… if I’m going to be sewing clothes  for myself, I’m going to need to come to terms with knits at some point. All my favourite RTW tops are knits. (And while I’m wishing, I wish my serger were fixed). Some denim, and other bottom-weight fabrics. This is without even getting into fabric I currently need for planned projects (stretch denim, lining etc. for the coat). A variety of interfacings and linings.

There’s a lot of notions I’d like to have in my stash, too. A real button collection (like my Grandma’s), for one. Twill tape. Fray check. A wider selection of sewing needles. Zippers (I have a few 8-inch ones that I got at Fabricland for 3/$1, but other sizes/styles). Fold-over, waistband, and buttonhole elastic. Some cute trims. I am definitely lusting over those wash-away markers, too.

I wonder if stashes are sort of like wardrobes… it fills shelves and shelves, and you still sit and stare at it and go, “I have nothing to sew!”

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April 11, 2010 · 11:36 pm

Fabric!

Apparently tenacity pays off. Today was my fifth (or something like) trip to a Fabricland within the last month. And I would’ve sworn I’d looked over every coat-weight bolt in the store. Apparently not, because today I discovered this:

Tucked on a bottom shelf under a bunch of other stuff. Description: “Coating”; fibre: unknown. Regular price: $20.00, 50% off. Yes, I got the entire bolt for $10/m. It’s thick, warm, soft, doesn’t seem to ravelly. It’s not wool (no scratchy) but it’s nice, and the price was awesome. Only problem, as far as I can see, is that there were only 4.5 m left on the bolt, and the pattern suggests almost 5 1/2 yards… According to google, 4.5 m equals just under 5 yards. The cutter also usually gives a teeny bit extra every yard… so maybe there’ll be enough to make up for that last 3/8 of a yard. So we’ll see. Worst case scenario, I can only make the knee-length version.

In any case, it’s not quite was I was envisioning, but I think it will be just fine. A real wool would’ve been extra nice, but I’m not going to complain.

So I guess I should quit procrastinating on that test version…

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April 8, 2010 · 1:26 am

Baby steps

This is going to be a slow process.

Went home over Easter and took the opportunity to visit a couple of fabric shops with my mom (who knows a lot more about this kind of thing than I do). There’s a fabric and lining at Fabricland that would work… and they’re on sale… and there’s no WAY I have money for it this month. /sigh. Maybe next. The plus side is that every Fabricland I’ve been to has had that same fabric, plenty of it. It’s not exactly what I want—it’s a purple boucle, for one, and the more I look the more I realize I really want a dark charcoal grey/black with some kind of texture or fleck of lighter colour (basically the fabric of the coat I have right now, that’s on its very last legs. But the purple would be nice, and I haven’t found a black or grey that really sings to me. And I really don’t know my fabrics well enough to order online.

So that was informative but basically frustrating. I’m also still up in the air about an interlining… Thinsulate (assuming I can figure out where to get it) appears to be the default, but I read somewhere about a stuff called microfleece they make for active gear that is warm and thinner… I’m just not sure if it’s warm enough (or where to get it, either). My mother also suggested a layer of chamois in the bodice to break the wind, which seems like a really good idea too. I’m not too worried about a *bit* of bulk—I want a winter coat, warmer than my current one, which is really a fall weight (I’m in Canada, remember) that I end up stuffing two or three sweaters under to make it work. But I also want a nice drapy skirt, so while I can interline the crap out of the bodice I don’t want to stiffen up the skirt.

But I did mention baby steps, right? At Value Village (the VV in my hometown is SO much more satisfying to shop at than the one here. Possibly because it serves the whole city, while this one just serves our little patch of suburbia) I scored three yards of a 60″ wide jacket-weight wool for five bucks, that I can use for a test version of my coat bodice. The colour’s not me, so I told my mom if it works out I’ll make one up for her. There’s not enough to make a full skirt, but I should be able to manage something hip-length, get a sense for the fit, the sleeve cap (which I’m shortening to remove the visible gathering) and whether I will actually need to lengthen the sleeve. I was thinking I would need to lengthen it, as all my ready-to-wear jacket sleeves are always too short, but having measured the sleeve length on the pattern (yes, minus the seam and hem allowances) it’s at least an inch or two longer than the sleeves I’m complaining about, so maybe I won’t. We’ll see how the test goes :).

So I have the outer portions of the pattern traced out, and the test fabric washed. It’s probably still not as heavy as I’d like (and it will be quite a bit different if I do go with the boucle) but it’s a start. It really is a nice fabric, except for the colours. With any luck I’ll get a test shell sewn up this weekend. Now, I’m off to think about shoulderpads. I’ve been reading up on sleeve headers and how Armani finishes their jacket shoulders… lots of fun… 🙂

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