Sunday, September 11, 2011

In Case You Were Wondering If I'd Ever Sew Anything Again... (With Photos!)

Let me start by saying how much I appreciate all of you wonderful, knowledgeable sewists. In a fit of anxiety, I post (horrified) about puckered seams and before I know it I've got all kinds of expert solutions! Thank you so much.

Amongst them - should you ever find yourself with puckered seams in silk charmeuse:
  • Try a walking foot. (I'm not sure if this helped in my case, but it didn't hurt. And I can imagine, depending on the silk and the machine, it could be very helpful.)
  • Check out Gorgeous Things' method for pressing in steps - it totally works, peeps!
  • Use a ham while pressing, if you're working some princess seams.
Then there are these, which I also considered / tried:
  • Adjust stitch length - sometimes shorter is better, sometimes longer.
  • Adjust tension. Generally low tension is better for silk, but I didn't find that.
  • Use silk or cotton thread - not much help once you're half way through and/or using out-there whack colours.
The hardcore winner was pressing - something I hadn't yet tried (but intended to try) when I wrote my plea for help. You cannot press enough with this fabric. Inside and outside (use a pressing cloth if you're worried that the heat will alter the sheen of your silk).

At any rate, I put in a good 16 hours constructing this shirt - that's a long time given I had fit more or less sorted and I've made it before. Note: I did not find the Pendrell easy the last time I made it, though the instructions are excellent and clear. It takes some working knowledge of methods and some dexterity - at least when making version B. Having said that, I put this slog down to a) being out of practice and b) really fucking difficult fabric.

But look how pretty it is:





(Note: I don't know why blogger keeps compressing my photos and making their awesome quality look fuzzy and crap. You have to believe me when I say I took very nice pics...)

As I seem to so often these days, I'm calling this a qualified success.

The Good:
  • The hem is gorgeous, inside and out.
  • Ruffles worked very well.
  • Binding method (inside) worked quite well, though was finicky on the neck. Very clean.
  • The overall fit and colour of the garment.
The Mediocre:
  • When my serger likes to slice and dice, it really does it with gusto. I had a couple of near misses (leaving hideous wrong side spots on the seams). I tried to improve them cosmetically by going over them again with the blade turned off, but the result was meh. I also had to do some reconstruction inside the serged seams (re-seaming with my machine).
  • Even though I pressed the crap out of those puckered seams - and it made things 200 per cent better, easily - they're not perfect. I don't know if I'd do princess seams in silk again. That's a lot of seams with a potentially puckery fabric. You should note that these photos are unforgiving. On me, the puckering is barely noticeable. That's the plus of having boobs!
  • The last time I made the Pendrell, I used a synthetic with utterly no stretch. And I still found the waist a bit large (I should have made the 8, instead I altered down the 10 so that was a residual challenge). I know this top needs to be roomy, given that there are no closures i.e. it has to fit over your head - plus, it's not meant to fit close - but, given my shape, it's a bit boxier than I'd prefer. This time, given that I had a lot of stretch, I brought the side seams in further. My execution was regrettably not perfect, but I think the shape is better on me. Word to those who are thinking of making the blouse: IMO, it's sized large.
On balance, I'm glad I've used up the cerise silk. It's been taunting me since I bought it - and it was really not much fun to work with. I'm happy to be able to move on to other fabrics - and all's well that ends well.

Next up: My pants sloper in stretch wool (another RTW fabric bought from my designer friend). I have every reason to believe this fabric will sew up without trauma. Not that I want to get over-confident!

10 comments:

  1. Really pretty! I keep trying to imagine how you can get this over your head, especially in a fabric without stretch. . . But the effect is so clean. I love the simplicity of it, with just those light ruffles at the shoulder.

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  2. That blouse is gorgeous! And I'm so glad that you are back to sewing, I was starting to miss the beautiful sewn garments you make. And, you've officially convinced me to purchase the pattern. I'm off to make the order right now. Ciao!

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  3. Congratulations and what a beautiful result! I love it! I almost now make all my blouses with princess seaming and I adore them. I've never made one with silk, though, so I hesitated to add comments - but it's ADORABLE!

    I'm glad your sewing mojo is back! Don't stress - I went through a 9 month long sewing plateau - I resolved it by taking classes - I think that helped.

    Honestly, you're fantastic - this blouse is wonderful! I have the pattern and may have to go ahead and rock it!

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  4. Stunning blouse! Love this particular shade of red, it's rich but still fresh. Glad to know you do sew ;-)

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  5. Wow, what a gorgeous blouse - fantastic colour and I'll bet the ruffles are lovely on you.

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  6. It looks perfect to me. You've been staring at it too long ;). Glad you got it sorted, and I will definitely be checking out that pressing technique, if I ever feel masochistic and try to sew with silk. ;)

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  7. From this end it doesn’t look mediocre at all, in fact, it looks perfect! And the colour is so pretty. Thanks for the tips about working with silk.

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  8. Nice work Kristin! The blouse is beautiful. The ruffles look perfect. Actually the whole blouse looks perfect, despite the issues you pointed out. It's a very nice design.

    I do hope you'll keep on sewing even though it can be stressful.

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  9. I think it looks lovely, the littel ripples are not noticable. I think you need the Magic Closet to make them disappear.

    I've been wondering about Sewaholic patterns. I love the look but pear shaped I am not. It's good to see how they look on other non-pear folks.

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  10. F: The neck hole is actually too big on this one! (On the last one, I bound the neck seam in a different way which effectively made the hole smaller. And that fabric had no stretch - but still it fits :-)) I have the SMALLEST head. Once you add the stretch it's a piece of cake. Oh, I want cake.

    CGC: Thank you! And you will love the pattern. Let us know how it goes...

    Pammie: You are so sweet! And I do think princess seams are very flattering. I just find them to be lots of sewing, if you know what I mean. You def have to give some silk a go.

    Karin: :-) I love the shade too. It's where pink meets red.

    Gabrielle: Thank you! The ruffles, which in this fabric have lots of bounce, give my narrow shoulders a bit more width. Which is great.

    T: Maybe I have been staring at it too long! I wore it recently and I loved it.

    Andrea: Thank you! And you're welcome!

    Susan: Oh, I'll keep on. I love the finished items too much to stop.

    Seraph: The magic closet!! BTW, the Sewaholic patterns may be quite long and large in the hips. Make a muslin, but consider going down a size.

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