Take the Long View

I lost the battle, in case you were wondering. My cerise, bias cut, boned waistband, wool blend Ginger skirt is lining a bin right now. Far better sewists than I end up making totally unwearable garments occasionally. I like to think of myself as being in good company.

(Note: Para 1 was written with 24 hours of perspective. Yesterday I was so hatefully hostile I actually couldn't write.)

Let's start with the evidence, and then I'll treat you to the whole, miserable tale...

Here's the freakin' zipper outcome the second time around?! I'd already ripped out the first zipper, silk organza interfaced the seam allowance, fusible interfaced the rest of the seam allowance (even below the zipper), and reinserted, with great care, the second zipper (the first one ended up breaking after I reinserted it into the skirt so, technically, this was my third go around).

To add insult to injury, below you will see the reasonably lovely Hong Kong seamed zipper area (obscuring all of the (useless) stabilization going on underneath).

And here's the (rather nice) boned waistband. In a terrific irony, this happens to be a many-stepped piece of cake:

So, what happened?

Well, I'm grateful to advise that I'm pretty sure I know exactly what went down, which given my relative nascence in the world of sewing, is a good thing.

The FUCKING invisible zipper debacle:

• For starters, I'm pretty pissed off with the pattern. OK, everyone loves Colette - including me - but I think that Sarai has done a disservice to novice sewists by including a bias-cut version of this Beginner pattern without the slightest bit of extra-instruction about how fucking complicated this can actually be. Let me make this entirely clear: If you are a beginner and you want to sew the Ginger skirt, more power to you - it's a great garment. But under no circumstances should you undertake the bias version until a) you've read everything here and then b) made some other stuff first - like, at least, three other skirts. And then, when you do make the bias version, expect a run for your money. It's a learning curve experience, peeps. Know that going in.

• I'm relieved to report (like it makes any difference, in the end) that I firmly believe my wool blend was never going to hold the zipper without waving. Of course, if I'd started off the right way, I would have avoided any stretching of the zipper area to begin with. But the fabric is so drapey that, on the bias, it actually acts more like a knit (without spring back) than a woven. If the pattern had some kind of warning about types of fabric not to use, this whole situation might have been averted. Or maybe not. But it certainly would have put the blame squarely on me.

• In fact, I've learned a brilliant lesson. You cannot use super springy, flexy fabric on a bias-cut garment. Not if you want to insert a zipper. Thing is, the apex of pull on this kind of fabric is not solely on the zipper-zone. Every seam supports the oppositional stretch of bias fabric. That oppositional stretch is particularly strong at the bottom third of the zipper.

• Point is: I believe this fabric was never meant for a bias-cut skirt, despite my efforts to control it. The more I interfaced (which was messy), the more the waves adapted.
  

• Do not try to control your fabric. You can manipulate it, gently, expertly. But if it wants to rebel you will need to be an extremely capable sewist - nay, an alchemist - to get it to conform.
  

Now, I may lose a battle. But the money's on me to win the war.

I came home tonight and cut out all new pieces. (I never buy twice as much fabric as I need but, this time, I got the end of a bolt so the shop keeper gave it to me for a discount. Mega-save!) Tonight, I did not cut the pieces on the bias. In fact, I cut the zipper seam on the selvedge for extra firmness. And I'm still going to organza interface - this time from the start. I've already assembled the skirt. Next I've got to insert the zipper. Maybe I'll tackle that tomorrow.

Because I know how this fabric will respond, and what seam allowances I should use, the cutting and sewing of the main pieces (including interfacing the waistband and facing) took a mere hour! Of course, that's the straight forward part.

I should mention the amazing new things I learned in this sewing experience:

• French seams - man, these make Hong Kong seams feel like torture. So easy. So pretty. Love!
• Boned waistband - I'll write more about this in another post, but really, this is not difficult. On this skirt I found the technique to be rather useless, but that's not the fault of the technique.
• Proper Hong Kong seams.
• How to make bias tape.
• Sewing a closure into a bias cut skirt.

There's lots more to say about this but I have to eat something :-)

I'd love to know about your experiences of inserting zippers on a bias-cut garment. Tell me anything you know about either zippers OR bias cut fabric. Let's talk!

Spiraling

I'm won't lie. This post is going to be a little bit technical. But I'm aiming to throw in a bit of pithy philosophy as I go, in the event that it will appeal to more than 3 people.

OK, elephant in the room time, I'm here to tell you about spiral steel boning. More specifically, it's about cutting the boning wire and affixing those little caps on the end.

To remind you, this is the boning:

These are the caps:

And this is the type of tool I used to cut the boning:

Outrageously, I got my clippers (Scott calls them nips) from Leather and Sewing Supply for $4.50 (?!); the brand is utterly local. The company that makes the tool is called Can-Pro Canada (I know, ridiculous name) and, if I'm not mistaken, my gizmo is made in Etobicoke (the outer edge of Toronto). I searched high and low for a photo. (Of course, I'm too lazy to actually take one.) But I don't know how likely it is that you'll be able to get the Can-Pro brand if you live out of the city. Point is, you want nips that have that type of head on it.

Why is this relevant? Well, a lot of people will tell you that cutting the steel is very tricky. Gertie (and I think we can agree the woman is a pioneer) posted a video demonstrating the cutting process, a while back. Thing is, this video kind of freaked me out. It made the cutting - to me - look rather challenging. But, trust me, if you use the type of clippers I've shown in the photo above (not that brand, specifically), the spiral cuts really easily.

Special Secret Tip!: More to the point, the guy at Leather and Sewing Supply actually showed me how to cut with minimal effort. Because the wire is in spirals, if you clip half of any circle, it will sever the link between the two sides of wire. That means you don't need to cut clean through a quarter inch of metal. You only need to clip a couple of slender wires and voila!

Now For the Caps: A lot of people will also tell you that affixing the caps is even more difficult than dealing with the wire. In truth, they're kind of right, but I have a philosophy about this. (Disclaimer: It's my extremely-handy husband's philosophy - I'm merely buying into it.)

To affix the caps - and you have to, or the raw wire will trash your fabric - you will need little needle-nose pliers (called jewelers pliers). Hopefully, you have a life-partner that has every type of pliers on the planet. If not, just go to the hardware store and explain yourself. These things are standard issue.

Step 1: Put the cap on the raw wire end and push it down. Hold it gently with your finger as you use the pliers to smush against the wide side (along the profile of the 1/4" wire). Don't do this too high up. You don't want to crush the tip out of shape or you won't be able to keep it right up against the tip of the spiral steel boning.

Step 2: Now, against the narrow, i.e.skinny, side, gently use the pliers to smush the metal in.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have the stupid thing affixed. As you press along the width, the ends of the clips will move away from the wire. As you press the ends towards the wire, the tip will try to lift. (Takes a couple of minutes, i.e. 2-5.) Every time you think it's fixed, the cap will shift. It will aggravate you and, likely, make you question your place in the universe.

Step 4: Meditate on the nature of the activity to prevent yourself from freaking out (as you imagine that it's never actually going to work). As you gently mold the cap against the spiral, you are actually metal-working. Optimally, a machine would do this for you, and it would apply pressure to all sides of the cap on the spiral in the same proportions at the same time. Alas, you are not a machine. So you need to bring zen to the act of pushing one way, then the other, then another, until you've mushed that thing well on. It will work. Don't panic. Keep trying. Be prepared to throw out a few caps. It's all cool.

What has the world come to, I ask you, when sewing involves pliers and wire cutters? If you think of it as carpentry, it actually seems less scary, somehow.

When first I saw Gertie's post about boning, I thought: There is NO WAY I will ever be able to do this. I'm happy to tell you that I've reconsidered, and not because I'm any more skilled, but because I've decided to just take it one step at a time. It's not rocket science (she says, not having actually completed the boned bodice). When you make any garment, you follow many processes. One leads to the next. This is simply an additional step - or three.

Note to reader: I'm getting myself into the "take the long road" tailoring frame of mind.

I cannot improve upon Gertie's tutorial. It's excellent. All I can add is a bit of info about my own experience. But, peeps, inasmuch as I am a sewing novice, in the scheme of things, let me encourage you! If I can do this, you can too. And I intend to do this.

Peace out.

Crossing the Line?

Somehow I think there's a pun in that title but I can't quite figure it out...

My friends, I appear to be hanging on the sewing dark side. I am so intrigued by constructing my second version of the Ginger skirt in a cerise, light wool blend, that I came home after a busy day at work to cut out the pieces. That's after I treated the wool yesterday. And re-read, for the 8000th time, the info on how to bone the waistband the day before. And bought the boning last week.

Did I mention that I don't sew on weekdays?

You may recall I'm making this one on the bias. And that, when complete, my Spring Basics Palette will be finished as planned. (Man, I'm getting my money's worth linking to that post...) Bias cut garments need to be hung to work out any potential warps, hence my inclination to get this on my dress form today, a few days before the weekend:

I realize this looks orange but you're gonna have to trust me that it's like a supa-bright, pink-y red.

While I was cutting, I couldn't get your collective voice out of my mind (egad, that's a bit sci-fi). I had to use the opportunity to cut some bias strips, to turn into tape. I didn't let the fact that I didn't know how to cut bias strips stop me.

See, that's what's been stopping me forever. I figure, I may have undertaken the activity incorrectly, but at least now I've tried. If it doesn't work, I'll have some sense of what I've done wrong and - maybe - I'll read up more appropriately on the topic next time. In short, I made 1 inch strips on the bias (out of the fabric scraps I had left), which will, I imagine, turn into 1/2 inch bias tape when I use that gizmo and my iron to fold it over on either end.

Some of the pieces are very short. I assume that means I'll have more join marks in the tape. I'm ok with that. Seams on my bias tape seem preferable to unfinished seams. And I don't want to waste fabric by cutting long strips out of the prime meat, as it were.

Hence this:


In today's irony, I'm pretty sure I'm going to finish the Ginger seams à la française, not that I've ever done this before. Which means this not-yet-bias-tape is gonna sit in a Ziploc bag for a while. Something tells me you have to be very specific in how you attach one piece to the next, or you could join pieces cut oppositely, which wouldn't work. Is that right? And is it hard to keep grainline straight once you've thrown everything into a bag?

Near and Far

My boning wires arrived from Farthingales in Stratford. The company serves, primarily, the Stratford Festival costume making community, from what I can tell.

I have to say that the service was very good. I asked to have the signature requirement waived, it was done simply by one email exchange. The package was trackable over the entire journey, though it wasn't couriered, but delivered by Canada Post. It arrived in 1 business day!? (That's a freakin' miracle, let's call it a fluke.)

And when I inquired about what I felt was a high shipping charge (12 bucks for a small and light package), I was advised that (save a $2.50 handling fee which everyone pays equally), the shipping is not marked up and is based on a rate supplied by the post office. As my parcel cost slightly less to send than the system estimated, per Farthingale policy which is applied to everyone, I was refunded $1.72. The entire transaction occurred in my currency (shipping with handling was $10.25 in the end). I cannot complain.

Now, on the topic of the product: I bought a bunch of 1/4" spiral steel boning pieces in pre-cut lengths (with removable tips), a metre length of the same boning (that I'll have to trim to size, egad), a packet of the tips (to protect from cut ends) and a couple of metres of 1/4" German Plastic boning - an excellent kind, apparently. Theoretically, this will keep me going for a few projects - and it's not like I intend to start corseting liberally!

Has anyone else purchased from this retailer? How did you find the experience? The product?

Unrelated Things

In my endless quest to a) improve skills b) improve garment functionality and c) make things totally challenging and unknowable, I have decided to add a little twist into my Ginger skirt project, penultimate of the Spring Basics Palette projects.

By twist I mean twists, more accurately, in the form of spiral steel boning:

Photo courtesy of On Pins and Needles

Why recreate the same skirt you love, I say, when you can make a bias cut version with a different waistband that's tailored? Yeah, that's really keeping it simple.

At any rate, I watched Gertie's yellow dress, boned-bodice project with interest, though I was totally freaked out by the level of complexity involved. More recently, she revisited the concept on a waistband, using the Ginger skirt as her muse. That, I thought, is something I might get with in the course of time. Truth is, for all of my love of my Ginger skirt, having used a very stiff denim, and given that my lower abdomen is not flat, I've got a bit of bunching where the skirt rises up to meet the waist as I walk. I intend to ameliorate this by using a fabric with better drape next time (the cerise wool blend), by making the straight (rather than scalloped) waist band and, you guessed it, by venturing into the world of waist boning.

Ah, I can see a corset in my (distant) future.

(On the topic of where and how I've purchased the boning and tips, stay tuned. What I will tell you is that I bought Canadian. And - hilarious, I'm sure you'll agree - I paid through the nose for shipping given that the outlet is 2 hrs away and the vehicle is Canada Post. Let's just say I'm waiting for some clarification and to see the size of the package / contents within.)

Item above is vaguely related to my next item, I suppose, about the Freya Nieve long line bra and the Freya Nina plunge.

The world of lingerie is never dull here. In short, I bought the Nina set and then decided to keep the Nieve after first trying to replace the Nieve with the larger cup size - only to find that it's completely gone everywhere now that it's sale season and that colourway has been discontinued.

The long version is that I couldn't get the Nina as a replacement for the Nieve and also get the 20% discount that was being offered on the bra on Figleaves. I either had to a) buy the Nina and return the Nieve - which means I'd pay shipping on the Nina (5 pounds 50) and return fees on the Nieve (8 bucks CDN) or b) buy the Nina as part of my return but pay the full price aka somewhat more expensive than option a).

Now, the price of both of these sets together comes to $130.00 CDN - less than I'd pay for one of the bras alone at a B&M store here. So, any way you slice it, the discount is deep enough to mitigate a return and new purchase.

I was all set to return the Nieve but I couldn't stop trying it on. Every time I did I'd notice that the gores don't sit flat against my chest - but that, in every other way, this bra is awesome. By awesome I mean "inspiring awe". My boobs look so spherical they're mesmerizing. And so pushed up they're practically hitting my chin.

This leads me on a diatribe about the merits of padding. Don't get me wrong, I don't love the concept and I'm much more about the natural shaped breast (not that every bra isn't artificially shaping one's breasts in one way or another, but you know what I mean). But I can totally understand how the younger women love it. It's very, um, youthful. And the padding really is a means to an end. It doesn't so much increase the volume of one's chest as it molds it into a modern cultural ideal. I'm still trying to understand what's doing what. Is it the vertical seaming that contributes to the shape? The longline? The padding? All of the above?

Point is, I couldn't bring myself to give it back. I wore it today and, while I felt like Jessica Rabbit, it was fun under a very modest crew neck. Its practicality may be limited, but it's an experiment I'm not done with yet.

The purchase of the Nina is merely a function of my indulgent tendencies. I couldn't let a floral/animal/pink combo get away.

So, I figure if you don't care about waist boning, chances are you care about push up lingerie. Please feel free to share your thoughts about either of these threads. I want to hear them.