Finally, some sewing!
Well, sewing tonight was good. I managed to baste together and sew the channels of one front panel before I got cross-eyed from looking at the sewing lines. While I was sewing, I realized or did a few new (or not so new) things that I thought I would share with you as sewing tips.
A couple of nights ago, I made a channel tester from scraps to figure out the sewing widths I would need for my reeds. I like having a multi-position needle on my sewing machine, as it makes it easy to just follow the side of my walking foot for really straight seams. I made notes as to what widths worked for which reeds. I will be saving this scrap for future reference, and will test and note other types of boning, from zip ties to the steels I have on hand. This should help me from having to do it again.
Following advice Bridget at CostumeCon gave me about her Master winning gown (I know she's on LJ, but I don't remember her LJ name), I used Sulky's KK2000 Temp spray, and joined the fashion fabric to its interlining (the cotton drill), before adding and hand basting with fine silk thread the coutil layer. The spray worked decently, but it liked to shift more than I wanted even after being hand pressed flat and allowed to bond for awhile before being moved. It may have been the fabric I was using, or maybe, since this was my first time, I didn't spray enough on. But it laid pretty flat, and held long enough for me to do the hand basting. And even with the bastings, the layers still shifted a little. Figures!
It looks really nice, as I found my medium grey thread actually blends nicely with the slate blue fabric. The coutil side is done with white threads. I really want to stuff those channels now, but... I will wait until all the channels and other sewing lines are stitched. I also need to see if my fix will work, but that all will have to wait until tomorrow and into this weekend.
Edit: And a few other sewing tips:
A couple of nights ago, I made a channel tester from scraps to figure out the sewing widths I would need for my reeds. I like having a multi-position needle on my sewing machine, as it makes it easy to just follow the side of my walking foot for really straight seams. I made notes as to what widths worked for which reeds. I will be saving this scrap for future reference, and will test and note other types of boning, from zip ties to the steels I have on hand. This should help me from having to do it again.
Following advice Bridget at CostumeCon gave me about her Master winning gown (I know she's on LJ, but I don't remember her LJ name), I used Sulky's KK2000 Temp spray, and joined the fashion fabric to its interlining (the cotton drill), before adding and hand basting with fine silk thread the coutil layer. The spray worked decently, but it liked to shift more than I wanted even after being hand pressed flat and allowed to bond for awhile before being moved. It may have been the fabric I was using, or maybe, since this was my first time, I didn't spray enough on. But it laid pretty flat, and held long enough for me to do the hand basting. And even with the bastings, the layers still shifted a little. Figures!
It looks really nice, as I found my medium grey thread actually blends nicely with the slate blue fabric. The coutil side is done with white threads. I really want to stuff those channels now, but... I will wait until all the channels and other sewing lines are stitched. I also need to see if my fix will work, but that all will have to wait until tomorrow and into this weekend.
Edit: And a few other sewing tips:
- Trim each line of sewing of extra threads before starting the next line of sewing. While waiting to trim the threads until the end might make things go faster, after only a few lines of sewing, I found that the hanging threads were getting in the way and tangling, making it actually take longer to get them undone and trimmed off.
- When you have to end a stitching line before the actual end of the garment, trim the top thread (the side that is on the fashion fabric), then pull on the underside thread, so that the knots are pulled into the body of the fabric, hiding the thread tips. Then trim closely to the underside fabric.
- When sewing channel lines onto fabric that will be folded under, continue the sewing into that area, so that when the fabric is folded, you don't end up with obvious thread ends sticking out at the edge. No matter how closely I trim threads, there is always something sticking up. When I continued, I found that the end will be rolled under, and hence I won't see those tacky thread tips. Yeah, I know, most people won't get that close, but I will know.