Posted by dravon in Pipeline Update | Comments Off on Tone-on-tone doublet tests; Wool Vest Series final vest
Tone-on-tone doublet tests; Wool Vest Series final vest
I’ve got a few projects in the works. Figured it would be a good idea for me to do status reports as I go. It’s easier for me to remember the details doing this rather than try to remember everything at the very end.
First up, I did some test stitch-outs for a tone-on-tone embroidered doublet project that I wanted to undertake. I picked some of the low-grade black wool that I have and then chose black cotton thread for the embroidery. I chose that thread because it’s a matte finish, so the embroidery will remain subtle.
Because I wasn’t sure what sort of pattern hubby wanted for his garment, I picked a few that I already had in my embroidery file stash. One is more airy and stylized, while the other is much denser and has a strong stylized floral motif (below in close-up).
Hubby liked them both, and I wanted to see if I could find some wider scrollwork that looked a bit more gothic-y. Proof of concept completed, we went to the one of the two only local fabric stores to see what we could find. Hubby picked out a bright gold for one, and a burgundy for the contrast. The fabric is a chenille homage (he apparently really likes chenille…). Alas, because the chosen fabric is so darn heavy, adding embroidery to it might be a bit overkill, but demit, I want to embroider something! I need to do another stitch-out test of the airy design on the new fabric.
That new project, though, is on hold until this current one is completed.
“This current one” is the last of 5 vests that I’ve made for hubby since March 2013. I call this the Wool Vest Series. My goal was to finish the 5th one before 1 year had elapsed from the time all the material was purchased. It turns out that this vest series has been a perfect educational experience in terms of the effect that interfacing is having on the finished project. The first two were iron-on non-woven interfacing. The third was an iron-on woven interfacing that I learned about in a tailoring class. The fourth was a sew-in non-woven that I used a spray baste to temporarily set the interfacing until it could be sewn. This last one, I’m using the same medium weight non-woven sew-in interfacing, but I decided to sew baste it into place.
Here are the supplies for the basting. I had never really thought about thread basting before and then I read in Couture Sewing Techniques, Revised and Updated by Claire B. Shaeffer about how high-end houses use it. Well, heck, I’ll give it a go. Alas, I don’t have the silk thread she recommended, but I have seen the tragic results of ironing baste marks into the face of the fabric. In this case, I am using regular 40 weight cotton thread. If this experiment had worked better, I would have decided to go on the hunt for 60 weight silk thread for hand basting.
After some experimenting, I found that I liked having a very small stitch on the right side of the fabric and a long stitch on the back. This was very fast to install, and it did the job of keeping the interfacing from sliding around so that I could then cut out the material and start the process of construction with confidence. The rows of basting were roughly 2″ to 3″ apart. Closer was not necessary, but since I basted the materials together before cutting out the pieces I needed to make sure that the lines of basting were sufficient.
Here’s where I stopped last night. Overall, sewn-in basting worked well enough. I was able to pull out the basting stitches before the final pressing of the day. When I did, I could see the pattern of the stitching in the wool. I gave it a light pressing, using the point of the iron to smooth away the pattern and it’s all done. I should gave gotten a picture of the inside of the welt pockets, but the stitch basted interfacing did not really hold up well to the process of construction. It crumpled up and wrinkled, requiring some work to get it straightened out. I did not have that problem at all with the spray basted sew-in interfacing. In the future, I think I’ll stick with sew-in interfacings where possible, but I’ll be spray basting it into place rather than thread basting. The final Wool Vest Series Post-Mortem will picture all 5 vests, and hopefully the effect of the different interfacings can be seen enough to understand what can seen/felt in person.
If you look on the bottom of the vest, you can see the one chronic problem area I’ve had with the friggin’ vests. I get them all done, they look FANTASTIC … except the bottom points are all crumpled like this. Fortunately, on this vest I’ve already pressed the bottom hem line into place, whereas on all the others I left that for the last bit when I was inserting the lining. The process of pressing up the hemline and folding over the join of the front facing into the hemline immediately revealed where my problem area actually is. NOW I can figure out how to fix it, then rip apart the other vests and fix them too. I had thought the problem was in how I was hand finishing the lining into place, and since I was looking at the wrong thing it’s no wonder it was such a persistent problem.
Since the goal is to finish this vest BEFORE March 1, that means tonight is finishing the shell, cutting out the lining pieces and assembling them. Friday night will be inserting the lining into the fashion fabric, then buttonholes, buttons and hand finishing.
This entire weekend will be a wash in terms of sewing time. A bit bummed about that. 🙁 Next week is a new start though!
