Catalog Sunday: Montgomery Wards, 1933

Catalog Sunday: Fabric Edition

Playclothes repair Friday: The green 60s silk dress

Hello lovely people.

Hope your week was nice and your weekend is going to be better. Me, I've got a list of projects to get through and most of them are going to go on this weekend. 

But first, I thought I'd give you an update on my week.

1890s corset cover repair.

Hello lovely people.

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been scrambling with so many other projects and just trying to stay afloat.

I haven't been sewing much for myself lately, but I have been doing a lot of mending, repairs, and sewing for others.

I will be posting a slew of vintage repairs that I have been doing for Playclothes, including sheering of some great Tiki dresses.

Right now I have this lovely antique corset cover that was in need of some delicate repairs.

Sewing Side Work

Hello all.

I'd like to thank you all for all the support over these past days.

It's been much appreciated. 

Still no luck on the job front and I'm trying to stay positive, but stress is stress.

In the mean time, I'm cobbling together some of my odd jobs and seeing how far I can go.

One of which is my gig of doing alterations/mending of vintage for Playclothes.

If you have never been to Playclothes, you should. It's one of the best vintage clothing stores in California. 

Etsy Updates: Dresses for sale!

I've decided to let go of some of my more labored projects and list them in my etsy store.

A lot of these you have seen me create on the blog. They are too large now and I thought another stout lady would love a nice gown in her wardrobe!

I'm also going to list some day dresses too. I need to make room for some new clothes.

A friend asked me how could I let go of some of these clothes, and I see it as giving someone else a chance to wear a nice vintage styled garment. 

As usual, all my garments are finished with vintage notions and hand sewn finishes that give it that extra polished look.

November Pattern Showcase!!

Good morning everyone! I hope your last month of the year is going good.

Patterns for this past November have been very precice.

The Gutted Cloche

How is everyone doing? 

It seems it's been slow around the tubal-interwebs. I presume people are out enjoying the summer before school starts. Since I don't have to worry about school in any capacity (yay), I've been sewing.

I designated this week my week to get rid of projects. I had paperwork I needed to complete, a freelance project I've been putting off, and other odds and ends. This cloche is one of them. I've only had it for a few weeks, but I don't want the project to get numb on me.

I've been sewing!!

Hi all.

Burn Testing 101

Imagine the scene: You are in your favorite fabric store and you see it across the room. A material you can not live without! You sashay over and embrace, and it was meant to be. Love. But the more you fondle your new found love, you have to wonder, what the heck is it? Are you cotton, linen, a wool or a blend? Something else? In most other circumstances in life, this does not matter, but we hold this bias for fabric content where it belongs!

If you generally shop for fabric in small chains, they often have all of it labeled with its appropriate content, generally on the cardboard bolt somewhere. But for many of us who are bargain basement fabric hunters (cough cough), it can be a challenge to find a price let alone fabric content.

I liken determining fabric content to color theory. If you know your primaries (red, yellow, blue) and secondaries (green, orange, purple), then you can generally determine with decent accuracy the content of any mystery fabric.

So you are there at that store and you want to know what kind of fabric it is. Any reputable place will do a burn test for you. Just take it to a counter and ask for one. If they can tell you by feel (a lot of people can) you can take them for their word, or request the test anyway. If they won't do it, ask for a swatch and take it home or outside and do it on your own. I've done that. I often carry wood matches with me when I fabric shop.

Taking the idea that fibers are like colors, I'll give a basic rundown of some of the most common fibers, how they burn, and what they look like when they burn. You will notice that fiber blends will take on characteristics of what they are blended with.

Cotton.

Cotton is pretty simple, from flannel to denim, its burn is pretty consistent.

(the first is a cotton twill, the next two fabrics are cotton flannel)

-Burns like paper.

-Slow crawling flame across the fabric. Now, this can vary depending on the weave. The looser, the faster the flame because the more air between the fuel of the fabric.

-It smells like burning paper. Big surprise with it being a plant fiber and all, right?

(counter clockwise: twill, flannel, twill, denim, flannel, shirting, shirting)

-The ash is often singed on the outer edges with a ring of brown, then black at the center. Its a soft crumbling ash that smears on the fingers.

Linen.

Another plant based fiber, it as a lot of characteristics to cotton, but some of its own.

-The burn of linen is slow, crawling, but has some flicker, because the fibers of linen are hollow.

-Also smells like paper.

-The burn is like cotton as well with a ring of discoloration, and a center of ash.

-The ash is also soft like cotton when pressed on the hand. It smears as well.

Rayon.

It's a standard when making vintage garments, and not too easy to find with a lot of variety. I honestly didn't know how it would burn. Its a synthetic fabric based on plant fibers. Still, now I know why it's not plentiful to find. Lights up like kindling!

-SUPER fast burn thats steady and ravenous.

-Slight discoloration farthest from the flame.

-Leaves little to no ash.

Here is a rayon/linen blend.

You can see some of the burn characteristics from both fibers in this one.

Wool.

Most would be surprised at how wool burns.

But then, maybe not if you have ever used a hot iron on your hair.

-Has a popping quick burn. The burn bubbles and pools as it ashes. Maintaining a flame on wool is difficult.

-Smells like cooking bacon.

(top is wool gabardine, bottom is wool felt)

-The ash melts to a sheen hard and crunchy, like charcoal.

Silk.

Another animal protein.

(top is douponi, bottom is silk satin)

-Has a quick popping flame that is hard to keep lit.

-Like with wool there is a sheen on the hard crumbling ash.

-It smells 'burnt', like ash.

Polyester and polly blends.

These types of fabrics you are most likely to come across depending on your price point. Most blends that are not labeled are most likely polly blends. Because they are a petroleum product, they tend to have some variations of the burn properties they are blended with.

(silk polly blend)

-Melts when on fire. No ash to speak of.

-Material contracts as it melts curving itself into a ball.

(perhaps a polly/rayon blend)

-Very hard to get it to flame. No ash at all.

-Smells like burned plastic. the burn is black but a thin line around where the flame used to be.

So there you go, the basics of burn testing. There are many, MANY other types of fabrics out there, but unless you are specifically looking for them, I doubt you will run across them in the bargain fabric bin. And if you do, try a burn test and look at how it behaves.

Good luck and burn safely!!

A burn test chart from DitzyPrints.

A great list of burn test fibers from fabric.com.

Her is a great list of fabric definitions.

Natural fiber fabrics.

Man made fiber fabrics.

If you all have anymore links you wish to contribute on the different types of fabrics and weaves, please share!

Makin' & Mendin' my behind off.

Well not off, there is still a lot back there...

This Saturday I bit the bullet. I went on and mended a few things for other people as well as myself.

For the other people, I sewed up a tear in a pair of pants,

Stitched a loose seam in a new sweater...

And even took in the bum, and let out the bust of a 60s brocade dress for a friend.

Honestly, I did all that in about an hour. Its amazing how quickly you can do this stuff if you just get over the hump.

For myself, I did quite a few things. I lowered the hem on my Tiki dress 1 1/2". I didn't feel comfortable at its shorter length and my slips were always showing.

I FINALLY adjusted the shoulders on a blouse jacket I had made some time ago. Oh boy, where they too large.

Its my repro blouse pattern and I made the shoulders too long. I tried to fake it by making shoulder pads, which at first took longer than actually altering the sleeves would have been but you know, backwards thinking and all.

I wonder why we as sewers do that; too lazy to take out stitches, but would make something new instead. HA!

I like the new fit and now I don't feel stupid wearing it.

I also made a few home wears. I stitched up my canvas grocery bag strap and also made some produce bags. Im known by my friends as being 'green'. I always bring my own bags to the store, never take bags if I can help it, and have a big old recycle pile in my kitchen.

The produce bags are for those plastic things you get for your veggies that you stow all your tomatoes or lemons in while you shop.

I get sick of tossing that thing every shopping trip, so I got some very sheer fabric and stitched up my own.

Four to be exact. That should do.

With the leftover fabric from the produce bags, I whipped up a pressing cloth.

I also made a pillow case from some white cotton and some lovely flowered cotton.

Also on Saturday, I worked on my Gardenia dress. I'm happy to say as of yesterday I finished the stitching and Im actually putting it together now!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

On Friday, my iPhoto book came. In my inspiration thread, I talk about my family and showed some old pictures of them. Most are not dated.

I'm mailing it to my Granny this week with a sharpie so she can write in it and catalog all the people and dates. She's looking forward to it. Once she sends it back to me, I'm going to make another book (hard bound) and place all the photos in chronological order. it will be a fantastic keepsake.

Also another keepsake is from my friend. This past Thursday, some of us with strapped finances decided to venture to our local Tiki bar where they were having their FIRST drink special. Rum punch for $5.

OH JOY! It started at 4pm and we were punctual. Even got a table. The punch was great, but they only made a 3 gallon vat, and it ran out in an hour! So we left, and went to a diner where my friend came with a much anticipated gift.

A few months at the Santa Monica Vintage expo, I cam across this amazing silk shawl. GAWD, it was stunning. Late 20s, early 30s with a cream background, embroidered flowers, and silk rope fringe. I fell in love. Even visited it a couple of times. I asked the seller the price, "$250, she said." "Wow," I replied. "That's actually reasonable." And it was. She also told me how some other sellers were coming by and looking at it. They would probably resell it for $450+.

My friend, the one who I met at the diner had the most awesome gig for a few months. She was working for a prop house that was selling off its inventory. Now, Im sure you can see where this is going.

See that huge ass grin, yeah, thats the grin of a free vintage silk shawl that was a movie prop. It needs a cleaning, and thats more than likely going to cost $60+ but it was free. There are some holes near the fringe, but once again, it was free. It *does* smell like old lady, and not the good kind either, but once again, it was FREE.

Look at my smile. Its big. Very big. Why? Because I'm happy. VERY happy.

This is my second vintage shawl, and Im super excited.

Maybe I should name her, make the whole acquisition more personal...