January 2011

Dupioni Silverado --in progress

I've spent a lot of time working on this version of the Laughing Moon Silverado corset. It's not done yet, and I plan on adding a few more boning channels, as well as perhaps attempting to smooth out some of the warping of the outer layer. This is the version that I altered according to the Foundations Revealed instructions. Besides lengthening it by an inch, the alterations were actually fairly minor. It's a total of four layers, cotton lining, the canvas core, and muslin in between the canvas and the dupioni, because the canvas is dark colored and was showing through too much. I really should have used a light colored canvas. The extra layer has increased distortion problems quite a lot. Of course, the fact that I don't have a walking foot massively increases that problem, I've really gotta get my paws on one. I'm hoping that I can get at least one more boning channel into each piece 13 (the front side piece, with the worst distortion there. It is coming along, though.
After the needle that shattered when I hit a pin making one of the boning channels, I'm seriously considering wearing safety goggles for sewing! It very nearly did serious damage.

What does it look like Elaina is saying here?

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But...

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Wait for it..

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Link in reference.

Red Fabric: From left to right, I got "cherry red" wool crepe (which WAS on sale-- in the 50%-off-this-week section!) a yard of the "deep cranberry" silk jacquard that I will probably use for a corset, a yard and a half of rayon/lycra jersey, and a yard of the "cranberry red" silk jersey that was discounted in January's mailer.

Dfr has, of course, posted to boast about her newest fabric acquisitions, a haul of the on-sale silk/rayon brocades from FabricMart. I did not order any of those brocades for several reasons. I was trying to keep my purchases down to a reasonable level, and I had sworn that I was going to stop buying just sale fabrics for awhile in order to buy red fabrics, which I had realized were missing from my stash-- red fabrics don't go on sale very often. So, I resisted the brocades, and (besides the silk velvet and an order of the 10-yards-for-$5 stiff ecru cotton that will make a great sew-in interfacing) instead bought red.

The brocade was a huge temptation, and I certainly won't turn down her swatch offer, but my tendency to buy what's on sale has left me with not nearly enough red in my stash, and I certainly can't afford to buy both what's on sale AND red!

I'd been eyeing the silk velvet at FabricMart for awhile. Generally the term "silk velvet" means a rayon pile on a silk backing. True 100% silk velvet is rare. Wikipedia's velvet entry says that pure silk velvet runs in the hundreds of dollars per yard. While an internet search will turn up some at considerably less than that, I was nonetheless tempted by the silk velvet selling for $15/yard at FabricMart, despite its being brown. When that velvet went on sale for 50% off, well, I hadda get a yard! When else am I ever going to find pure silk velvet for $7.50/yard?

[Side note-- Firefox thinks that "eyeing" is spelled wrong. mirriam-webster.com disagrees, listing both "eyeing" and "eying" as correct spellings, with "eyeing" listed first.]

100% Silk Velvet: The pure silk velvet is exceedingly shiny, much more so than I expected; it actually has a metallic look to it. I took pictures with a couple of different camera settings; the bottom one is without a flash at all.