Sewing velvet (and a blast from the past)

I have bitten the bullet, and started the project with my latest UseNine2021 (realistically, now UseThree2021) fabric - a remnant of black cotton velvet.

It's been a while since I last sewed with velvet: almost 32 years in fact! With the blind optimism of youth, I made a party dress with a fitted velvet bodice and sleeves, and a full satin skirt with a sheer overlay. It turned out fine, but with hindsight it feels like, 'How many unwise fabric choices can I cram into one garment?'

This time, I'm making the entire dress out of velvet. Another fitted bodice, but no sleeves this time. I'm using Butterick 5748 as the starting point, with a modified neckline and the zip moved to the centre back.

I'm only using the bodice part

As I've made this before, I tried on the completed dress, made a note of what I wanted to change, and then drew out a new pattern. Velvet isn't known for its forgiving nature re unpicking mistakes, so I made a toile to be sure I was entirely happy. Then I started cutting out.

The first mistake came quite early. I was working with the fabric pile side down, as recommended in various sewing books, so it was only when I lifted up the first cut piece that I discovered that there was a fault in the velvet. The pile was really squashed for the first 30cm/12" of the remnant, so there was an obvious line across the piece.

Oops

Fortunately, I had only cut this one back piece, and I had plenty of fabric. I've used this as a tester for the construction techniques, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Everything I had read warned against using velvet for a dress with darts, and this bodice has six of them!

Darts a-plenty

The back darts sewed up perfectly. The only issue was that I had to sew from the point to the base, to go with the direction of the pile. I started about 1cm/½" down, left a long tail of thread, and sewed the point by hand. The vertical front darts were equally easy, as was the left horizontal dart. I began to wonder if the warnings about darts were overstated ('pride', 'fall', etc. etc.).

The right horizontal dart was a complete shocker. No matter what I did, how I pinned it, or which direction I sewed in, the fabric moved all over the place. After four attempts, mercifully without marking the velvet too much, I gave up and sewed it by hand. I used a stab stitch/back stitch mash-up, which held everything in place.

To minimise bulk, the darts were then cut open most of the way up, and pressed flat. I neatened the cut edges with a small blanket stitch. I also overcast the base of the dart to the edge of the main fabric, so that it wouldn't get chewed up when I overlocked the edge.

Dart finishing

Overlocking is definitely needed (done with the fabric pile side up, to stop the feed dogs from marking the velvet). Each side of a seam is finished separately, and I've also overlocked edges which won't be sewn for a while, to stop them from fraying too much due to handling. Of course, this means that any notches are removed, so I marked their position with tailor tacks first.

The facings are cut from satin I had in my stash, as velvet facings would be too bulky. They can't be pressed, so understitching will be vital to make them lie flat.

Facing, notch markings and overlocked edges

And that is as far as I've got, over several days. Not that I'm complaining. It's something different, and challenging, and interesting. As I've mentioned before on this blog, if I just stuck to quick and easy dresses, I would be in danger of simply replicating all the issues of fast fashion in my own workroom, albeit with more tea breaks and even lower wages. I sew because I enjoy sewing, not because I need clothes, so it makes sense to concentrate on making things which take time.

Finally . . . I was skimming through the BBC news website this morning, and noticed a link to an article about the actress Jodie Comer, complete with a small (literally, a few square centimetres) photo. And I immediately thought, "That blouse fabric looks familiar". A Google search turned up a larger image, and . . . yes, it's the same fabric as my frankenpatterned New Look 6184.

Two garments, one fabric

That was made in 2014, so either the fabric has been in production for a long time, or the blouse was also quite old. Sadly, the dress doesn't get a lot of wear any more as it was made before the Great Inflate, and is now a little snug around the bust. It was also made long before I became comfortable about posting pictures of myself, so as I'd dug it out to check the fabric, I took these shots showing it worn.

New Look 6184 (plus sleeves) #SewnShownSeated

So, what we have learned from this? Well, apparently the details of every fabric I have ever made clothes from can now be added to the list of unnecessary stuff taking up valuable space in my brain (along with the lyrics of questionable 80s pop songs and my old student id number) and crowding out important stuff like where I left my glasses, and why I went upstairs. Sigh.

New Look 6184

One down, three to go! The first dress of my winter wardrobe is finished.

Normally when I make up a pattern which I haven't used before, the first thing I do is make my standard fitting alterations. For this one though, the first thing I had to do was find a suitable pattern with set-in sleeves. I used New Look 6912 for both the sleeve and the armscye, as it was a slightly different shape from the sleeveless 6184.

The sleeve was taken from view C

I thought that I had bought enough material to make up view E, with some extra for the sleeves. However either I had decided to cover all options when I bought the fabric, or I have a seriously skewed idea of just how long my arms are; I had enough to make the full-skirted version at a length somewhere between the two on offer, plus the sleeves.

It turned out that the full-skirted version is very full indeed. I thought that skirt consisted of a front panel, two narrow back panels, and two sides. In fact there are four side panels; something which came back to haunt me later on!

Half of the side panels

I do like to tweak patterns a bit, but while writing this post I've discovered that I've achieved a first for me; the 'unintentional tweak' (a.k.a. 'not reading the instructions properly'). The first step is to construct the front neckline pleats. I thought that the instructions were to fold the pleats, matching the dots, and then baste around the neckline. This didn't seem enough to keep them stable, so my pleats ended up with two rows of pins and two rows of basting.

These pleats aren't going anywhere

Turns out that I should have folded the pleats, matching the dots, and then stitched them down. Oops.

From there it was all straightforward (she says, quickly reading through the instructions to check if there have been any more 'creative moments'). Make up front and back skirts, attach to bodice pieces, sew shoulder seams, add facing, attach sleeves, sew sleeve and side seams, put in zip. Then make up and attach the lining.

Obviously the lining doesn't need pleats in the front, so for the bodice I went back to my old favourite, New Look 6000.

New Look 6000 used yet again

The lining skirt side panels were cut slightly narrower than the skirt itself, as I felt that otherwise the end result would stick out too much.

I usually have problems attaching the lining to a dress; I struggle to align the two properly. This time I hit upon the obvious solution of putting the dress onto Nancy inside out, then the lining over the top and pinning it in place around the zip and the neckline. This would have worked even better if I'd thought to take Nancy's knitted cover off first, so that I couldn't pin through it! Sigh.

Attaching the lining (to the dress, and to Nancy)

Then 'all' that was left was the hem. This was where I discovered just how full that skirt is! It took forever to mark the hem, and forever and a day to sew it. The lining, unsurprisingly, was machine-hemmed.

Then the finished dress went back onto Nancy, the right way out this time, to be photographed. And I got a proper look at it. And. . . I wasn't thrilled.

There was nothing actually wrong with it. It's a perfectly serviceable dress. The fabric is pretty, and hangs well. The lining fills the skirt out nicely, and gives the 'creative' bodice pleating some much-needed structure. But it all looked a little bit boring.

Meh

So it was back to the drawing board, or more accurately the fabric shop, to buy some black not-too-shiny silky satin. I made up the belt from view E, and I think that gives the dress the 'pop' it needs.

Much better

All that measuring an hemming was worth it as well, because the full skirt swishes very nicely when worn. But you'd need a picture of me wearing it to see the effect. And that, as you should know by now, isn't going to happen!