June 14,2010
I wanted to share with you the cape I made for a customer. I had made one for my granddaughter, and she wore it alot last winter to school, and one of her friends loved it and kept after her mom, that she wanted one. So she bought the material and the linning and asked me to make it.
The material is black velvet and the linning is also black but silk. I have never worked with velvet and was a little nervous, it's rather expensive. I had heard that velvet was a pain to work with, because it slips really bad and ravels alot.
The patteren itself is fairly simply and straightforward, bascially sew up back seams and then sew up the side seam all the way from one end to the other in one continuous motion. With velvet you have to be careful, because you can't iron it, you will flatten the nap, (the furriness
of the material) so you have to steam it carefully to lay your seams down.
The linning was a different story. If you've ever had anything silk, you know how it feels, it slides over your body, well, it slides when you try to sew with it also. When you line something you bascially are making another whole garment. It is used to sew inside the main garment and then you turn it right side out, and all the seams of the orginial garment are covered up inside the garment. I got off track there for a minute, anyway the silk linning had to be pinned and then hand sewn, and then sewed on the machine. I tried to just pin and sew but it kept slipping away from the main garment.
All in all I was happy with the way it turned out, my coustmer is out of town right now, so I have'nt been able to see how she likes it.
She also had me make a simple little sleeveless dress with matching hat, she picked out the material for this one also.
dsthreadsdownsouth out for now.
Doreen, what a glamorous cape!!! I know how both of those fabrics 'misbehave', so you have my admiration. I am sure the young lady will think she's Christmas on a stick when she wears this. Well done. I like the little dress and hat at the beginning of the post too. Such a pretty colourway in the fabric. Lovely to hear from you.
ReplyDeleteThank you Linda, you know I was sweating that cape, but the customer loved it, so I'm happy. I thought the dress turned out really cute, she picked out the fabric and did a good job.
ReplyDeleteOh how lovely!!! I dare not show it to either of my girls or I will be making two velvet capes. But yours turned out so beautiful! I am glad the client loved it.
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