I thought I was on a sewing roll yesterday. I'd done the plaid skirt and been successful so I cut out and started work on two more garments; a pair of trousers and a 12 panel skirt. Both were TNT patterns. And by the end of last night I had completed the whole front of the trousers. They had really lovely slanted pockets which didn't gape, didn't pull and had, additionally, and even more amazingly, two absolutely perfect buttonholes, one on each pocket. These were just begging to be introduced to the lovely hammered pewter buttons that would slip smoothly into their perfectly sewn loveliness and close my pockets with style and panache. The fly was absolutely perfect, and I managed to attach the fly shield without incident and it was long enough, and wide enough, to cover all of the zipper.
So today I made the back section and sewed them up with confidence since this was a professionally fitted and altered pattern and I've made the trousers at least four times before. However, this particular pair were really, really small. So small that I went back to check that the pattern pieces had seam allowances included. So small that I couldn't sit down in the dratted things.
Detailed investigation pointed to the fabric as the culprit. It appears that the steam iron and the fabric had a falling out and the fabric shrank quite considerably. This despite having had two prewashes and presumably two previous meetings with the iron. I can only assume that the three metre piece from which I cut my trousers and skirt yesterday had, before its prewash, been considerably larger in both length and width.
Of course I had cut the skirt out yesterday whilst I had the fabric on the floor. And had additionally spent an hour overlocking all the 12 pieces and carefully marking them. Those pieces are now in the bin also. Trying to sew 12 pieces of a fitted garment sufficiently accurately to ensure a good fit is challenging enough... doing this with fabric that randomly changes size was a challenge too far.
I did scour the cupboard for a replacement project, and found two pieces of fabric that want to be skirts. But I don't yet know quite what kind of a skirt. I need to do some snoop shopping to identify a suitable shape and style. But today wasn't really a good day to do that.
On the plus side, I did get quite a bit of my cardigan sleeve knitted.
23 hours ago
4 comments:
What an annoying and frustrating sewing experience. Here's hoping your next fabric agrees to cooperate.
oh no!!!! I made the same pair of trousers TWICE in some magically shrinking when touched by the iron fabric and fianlly threw them out before the last but one move.
:( I hate when the fabric fights back.
NOoooooooooo! I've had this experience too. It is so frustrating. Especially having made the effort to preshrink.
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