This is why we age fabric
Jul. 7th, 2010 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chargirlgeniusI have a piece of fabric I bought almost 10 years ago. It’s beautiful stuff – 90% silk, 10% linen, creamy brocade with little gold fleurs-de-lis on it. It’s a perfect fabric for a sumptuous 14th century dress. I’ve been hanging on to it for a long time, waiting for just the right project. After a while, fabric speaks to you, and tells you what it wants to be.
The problem with figuring out what I wanted to make was that I only had five yards, it’s single direction, and only about 45 inches wide. I could squeak out a 14th century dress with short sleeves, but the gores would definitely have to go the wrong way, and I couldn’t get over that. I know I should, it’s fine, but it was a mental block. I wanted this fabric to turn into a *perfect* dress.
I pulled the fabric out at the La Belle meeting, since we were talking about spiffing stuff up. After admiring it, I decided to check the yardage. I unfolded it, and it’s more like 54” wide! WIN!
Then I started measuring length. Yard after yard I pulled out. After yard after yard. Er, I have almost EIGHT YARDS of it! Not five!
This is why we let fabric age. It GROWS!
Now, I still am left with a decision on what to make out of it. I need to find some similarly colored gold silk for the lining. A white lining makes the dark stripe of the gold show on the right side. An orange silk lining shows through the light parts and also looks striped. And now that I have EIGHT YARDS of it, I have to decide if I want to make a short sleeved 1380s gown with tippets, and have the gores all run the right way, or make a 1410s gown with floor length flap sleeves (or even something fuller), and never mind the gores.
FABRIC GROWS!
The problem with figuring out what I wanted to make was that I only had five yards, it’s single direction, and only about 45 inches wide. I could squeak out a 14th century dress with short sleeves, but the gores would definitely have to go the wrong way, and I couldn’t get over that. I know I should, it’s fine, but it was a mental block. I wanted this fabric to turn into a *perfect* dress.
I pulled the fabric out at the La Belle meeting, since we were talking about spiffing stuff up. After admiring it, I decided to check the yardage. I unfolded it, and it’s more like 54” wide! WIN!
Then I started measuring length. Yard after yard I pulled out. After yard after yard. Er, I have almost EIGHT YARDS of it! Not five!
This is why we let fabric age. It GROWS!
Now, I still am left with a decision on what to make out of it. I need to find some similarly colored gold silk for the lining. A white lining makes the dark stripe of the gold show on the right side. An orange silk lining shows through the light parts and also looks striped. And now that I have EIGHT YARDS of it, I have to decide if I want to make a short sleeved 1380s gown with tippets, and have the gores all run the right way, or make a 1410s gown with floor length flap sleeves (or even something fuller), and never mind the gores.
FABRIC GROWS!