Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Bordering on Obsession

I know I said I was going to lay my linen blouse aside, but aided by my good friends and enablers from PatternReview, I revisited the blouse, sans underlining.

Let me backtrack for a moment to thank all of you who stopped by my blog or posted on PatternReview to make suggestions or offer sympathy. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Now back to the blouse. As I mentioned, I started again, this time without the underlining. I now know for certain that the puckering is caused by the linen/rayon fabric shrinking when I press it. Even on low heat, without steam. However, with careful pressing, I've definitely minimized the problem. You can see there's quite an improvement. I think it will be okay once the finished blouse is washed. There's sure to be some general shrinkage and I'm hoping the puckers will disappear into that. And that the blouse will still fit.

Here's the back side of the seam. I just overcast the the seam allowance, then trimmed it down after top stitching. I'm reasonably satisfied with how it looks. I actually would have preferred the finish to end up narrower because of the show through, but I didn't want to serge the seam allowance because I didn't want the added bulk and because I wanted the double topstitching.

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm kind of excited because today, I'll actually get to sew a different seam!

* I apologize for the quality of the pictures. I never realized before how difficult it is to photograph white!

7 comments:

LauraLo said...

Paula, bravo! It looks great and I love how you topstitched on both sides of the seam

Marji said...

What kind of thread are you using?
And this question seems obvious, but did you preshrink your fabric?

Paula Gardner said...

Laura, thanks!

Marji, I did pre-wash my fabric, using the settings I would likely use for the finished garment, which was obviously not hot enough to shrink the fabric as much as my iron.

I'm chalking it up to using unfamiliar fabric. It's unlikely I'll ever make that mistake again!

Paula Gardner said...

Oh, I forgot to say, I'm using Gutermnn 100% polyester thread.

Dawn said...

It looks so much better! I'm glad you are still working toward it.

Unknown said...

Much better, Paula! I'm so glad you were able to make it work out. I have also noticed that my iron will shrink some fabrics even after pre-washing.

Charity

Bunny said...

Just found your blog and really enjoyed going thru it. White is so hard to photo. Did you turn off the flash. I actually thought the pics were quite good. I can't wait to see your blouse when it is done. Bunny