Polyester Chiffon: The fabric from hell!

Onward my sewing journey, I am challenging myself to sew with non-behaving fabrics.  Notably chiffon, silk and satin.  I will always love cotton, linen and their blends. I've conquered knits, really there's nothing to it.  It's all in the mind.  But chiffon is REALLY a pain!  You have to have the patience of Mother Theresa.

Mid way, I felt like throwing the whole top away and call it quits.  But I wanted to show the fabric who's boss.  I had visions of a breezy sleeveless top, not so sheer, a check on my modesty.  The print and colour of this fabric is perfect for my skin tone.  It has a border print and is 60" wide.  So 1M is all you need and for RM5/M (Spotlight sale) it was a no brainer.  In fact many other chiffon pieces came back with me that day.  I figured that's an excellent price point to hone my chiffon sewing skills.

This sleeveless top is a a free pattern by Colette called Sorbetto.   I've made many tops from this pattern and all in cotton and linen, never in chiffon.  After many tribulations and plenty of perseverance, I now love the flowy silhouette and it looks quite slimming too.

Iron the fabric allowance towards the bias binding

Iron again and ensure that the bias binding is  not visible,  this is called favouring

The neckline and armhole are then top stitched

French seam treatment for the side seams

The walking foot is the workhorse of sewing with chiffon and even knits.  It helps immensely in ensuring the top and bottom fabrics move in tandem.  Another important notion is to use a fine sewing needle i.e. 70/09.  An 80/11 will just make large holes into the chiffon fabric.  Most importantly you'll need to have truckloads of patience, you'll get there ... eventually.

Re-SEW-lutions 2016!

Embroidery on apron in progress

I know ... it's cliche ... :p


There's so many things that I want to do and even more things that I want to do better.  In my mind the New Year always provides this nice blank sheet, the first page of a book if you will.  What you write on this page will steer the mood and tone of the year ahead.  Sometimes they are only good intentions but what's so wrong about that?! (read my disclaimer).

First up is my grand 2016 My House Tapestry by Tilda project.  Something I've wanted to do since I got the book some years back.  How many years back exactly is not important! ;)  All my fabrics are washed and onward to construction.

The sock that I've knitted thus far.  I think I botched the joining stitches so I am starting over again, but with a shorter leg portion.  That's the beauty of knitting and crochet ... raveling is easy.  A thorough sock guide and pattern by Christine Perry can be found here.

I've agreed to SAL (Stitch-a-Long) with Lillie on an old WIP from 2008.  The Rose Sampler.  I've completed 8 pages, 4 more pages to go.

 
And then there's the HAL (Hex-a-Long) with JW & MW on the Dilly Bag.  I stopped some months back but it will be revived this year.  I am using the Bionic Gear bag that Jackie W gave me to stuff all my hexagons for this project.

I've laid out a piece of chiffon fabric to be cut into a simple sleeveless top.  I'm learning to work with sheer fabrics.  Let's see how it goes.  It's the famous Sorbetto pattern designed and generously provided free by Colette Patterns.

There are a few quilts I want to make this year.  I am looking for some mindless, effortless piecing. First up would be Lori's Log Cabin Variation.  Her helpful cutting instructions can be found here.

Pic from Lori's blog

And then there's just some simple squares, red and white maybe?

Pic from Pinterest

As for the teaching front their some new developments, still at the discussion stage and some new ideas that's percolating in my head.  So overall a busy and productive 2016!