Kitty's Night Out !

Current Mood : Happy

Well, today I got tired of looking at that pretty, stretchy, probably-hard-to-sew fabric I bought last week and decided to sew something with some of it. Something simple, because stretchy fabrics and I have a kind of grudge match between us. I love it, and it makes such gorgeous doll clothes, but I tend to pull, get thread snags, or whatever else can get me frustrated with it, so my efforts usually fall short of the mark. I’ve gotten a little better, but I tend to avoid the issue by avoiding the fabric, so I don’t have the experience I should. Which means I avoid it more. Only reason I bought those three pieces at Hancock Fabrics is because they were so gorgeous, and I really need to get over my stretchy-fabric block. Tempting m’self with the luxe stuff is about the only way to get through to m’self.

Yeah, I’m probably the only person at Hancock’s who needs Freud to hold her hand in the ‘Decorator Fabrics’ section. And at Mal-Wart in the MH one. Anyway…

Decided the simpler, the better for the first effort, so I pulled up Tarja’s free tube dress pattern, available here. Changed the sharp sewing machine needle for a ballpoint, and went with the black fabric, since KJ was already loaded with black thread. However, with a bit of experience now under my belt, I could probably get away with using black on the blue or silver, I don’t think it’ll show. Also, the nice Hancock’s staff member gave me a bit extra of the black, since it was cut unevenly before, and hung on the bolt weird. She squared it off, and I got the bonus ! The blue and silver, however, were arrow-straight.

And it stitched up nice . A little stretching on the bottom hem, but it came out OK and matched up in the back, so I’m happy. Once I get a little more experience with it, I’ll probably go back for quarter-yards of the green and gold ! Looked it up, and it’s known as lame’ knit Boucle metallic stretch costume fabric. Here’s an eBay auction of the same blue I have, but if ya scroll down in the description, there’s a card of other colors, and you can see the texture better. Wisely, it’s considered costume fabric, as it’s so crinkly, I can’t imagine it being very comfortable to wear – even with lining, it’s bound to scratch and poke. Pretty on dolls, though !