Velvet, the feeling of softness and luxury

Let's talk about the wonderful velvet. Soft to touch and you will catch me stroking velvet for ages!

The term 'velvet' comes from the Latin word 'vellus'. It means 'a fleece'... Velvet is woven type of fabric with a short, cut warp pile on the face side of the fabric. The pile yarns are made with an extra set of warp yarns. They are firmly bound into the structure of a ground or base fabric, made with a different set of yarns, which holds them in position. The cut ends of the pile warp form tufts on the surface of the fabric and are so closely sett to one another that they form a very soft, lustrous surface texture across the entire face of the fabric. - Classic and Modern Fabrics, Janet Wilson

Nowadays velvet is made from many different materials and many different styles: antique velvet, bagheera velvet, chiffon velvet, cord velvet, cotton velvet, crushed velvet, embossed velvet, terry velvet, lyons velvet, etc. And they are now produced from silk, cotton, nylon, polyester, viscose, acetate, etc.

But how do we sew with velvet? A few tips I have found out through mistakes and others through reading articles:

• Do not wash velvet, it is better dry cleaned. I have washed velvet and it came out OK, but it was polyester velvet and to be honest, it had lost a lot of the stiffness that I liked in the first place about it.
• Always cut the patterns with the same direction (with the same nap)
• Usually you sew with the pile going up because down would look light and shiny. How to tell the pile is going up? Pass your hand through it and if it feels smooth to the touch (the pile is going down) or pushing against the pile (the pile is going up). Of course this rule is always meant to be broken if what you want is a smooth look.
• If you can see the backing when you fold the fabric, it is not a good velvet.
• If the pile becomes crushed, brush it lightly with a soft brush.
• Be careful with cutting velvet, it moves. Therefore you are better off cutting a single layer at a time.
• When sewing the velvet you will notice that it moves and shifts, they are many methods provided on the internet. I bought a walking foot, which was a great investment and made sewing easier not just with velvet but other fabrics too
• Try not to use pins. If you can use only one or two. The pins mark the velvet.
• When pressing velvet try to just hover the iron a few millimetres above the fabric, on the wrong side of the fabric

So I hope the above helps you and remember... have fun creating!

Lusete

'The Business of Making'

Today I attended a free event by Enterprise Nation called 'The Business of Making'.

As I embark in this new venture I am always on the lookout for business help, start up help, advice and any workshops that can be useful to me.

This was certainly a good workshop to attend. The speakers were:

• Patricia van der Akker from The Design Trust
• Jessica rose from London Jewellery School
• Arianna Cadwallader from Saturday Sewing Session
• Lisa Rodwell from Wool and the Gang
• Marketing Manager from Holts Academy

Fascinating insight into how they started, ups and downs and plenty of tips given in the evening.

I must say I used to be scared of having too much of a niche market, but recent courses and conversations with other entrepreneurs have given me confidence to pursue what I love.

Time to get focused on making and have fun creating!

What are fabrics made of?

I never knew that such a simple question would be so fascinating and vast in its answer.

I attended a course at the London School of Fashion about Textiles as I wanted to have a good grounding knowledge on fabric, their qualities and what was best to use for what project. It was certainly eye opening and worth attending the course. I shall try and summarise what I learned, but nothing will ever replace sitting in a classroom with a teacher showing you what she means when she talks about a particular fabric.

Let's start from the beginning...

A fabric is usually made of yarns. A yarn in turn is a generic name for a strand of fibres or filaments twisted together to form a suitable, continuous strand for producing fabric.

A yarn can consist of fibres or filaments. But what is the difference between fibres and filaments? Fibres are produced by spinning materials together. Filaments are usually a single strand. Examples of fibres are wool, cotton, acetate, polyester. The best example of a filament is silk.

Here are some examples of fibres:

Acetate Fibres

Alpaca Fibres

Camel Fibres

Cashmere Fibres

Polyester Fibres

Wool Fibres

There are eight ways to construct a fabric out of the yarn:

1. Weaving: Interlacing of two sets of yarns at the right angles to each other. It has a Warp (lengthwise threads), Weft (crosswise threads) and Selvage (formed by the weft that loops around outside the warp to form a fine edge that does not roll up)
2. Knitting: Made by 2 or more needles and a minimum of one continuous yarn or set of yarns
3. Felting: Making fabric by matting fibres together by heat, steam and pressure
4. Bonding: Pressing fibres together into thin webs held either together by adhesive
5. Laminating: 3 or more layers usually with a foam in the middle
6. Braiding: interlacing the three or more yarns over and under to form a narrow flat tubular fabric
7. Knotting: Tying yarns together when they cross each other
8. Crochetting: construction method using one hook. A chain of loops is formed from a single yarn

At this point I must add that leather is not a textile fabric because it is not made of fibres and not constructed in any method mentioned above; and paper is not either.

After constructing the fabric, it then goes to the Fabric Dyer, Finisher and/or Printer. The better quality fabrics are made from yarns that have already been dyed. However, most fabrics we buy are usually from a Fabric Converter, where the companies buy the fabric in grey and they do their own colouring and finishing.

Of course, all of the above has further classification that affects the finish product, this we call its class. We divide the fibres between two classes: Natural or Man-Made.

Why is this important to know? Because from the choice of fibres or filaments you start shaping what the end product will eventually be: your dress, your coat and even your underwear. What fabric you choose is also based on how it is constructed and how it feels to the touch. And this touch starts with the fibres or filaments that will make the yarn that eventually makes the fabric.

This is a vast subject that I have only touched on this blog post. We spent almost two days just going through fibres and filaments and had many examples shown to us. A fascinating lengthy subject. In the future I shall write about the different types of fabrics we buy and how we source them and how this affects the choice of clothes we choose to make out of particular fabrics.

If you want to be kept in touch about future posts on this subject follow my blog, or keep in touch on the different social networks, all links are on the blog.

Fabric Shopping

Fabric shopping when you live outside London is a lot harder than you think! If you are like me, live out in the sticks of East Anglia, you find yourself incredibly limited in choices of fabric shops.

I know the internet is the best place for choice and price ranges, however, sometimes we need to go and see look and feel the fabric we want to use. And with all the new technology, the internet fails to give us these other senses to us.

One shop I do recommend is And Sew On Fabrics. The staff is very friendly and always willing to help. Not only they have a wide selection of curtain/upholstery fabrics, they do also have a huge selection of clothing fabrics and quilting fabrics. Just be prepared to spend hours looking through piles and piles of rolls, worth the effort. Plus the centre where it is based has other interesting independent shops and a nice place to have a coffee.

I have found other shops around where I live, however, none can beat And Sew On Fabrics for choice and price. Usually the small shops in the towns and cities just have a small selection of fabrics and the price is on the higher end.

However, if you ever find yourself with a day free to go into London I can thoroughly recommend Goldhawk Road. Not a specific shop but the entire street! Yes, a dressmaker's dream. The nearest tube station is Goldhawk Road. Some shops specialise in a particular type of fabric, some have a selection of everything. However, one thing I recommend, if you see a fabric in one shop you like but want to shop around, take note of fabric and shop name. I have done this before only to find that I forgot which shop it was. I will also say that prices are very competitive and some shop owners are very friendly, not all. Most fashion students mill around these shops in search for bargains for their projects.

I have also visited Walthamstow Market for fabric, but I found that it cannot beat Goldhawk Road in choice, price maybe, but the wide choice of Goldhawk Road is far better. And when you are making the effort to go into the city for fabric shopping, you might just as well go for somewhere with lots of choice.

Also, as a dressmaker, seamstress or fashion designer, you may find incredibly useful to attend one of the big trade fairs in London.

All the amazing fabrics are almost entirely wholesale exclusive. I know there are great fabrics out there, but it is not until you start attending the trade events that you realise the plethora of fantastic quality fabrics that are almost exclusive to big fashion houses. Many of these trade fairs are open to the public, others require that you have a business card. Which is not a big problem, all you need to do is have some printed and call yourself a seamstress or a fashion designer... easy.

Anyway, over the past year I have attended a few trade fairs in London and was pleasantly surprised. Some companies have low minimums buy, some of 5 metres others 10 metres and a few of just 1 metre. Of course, depends on what you are going to sew. Usually when you go to a trade fair you already know what type and style of fabric you are looking for as you will have a specific design in mind or have a range of clothing to make. So the 'just browsing' that we usually do in shops will not work here. Still, I learned a lot attending the trade fairs and found some great companies willing to deal with small business/dressmakers like me.

The one trade fair I can recommend is Textile Forum. They do two shows a year to follow the fashion seasons and many of the businesses featured on the fair have low minimum buys. But remember, everything is plus VAT and delivery.

However, I cannot talk about fabric trade fairs without talking about Premiere Vision in Paris. I am yet to attend this trade fair, and it is a day out I am planning to make. When I do I shall let you all know how it went and whether it is worth going for dressmakers and small businesses like me.

I hope this has some useful information for you all. If you know of other fabric shops in East Anglia that are worth the visit, feel free to comment below. I am always on the look out for new places.

Have fun creating!

Lusete