Adventures with Stretch Velvet

Despite what Instagram would have you believe, not every project is a huge success. Sometimes projects fail spectacularly. Sometimes they fall short just enough that they may as well have failed spectacularly.

I made myself a Christmas top Monday morning. It failed. It failed mostly because the fabric I had chosen did not have enough stretch for the pattern. Who knew that a difference of 4% spandex would matter? I used my “tried and true” tunic pattern, but because of my generous bust—those of you who knew me in high school will appreciate that irony—the top was too tight across the upper bodice. Despite the spandex, it didn’t have enough widthwise stretch.

My choices were to a) change the pattern to accommodate the fabric or b) change the fabric to accommodate the pattern. (The chances of finding something in ready-to-wear are less than zero, which is why I am making myself a Christmas top.) I went to town Monday afternoon to see what I could find. Our Joanns had more of that fabric, but not in the same deep teal I had chosen originally. I didn’t have time to mess around with a new pattern for that fabric, so I went with plan B. I chose a different fabric.

[I have made a note to myself to make my Christmas outfit in August next year so that I do not run into this problem again. Someone remind me if I forget.]

Joanns has a variety of stretch velvet. I knew enough not to bother with the costume velvet as the colors are garish and the quality is cheap. (I don’t know a lot of sewists making heirloom Halloween costumes.) The color choices in the garment-quality stretch velvet were black, cranberry, shell pink, and a teal green called “spruce.” I went with spruce.

Stretch velvet isn’t hard to work with if you already have some experience with knits. The hardest part is cutting the pattern pieces, because the fabric wants to slither all over the cutting table.

This time, I incorporated a very clever adjustment to the front bodice known as the “boob bump.” I learned about this in Zede and Mallory’s Rhapso-T pattern. The boob bump only works on fabrics with a sufficient amount of lengthwise stretch—I couldn’t have used it on the other fabric even if I had remembered to add it to the bodice—and basically acts as a bust dart. The stretch velvet was stretchy enough without adding the boob bump, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Pieces cut, I then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to locate the serger thread I had purchased to match the fabric. Eventually, it dawned on me that I must have left it at the store. I had ended up at a register with a very rattled cashier who wanted to tell me about moving to Kalispell from Texas—where she had lived for 30 years—and that she wasn’t adjusting to winter at all. She had given me the bag of fabric but not the bag of thread.

I found a different color thread to use for the assembly. When I went back to town yesterday afternoon, I stopped in at Joanns to retrieve my thread because I needed it to coverstitch the hems. They had it waiting behind the counter.

Never let a machine know you are in a hurry. If I had all the time in the world, the coverstitch (my old one) would make a beautiful hem without so much as a hiccup, but because I wanted to get my top finished, the machine decided that it would coverstitch nearly the entire hem before skipping one stitch. A skipped stitch wrecks everything that came before it because the thread breaks and the whole hem threatens to unravel. I didn’t want to unbox the new coverstitch machine and try to figure it out—the devil you know is better than the one you don’t—so I persevered until I had a reasonably good hem. It just needs to stay in place for a few hours while I am wearing the top. I can redo it on the new machine later.

The top is done, hallelujah:

It’s nothing fancy, just a simple tunic that I will pair with a pair of slim black pants, but I can cross it off the list.

When I stopped in at Joanns to get my thread yesterday, I took a few minutes to wander around to see if anything new was on sale. (Of course I did.) As I looked over the clearance fabric section, I spotted two bolts I hadn’t seen before, even though I scour the clearance fabric regularly. Lo and behold, they were bolts of some ponte knit fabric in navy and a gorgeous deep blue:

AND they were 70% off! I took what was left of the navy blue—not quite two yards—and two yards of the blue. They were labelled “spring ponte” and are less hefty than the ponte I used for the Kensington skirt. I think some pants might be nice.