Sewing and Eating

Readers, do you eat to sew or sew to eat?  I'm definitely in the former camp, mainly because the latter makes no sense whatsoever, unless you're being held captive in a sweatshop or something.  Let's change the subject.

Remember how yesterday I asked you to help me magnetize a cheap salmon pink polyester moire?  Well I went to the fabric store yesterday and look:



OK, it's not moire and it's not polyester, but it's arguably even better (especially for my maternity project, which isn't, after all, evening wear).  Readers, I bought ten (10!) yards of this cotton sateen with just a touch of lycra in it for -- are you sitting down? -- 99 cents a yard.

I found it at the fabric store I love to hate, Nahir, at 242 West 39th St.  I've seen cotton just like this elsewhere in other colors for four times as much, so why it was in among the bargain bolts is anybody's guess; an oversight isn't out of the question, given the store.  They normally sell it for $1.99, but if you buy ten yards, the price is half that, i.e., if I'd bought five yards it would have cost exactly the same amount, so basically I got the five yards I needed for nothing.  Do you follow my math?

This happens to be one of my favorite colors -- you might call it dusty rose -- and it is also extremely flattering to my cousin.  And I have so much of it!  You don't really know what ten yards look like till you try to fold it lengthwise across your apartment and you have to exit the front door to do so.





Having just whipped up Simplicity 3216 the previous day in what I believe will now be my lining fabric, I was able to make a version in this new fabric pretty quickly.  Here you see the two fabrics as they will appear in the opera coat.  I hope this isn't too masculine.



I thought about making this reversible, but the fabrics are two very different weights -- one rather heavy, one very light -- and I worry about the hem, i.e., what if one fabric stretches and the other doesn't?  No, I think I'll insert it as a lining and leave the two bottom edges finished, but separate.  Does that sound right?

I had only one small contretemps yesterday, while ironing the back section of my yet-to-be-fully-assembled coat.  I wanted to turn the steam off and I inadvertently switched on the Clean setting, and my iron started spitting mineral deposits all over my garment.  Has this ever happened to you?



Apparently these mineral stains are removable with the aid of vinegar, borox, or lemon juice; I just cut a new piece entirely -- the beauty of having ten yards of 99 cents fabric.  The timing was bad but it certainly could have been worse -- what if my garment had been all finished, or I didn't have extra yardage?  I'd have spit minerals myself.

I subsequently tried to clean my iron (maybe the third time in as many years) but it didn't seem to work very well.  My iron, a Black & Decker Digital Advantage that has served me well since I started sewing, has been acting up for many months now and I keep putting off replacing it because 1) it still works, more or less; and 2) the price online is nearly double what I originally paid.  How do you know when it really is time to say good-bye?

In closing, I feel very, very fortunate to have found this fabric and I hope to complete this coat in the next few days so we can do our photo shoot on Saturday.  Today I want to play with some collar ideas. I'm pretty certain I don't want the little Peter Pan collar the pattern calls for, but rather something like this:



Or this...



Apropos of today's throwaway post heading, anything you usually eat when you sew? Which reminds me, must buy some pickles for Cathy.

Happy Thursday, everybody!