Wednesday, November 20, 2013

sew velvet against the nap

at least when you're attaching piping.  It took me much ripping and at least 20 minutes to figure it out, but now I'll remember.  Especially so, because I'm writing it down.
I'm putting reflective piping into the sleeves of a velvet coat, and now that's it's worked out, I really like the look.  The left sleeve went together just fine, and then when I machine basted the piping onto the right sleeve, it kept coming out 3/4" shorter than it had been.  I tried different feet, I tried rubbing the piping with wax paper so it would slide, I was about to try tissue paper, when I realized that I had sewn the first one cuff-to-shoulder, and the second one shoulder-to-cuff.  So I flipped it around, found my little dot that marks 5/8" on the left side of my throat-plate, and it came out perfectly!