Prepping the fabric.....and a discovery

I like to use the London shrink method for preparing wool fabric.  It's simple and much less expensive than taking a length of fabric to the dry cleaners.  God knows what they actually do there, if anything, other than waving some steam around.  I used this method way back on the toggle coat so there is more information in the archive.  

It's really quite simple.  You will need an old sheet torn into 30" wide strips.  Soak the strips in a sink of water and then wring as much water as possible out of them.  Lay the damp strips on one half of your wool fabric and then fold the wool over to make a "sandwich".   Fold the fabric up to make a manageable package. 

 I then wrap the whole mess in some plastic sheeting to keep the moisture in.  I let it sit over night.  The moisture in the sheeting will gradually be absorbed by the wool, and in the morning it will all be of a uniform dampness.  Unwrap and allow to air dry.  

Before cutting your pattern the cut edge of the fabric must be squared.  This will insure that you have "grain perfection" and the garment will hang well.   Pull a thread across the width of the fabric.  Wow, look how easily I did this!  That single thread is as strong as steel.  I think my bargain "wool" is mostly NOT wool.  Otherwise the thread would have been breaking constantly.  

I did a burn test, and although it didn't roar into flame, there's a hard plastic melted edge.  Oh well, I'm not going to agonize over it.  I have $30 invested.  It's a great color and has a great hand.  I'll just avoid gas stoves, bonfires and candles.  

I cut my pattern pieces and mark the darts and placement lines with tailor tacks.  I don't bother to tailor tack the buttonhole / button positions because they always fall out way before I get to that point.  I think that's enough work for today.  I'm actually to the point of actually putting this coat together.  Yay!  

The agony of grain perfection defeat

Getting this project off the ground has been a challenge.  It should have been cut out and half sewn by now.  Hmmm.  wasn't this supposed to be my Fall coat?  The sticking point has been that, try as I might, I can't align the grain of this fabric.  Nothing so far has been easy.  The weft fibers on this brushed twill are very fine and fragile, so I was unable to pull a thread across the width of the cloth.  Instead I had to tear the fabric.  But what I assumed would be a little 1/2" strip turned into a whopping triangular hunk about 8" wide.  With the ends basted together a la Edna Bishop the fabric skews off on an impossible angle.  Hopefully the pictures give you the idea.  I immediately ran to the Pattern Review message board and received a variety of responses on how to remedy this problem.  The most common suggestion was to dampen the whole mess and try to stretch / coax it back into shape.  Using the London Shrink method I rewet the cloth and struggled with it for over an hour.  All the pulling, smoothing and swearing was to no avail.  Then I attempted to subdue the beast with the iron.  I surrender!  There is just no way to turn this giant twill parallelogram into a neat perfectly aligned rectangle.  Sorry Edna!  I've folded the cloth down the center, aligned the selvedges and will cut out the imperfect coat.  

The quest for "grain perfection"

Apparently if I want a high quality garment that will fit and hang well, I must first attain grain perfection.  Essentially, this amounts to squaring up the length of fabric.  My fabric had been "sampled" multiple times in the store, and one edge was very ragged.  I clipped into the selvedge above the sample gouges and started to pull a single weft thread.  This produced a gather which had to be patiently worked across the fabric as the thread was  removed.  Simple, just a little time consuming.  But heck, nothing about this project is going to be fast. As the thread broke I could hold the fabric up to the light and cut along the line that was being formed.  Once both ends were squared, and with the fabric folded down the center, I evened the ends and basted them together.