burda

Invisible zip challenge

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I have recently made myself a skirt. It was using a cotton stretch jersey and a pattern from burda style magazine. The vivid colours and pattern on the fabric just fascinates me. I just can’t wait to turn into something I can wear. I didn’t run into issues of cutting out the pattern and sewing the skirt up till I came to sewing the zip onto the skirt. It did take me ages to perfect it!! Every time I try to sew it on, it seems to have bulge noticeably when it’s zip up.

Invisible zip

At first I was using an ordinary zip, as I couldn’t find any invisible zip in the haberdashery shops when I was on holiday. When I got home I bought an invisible zip to rectify the visible bulge issue. It did help, I also gave a bit more slack to the fabric and iron out any stitch that is overlapping at the bottom end of the invisible zip where it joins with the other side of skirt panel. I hope I am making some sense here…

I found out that it is  also quite a common problem when using invisible zip on stretch fabrics after going into dressmaking forums. There is a lot of fantastic YouTube videos and posts around on how insert an invisible zip but not many on how to address the issue/s that arise.

I will post some detailed troubleshooting on invisible zip in the future as I am planning to change domain name at the moment. A domain name like cityediblegarden just doesn’t sound good for a sewing blog.

I have match this skirt with a Hugo boss top I got from charity shop. I have match this skirt in my post on in between season in which will be publish on a latter date.

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Mono print on fabric

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Mono print on fabric

I wrote awhile back about how I have recently started to do some mono print on fabric using a screen printing techniques. I have found out that in printing big quantities of fabric is rather challenging. It’s my first attempt printing on fabric and such a scale. I could implement a few things to make life a bit easier for myself like using a bigger screen, etc.

Otherwise why wouldn’t most big textile designers and print factories will be do it instead of employing a much more current and economical techniques like digital printing.

Technique – how to do it

I love this way as you paint the screen with some fabric dye, let it dry then pour some print paste then put the squeegge over how hard can that be?!! It’s was all going well till i discover bubbles trap between the screen and fabric and the dyes being smudge onto places you don’t want them there. It does give a patchy effect maybe it isn’t that bad after all…

Making the fabric into a blouse

I got making a blouse as I follow House of pinheiro on instagram and she hosted an event recently  #sewphotohop. There are a few hosted events around like #therefreshners. In this instances sewing. It’s on Day 2 which is to post Current sewing (WIP Work in progress).

It is a great way to promote blogs and to meet other fellow like minded bloggers/ instagrammers. That is when I decided to print more fabrics so that I can make a blouse out my printed fabric. I found a blouse pattern on a recent burda style magazine. Making and fitting the pattern wasn’t much of a probelm as it doesn’t require much sewing skill.
back view of my mono print top

monoprint on fabric
monoprint on fabric

Anyway it’s not so bad in the result as I would wear it as a daily wear. Something to add to my wardrobe.

Where to learn to do it

Here are some books on fabric printing where you can find how to mix dyes, what type of dyes to use and print paste recipes.

I particularly like the’ printing on fabric’ book by Jean Swearington as it shows how to to transit from ready made acrylic fabric printing medium to using dyes. By pre mixing the dye powders in water one does not have mix the dye up all the time. I mix 25 grms of dye powder to about 100mls of water.

They last about 6 months. I mix the print paste by using manutex F an alginate sodium compound with urea. The urea helps to retain the bright colours of the dye. I just mix till it is thick enough into a paste like texture. about 1/4 teaspoon of manutex, 1/4 teaspoon of urea and about 80- 100mls of water.

For more details I did a youtube video on how to do it. Here is the link https://youtu.be/ZeEjsL8662M
Dyeing and screen-printing on textiles. Joanna Kinnersly-Taylor
Printing on fabric. Jean Swearington
Fabric Dyeing & Printing. Kate Wells
I got most of materials online from www.georgeweil.com