which grain: crotch liner for suit pants (long winded)
Long-windedness ensues. Query starts below a row of asterisks like this one: ******* I started cutting out weeks ago, I'm still working on the eighteen pockets for my two-pants suit, and one pair of broadfall pockets hasn't even been cut out yet! My plan is to make a wool shirt, one pair of pants by my "fat" pattern so that it can be worn over long johns, and one pair by my "skinny" pattern so that it can be worn under the other pair in case of need. I meant to make the broadfall pockets china silk, but shortly after I'd begun work, the broadfall pockets in my cotton herringbone pants gave way, and would have been very troublesome to repair because they are an integral part of the construction. " Egad!! My china silk won't wear much better than that broadcloth!! " So I hastened to buy a meter of "dupioni satin" from Phoenix Textiles (fabric.com), because it was heavier than what Dharma http://www.dharmatrading.com/ was selling for about the same price. "Dupioni" and "satin" seem like contradictory terms, but the only reason I'm buying satin is that it comes in thicker weights than habotai and twill. The dupioni doesn't show enough to indicate that the slubs were put in on purpose; nonetheless, when I took the piece out of the washer, I wished that I had enough of it to make a blouse or gown. But when I was trying to straighten it, and trying to make it hold still while I cut it, I was just as glad that I don't have four yards. (Charmeuse is said to be easier to handle.) And then before the satin was delivered, the crotch of the herringbone pants wore out -- the broadcloth pockets had been quite durable enough. But it's a good idea to make the pockets as durable as possible anyhow. I have scraps from the herringbone pants -- enough to make two more pair; cotton twill was hard to find when I bought the herringbone, so I planned to make four pair. Then Phoenix came along and I started insisting on linen for summer pants, so I haven't cut the other half yet -- but I will when I get the suit under control, since I'd been wearing the old herringbones quite a lot, and miss them. I have the fabric, and I know a way to patch the crotch that makes it look like part of the original construction, but the pants have faded and the scraps have not, so these will become apron pants, to hang on a peg in the garage to jump into when I'm about to do something dirty. And just in time, too -- I slipped the old old pants on over my house clothes so I wouldn't freeze while filling the bird feeder, caught my toe in a weak spot, and tore the front of the thigh. At which point I realized that they are now worn out all over. Hmm . . . maybe I could use the old old pants to make faded patches for the new old pants? Which sounds like a lead-in to my query, but I've been intending to reinforce the crotches of my new wool pants ever since I noticed that DH's suit pants have triangles of lining and pocketing in the crotch. (Twill fabric in back, something plain woven and thinner in front, I noticed when I measured them.) At first, I thought the tailor had simply folded wide pieces of bias in half and laid it over the pieces before sewing, but thinking about it showed me that it had to be more complicated than that, and today I finally got around to tracing my fat-pants pattern onto folded paper to make two diamond-shaped reinforcement patterns. If I drew the fold line on the straight grain, the patch would go all the way to the hem. If I drew it on the true bias, it wouldn't cover all of the worn area. So I can't possibly match both halves of the patch to the grain of the pants, and it is very important that the two halves match each other; if they don't, the patch will ripple. ******* So the fold line of the reinforcement for the crotch of the pants must be cut on the straight grain, the cross grain, or the true bias. There is no difference between cross and straight on my china silk -- or if there is, the straight grain is stretchier -- so straight or cross can be left to economy in cutting. The question comes down to: cut with the fold line along the threads, or cut on the true bias? I *think* DH's suit has them on the straight, but I can't be sure, with the seams finished so nice and so little fabric to pull at. But I'm sure some of you have done this before, and know which grain is best for crotch reinforcements. At the rate I'm going, I have worlds of time to think about this -- but I did get my packet of thread from Things Japanese http://www.silkthings.com/threadsindex.asp today , which cuts off a lot of excuses. (And yes, an entire 200-meter spool did go onto one of my 40-yard bobbins. The machine is threaded, but I haven't stitched with the new thread yet.) Joy Beeson -- http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ -- needlework http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange joy beeson at earthlink dot net |
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