Replies

1. 
   Bill_Stewart | Nov 29, 1999 12:21pm | #1

   *
   ultra suede is the consistency of a medium weight leather and just a crisp. light is similar to a medium weight wool and tends to drape and fold, unlike the original. also the original has a bad tendency to rustle rather loudly when the body is in motion. the light doesn't seem to do this. both are a "matted" fabric similar to felt. but much stronger. both needle mark like a satin or a taffeta. like leather, a normal seam is hard to press flat and generally is held in place with a glue like rubber cement. hand stitching is nearly impossible in the original and slightly difficult in the light. machine hemming is best in both or gluing.

1. 
   Darcy | Dec 16, 1999 04:59am | #2

   *Hi Bill-I saw that you talked to someone else about velvet. I bought some and wanted to make a scarf for a friend. It's a silk-rayon velvet. I'm using a silk georgette for the back of the scarf. It is the worst! It slides all over the place. I tried hand basting it before sewing it on the machine because I knew it would be trouble. I had to rip it out. I must have tried to sew that blank-blank fabric four times and finally gave up. Of course now the fabric has needle marks in it. Hopefully, those will not show. I'm going to try to hand wash a scrap to see how it turns out. I thought that I might try some spray stiffner or some sticky stabilizer made by sulky. Any ideas would be helpful. Darcy

1. 
   Pam_Sherwood | Dec 17, 1999 12:36am | #3

   *It's a miserable job to try and sew silk velvet to a silk lining. My experience is that velvet/velvet seams are not nearly as bad, because the fuzz of the velvet keeps them together (you still might need to hand baste). I exploited this property, and instead of sewing the lining directly to the velvet, did a velvet bias binding around the (in this case) neckline. You would put the scarf and lining wrong sides together, then sew a strip of velvet bias right sides together on the velvet. Turn the bias binding, and hand stitch to the lining. In terms of frustration levels it is much easier than trying to attach the slippery silk lining directly to the velvet.The alternative is to stiffen the silk lining at the seam allowances with some interfacing, hand baste with small stitches, the machine sew with 3-4 mm stitches slowly. It helps a little to have the seam allowances to the left of the needle - not sure why.