My experience with Colorhue dyes

I stumbled on Colorhue dyes this spring as I searched for ultralight silk thread. My source is http://www.silkthings.com/ . I was fascinated by these dyes due to their ease of use. You apply the dye to dry or wet silk, the strike is instant, and there is no after fix or wait required. They discharge well and clean up is easy. I bought the sampler pack for trial and later ordered full size bottles of the primaries . The instructions that accompany the product are adequate.

The downside to Colorhue for me is that you can not paint with it and it is virtually impossible to mix it sufficiently to avoid an occasional fleck or speckle. You can, however, mix it with shaving cream and sponge or screen it on without any difficulty. The picture above is a test swatch that I made screening over stencils with Colorhue. Mind you, this was a scrap that I did for play. It is so liberating to try color and ideas without delay or hassle.

This orange chiffon capelet and tank were done solely with Colorhue. http://picasaweb.google.com/pam.hebding/20080412?authkey=tDRWDtb2MGI#5246360908903674194 You can not see the ombre in the capelet photo for some reason. It is subtle but obvious in person. I sewed the capelet (did I say how much fun it is to make chiffon flounces?) scruch dyed the curved neck portion and ties and dip dyed the ombre flounces before attaching them to the neck and tie peices. The top is scrunch died stretch crepe. Like so much of my work this piece had to be changed because of a dyeing problem. This time is was the flecks in the flounce. In order to disguise the flecks I had to repeat the ombre dip dyeing. That resulted in a much deeper color than I originally planned.

There is a bonus in working with Colorhue. You work quickly with the product and there is a lot of dye water wrung out from your work that is still useful. I test the color in the waste water bucket, and if the color is pleasing, throw a yard or two of fabric in the bucket. That gives me a background dye for another project later on.

Final Note on Making Your Own Dress Form

My form was finished off with a muslin cover that I made without much thought other than fit. The cover allows me to pin to the form with no problem and makes Eve (the name of my form) less of a biological display in my Florida room where she is usually standing.

I inserted some poly fil between the form and cover in places to correct a couple of problems that I created by handling the form too much while it was still damp. The back shoulders needed to be fluffed out and one boob was out of synch.

As she stands now Eve measures as an exact duplicate of my odd body. She has a 17" back waist measurement, a 14" shoulder measurement, a 38" bust measurement, and a 27" waist measurement. I am 5'3" tall so although my narrow shoulder measurement is not unusual for my height, my back waist and bust measurements are not standard in ready made forms that would have worked with my narrow shoulders.

If you can use a standard form, do it. This project was long and tedious because I wanted the form to be exact for me so I could get a good idea about how a particular design would look on me. I also wanted to be able to avoid any personal fitting during a sewing project. Eve fits my needs although I wish I had taken better care to mark the form properly so draping would be easier.

Making your own dress form

From time to time I will post pics of things displayed on my home made dress form. I built my own dress form after comparing my detailed body measurements to the ready made forms. It was obvious to me that the only way I was going to be able to use a form to serve as a proper fit dummy for my odd body was to either spend a couple of thousand dollars on a custom form - or build it myself. So, I decided to try building my own using some instructions I found on the Net.
I have reprinted below my email to Sister and Niece in August '07 about the project. You can see
pics of my project at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pam.hebding/DressForm#

"OK creative girls- Here's the progress on my latest quest to build the perfect dress form. I used the instructions on these links:
http://sewnews.com/resources/library/0806form/index.html
http://www.sewnews.com/resources/library/0806stand/index.html

I let Bill wrap me in water activated tape until I could not take it anymore, then I made him cut me out. There are a lot of finishing touches to do, but I thought you might want some proof that a man, who cares very little about accuracy in anything other than a spreadsheet, can actually wrap you up and get you out alive. The only casualty was my underwear. Big slash in left butt cheek. No skin involved!!!

There are some things I would add to the great instructions in Sew News:

If you are going to use water activated tape pre cut a ton of it in advance. (I could not find self stick kraft tape, so I used high quality water activated kraft tape) The other thing is that I think water activated tape will more closely act like paper mache (stronger than any self stick tape). Since the best forms are paper mache, I thought it was worth the extra aggravation of wetting the tape. Of course, I could be totally wrong.
Put two sponges in a pyrex shallow dish with lots of water to moisten the tape.
Get the tape really wet.
You will need lots of strips equal to ½ of your hip measurement plus 4 inches.
Also, precut a bunch of 1 inch wide strips for the bust area. Round boobs can not be wrapped by 2" tape!
Do not do this project after eating a big Mexican food meal like I did. Actually, that's probably a plus so you can wear your designs after a Mexican meal, but the body form will look bloated.
Sarah- The bandage scissors are a real MUST. Getting cut out of this thing was not easy, and the transition from waist to hips and underneath your butt will require careful cutting!
Put on super comfortable shoes if you are going to get wrapped because standing still really takes a toll on your feet.
It is best to get wrapped by someone that is neat and cheerful.
When you cut the form off immediately use some duct tape to the inside of the cut shoulder to reconnect it. The paper tape doesn't really like to stick to the plastic bag liner.
This is not a 1 hour project.

Sarah- the tape requirement estimate is about right. If you decide to do this write down the amount of tape you need in feet and yards so the in-store math is not too hard. My total cost of materials for the stand and form is about $45.

I suspect that using this form will accommodate ½ of the design ease in all measurements. I can't wait to get her to the point that I can put something on her that really fits me well to find out if I am right! "

A Politergeist is in My Sewing Room!

I am constantly amazed at how I can loose something without ever leaving my seat. Today's items include the top to my razor knife and my very most favorite sewing tweezers. I have turned the world upside down and they have surely been taken to another dimension.

I suspect my distracted condition may be contributing to the recent activities of my poltergeist. Yesterday I spent an hour searching my house for a piece of fabric that I had labored over with my Rowenta to prepare for installation on the soon to be infamous paisley top. I ultimately located my fabric in the garbage covered in fresh coffee grounds.... AGHHHHHHH.

Well, I suppose every sewer has these kinds of days. Don't you?

The Blindstitcher Machine Saga

I have had the time to work with my Tacsew over the past week so I am posting this comment to help others learn the machine more quickly. This is an excerpt from an email I wrote on the subject:

Me: "I am working with my blind stitcher. I changed the needle! Tra La. That wasn’t hard. No more broken threads. I am also stopping my stitch like I saw on a You Tube film. I pull a bunch of thread through the tension disk, remove the thread from the upper arm, and pull the fabric from behind to cut the thread. I am just afraid of the yanking method. Every time I have done it I have broken the thread.

The hard part was that I went to a little needle (2 ½ because my thread was too thick for the 2) and the thread hole was soooo freaking small that I had to remove the needle from the machine to thread it. Tricky. The next tricky part is using it on this stretch crepe. I will master it, but have to tell you that it ain’t easy. I folded up the hems (sleeves and bottom), ironed it in, and lightly basted it by hand. The whole issue is alignment, and maintaining alignment."

Sister:
" The news on your developing relationship with the blindstitcher is encouraging. (I think I'm going to give mine a name... like "Ray" (Charles), so I don't have to keep typing "the blindstitcher"...) "

Me:
"I like your idea of naming your blindstitcher. I will call mine Rat. Rat and I have come to peace for now. I just finished my paisley top. This is another one of those “if it can go wrong it will go wrong” deals. Listen- do not ever cut out your pattern pieces then dye them. Never, not once, shall you do that. I will explain at a later time if you are interested. Here’s what I learned about Rat today: you MUST check your thread on a scrap of the fabric that you are sewing to determine if you have to increase or decrease the depth of the needle penetration. John at AllBrands told me to test Rat on a double thickness of my fabric. That’s great for checking thread tension, but you need to do a real hemming sample to check the penetration. Next, ignore the dial to adjust the penetration- just turn it until the look is right from the right side of the fabric. For example, my initial setting was dead center between light and heavy fabric and it created an absolutely invisible hem on habotai, but made a visible stitch on the stretch crepe. In order to get an invisible ” of a serged edge to the left of the hump to catch the whole edge AND to hold the fabric a little firmer in my right hand than what I was previously doing. Now I am holding the finishstitch I turned the dial toward “lighter” instead of “heavier” . Next, Rat taught me to put about 1/16" fabric in my left hand and the unfinished hem in my left hand. Get it? FINALLY I mastered the RIP IT OUT method of finishing a seam. The trick is to get your needle in the fully retracted position (as if you were threading it). It works."

Me:
I should have said, “Jerk it out” instead of RIP IT OUT. When you thread the needle the eye is just to the left of the needle plate apparatus. By turning the wheel to the threading position the tip of the needle is secured by the groove in the needle plate. When you have the needle turned that far the upper stitch hand is a little to the left of the center of the sewing channel. It is my guess that the upper hand or something behind it that I can not see is the surface that is cutting the thread.

The Photos on this Blog

Here's a link to photos of some of my creations http://picasaweb.google.com/pam.hebding/PamSWork#

As you can see, the photos were taken at my home in South Florida where it is HOT HOT HOT! The habotai silk that I am using is 8mm, which is what you would normally use as a lining. I decided to use it for jackets and tanks as a stand alone fabric. That limits me to unstructured jackets and the like and requires VERY careful sewing. There are lots of french seams and tons of hand stitching. Before I tried to beat this fabric into becoming a stand alone fabric I wondered if it would withstand use and laundering. I am happy to report that the fabric, properly constructed, works well on its own. And, fulfilling my goal of covering my over 50 body without dieing of heat stroke was accomplished. These garments are unbelievably light and cool to wear.

Threading the Blind stitch machine

John at Allbrands told me to place the thread behind the needle after threading. Do not place it across the upper stitch arm!