Organisation of Fabric Stash

My collection of fabric has grown tremendously over the last few years. I pick up a metre here and metre there having no idea what I'll do with it but I just couldn't leave the shop without it (it might not be there next time!). Things came to a head recently, I picked up some end of roll bargains but realised I had no idea where I could put it. So on to Google I went and came across this fantastic clip on youtube by Serena Smith, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfxpIOiMwU4&feature=channel for part 1 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWP5DMvbHg8&feature=channel for part 2 of storing fabric.



Now, I like to be neat and organised, even though it may not seem like that to others, and Serena's bookshelves filled with fabric in an orderly fashion was just my cup of tea. She had even given thought to how to categorize the fabrics in a very methodical fashion. I kept hearing "Eureka" in my mind, this is what I wanted. Problem was, I didn't have a spare bookcase and there is no way I could fit one into my sewing room, so an assessment of the room was in order.

I had fabric on hangers, stuffed into a large plastic tub and on shelves, in drawers and scraps in empty ottomans, literally any space that I could find. What I needed to do was to use the space I had to it's full advantage, so going along the same theme as the bookcase from the youtube clip I decided to claim the shelves in the built-in wardrobe. Now each shelf is 57.5cm wide and 45cm deep, so I should be able to get 2 stacks of fabric on each. Next question was how to get all of the fabric into orderly piles? Why not templates. I cut out from scrap cardboard the finished size of the fabric that I wanted, making it 27cm wide x 42cm deep. Then it was on to folding the fabric to this size, and what a tedious job that was, over a week I spent a bit of time here and there to get the fabric folded and put on to the shelf in categories that suited what I had on hand.

Top Left - sheer and evening fabrics
Top Right - textured fabrics - velvet, corduroy, cable knit
Middle Left - knit with multiple colours
Middle Right - knit with a single colour.
Bottom Left - cotton prints
Bottom Right - cotton plains













Now this covered all of the large pieces (anything over 25cm the entire width of the fabric), the remaining scraps of fabric where thrown to one side, where they still sit. Serena used small plastic tubs for these, but after all that folding I don't really want to think about that at the moment so I'll look at it again in a while, and just see how my currently organised fabric stands up.

In summary, it did take a bit of time to get organised but now I can see exactly what I have which means I don't waste time hunting through plastic tubs or buying something that I already have but just can't find.



After folding the fabric into a manageable size I get the width of the fabric the size on the template, in this case it is a little bit wide, but I can work with that.

















Then the fabric is folded a few times lengthwise until it is the same size as the template. This takes a few go's to get this right, but is worth the time.

















Another before photo, with fabric on hangers in the built-in wardrobe.

Brown Suede Jacket with Twin Needle Embellishment

In June 2009 I was one of the demonstrator's of the Twin Needle Workshop at a Sewing Guild meeting in Marryatville, South Australia. I had been asked in April to do this alongside a few other sewing guild members. Now I was definitely out of my depth, I had only used the twin needle to do hems on knit tops. So up for the challenge I did as much reading as I could about the subject, and then the fun stuff started with playing around with twin needles. I decided to focus on the embellishment side and decided to create a jacket using pattern 3521 from McCalls. I had used this pattern previously so I didn't have to bother with getting the fit right (what a relief!).

I had seen a photo of twin needle work that had been done in a wave motion using a pin tuck foot, and it looked spectacular.









Materials for this project were

- 2.5m of Chocolate Brown Suede, with slight stretch from Spotlight
- 2m of Satin Animal Print with pink splashes from Spotlight for the lining
- Guttermann Sulky 4011 for the twin needle work which is variegated
- Guttermann 696 (chocolate brown) for bobbin thread
- 5 groove pin tuck foot
- 2.5/80 Twin Needle


It took a bit of playing around to get the look that I was after, but finally settled on a normal tension (4.0), and shortened stitch length of 1.8. Using the 5 groove pin tuck foot raised the fabric slightly to give a 3 dimensional look.

First I cut the fabric along the crosswise grain the length of the front + 10cm, then in chalk drew about 5 lines in a wave motion. I then stitched out these. Drew another 5 lines and stitched, and so on until the entire strip had been stitched. Then I cut another piece of the fabric the length of the sleeve plus 10cm and did the same thing. From this I cut out all of the pattern pieces.

Then it was time to put it all together. I included pockets in the seam of the princess line along with a zip as I found that the pockets on the previous jacket I made kept gaping opening which wasn't very flattering. I also added piping along the princess seam lines, side seams, under the arm, the top of the collar and where the jacket facings meet the lining. At the top of the armhole (inside the jacket) I added a strip of the brown suede as a sleeve head as it didn't sit very well without the extra support.

All in all I'm happy with the jacket, but I'm not sure when I'll do it again as the twin needle work did take a long time to do and caused a bit of pain in the thumbs as I guided the material through the sewing machine.








The back of the jacket, I don't think it would have looked very good without the piping.


















Inside View of Jacket - I really loved the colour of this lining, it went really well with the fabric and the thread I used for the twin needle work.

















A closeup of the back where the facing meets the lining. Once again the piping gives it a very nice defined edge.