Fast and loose with the terminology

Indulge me in a small textile rant, here. I just got an e-mail from the local quilt shop (i don't, for the most part, quilt, but it's the only place this side of G Street Fabrics that carries the thread i like...), and one of the new fabric lines they're flogging is called "Quilter's Linen Tussah" by Robert Kaufman, and which, the shop e-mail points out to reassure the quilters, is 100% cotton.

Now, Kaufman generally makes quality fabrics, and they should know better than this: a cotton fabric, called "linen" and "tussah," which is a term used to describe silks produced from wild rather than cultivated silkworms. They want "linen" to describe the texture of the weave, i'm sure, but linen is a fiber, and not a particular weave, and there are other ways - you know, accurate ones - to describe a weave and its texture, perhaps in this instance, something like "homespun." And tussah? That's really reaching. Next thing you know, they'll want to describe it as worsted, too. Puts one in mind of the line from Voltaire about the Holy Roman Empire. Thank you, rant over.

Decisions, decisions...

The favorite flea market shuts down in about a month, and as the season draws to a close, the vendors tend to get more generous, largely because they don't want to have to store that stuff during the off season. So this week, along with a nice little batch of patterns, a sweet (and very Deco) Glasbake loaf pan, and a postcard, Sewing Machine Dude (his name's actually Dave, but it took me years to learn that, so i still tend to think of him as Sewing Machine Dude) threw in a length of fabric as a bonus.

This is the one that caught my eye, just because i thought the pattern and colors were fun, but it turns out it's rather more vintage than i thought at first glance, to judge from the tags i found when i went to unfold it to see how much yardage i had to work with... when was the last time Penney's had a fabric department, anyway?

Now i've got to decide whether to sell it or use it - at four yards, it's enough to contemplate dresses, though not really extravagant ones. (Haven't checked the exact width, but it's probably a little narrower than 45")

Speculative yardage

I try really hard not to buy fabric just because it presents itself.  After a couple of years working at G Street Fabrics, i have enough stashed for several years' worth of sewing projects, boxes and boxes of stuff, from interesting cotton prints to plaid silk taffeta to an insanely-gorgeous-but-totally-impractical linen lace (with a lily pad motif, no less...).

But there are certain circumstances wherein the rule is bent.  And finding nice quality Belgian linen at $2.00 a yard on clearance is one of them.  I bought eight yards.  I'm actually not that keen on the color, a pale seafoam green, but for $2.00 a yard, i'm willing to consider overdyeing it, or - since it's fairly sheer - underlining with a different colored fabric to shift the color a bit.

And since i was already bending the rule, i also bought the remainder of this piece of madras (alas, there were only 2-1/2 yards on the bolt).  I hope it keeps its slight sheen once i've pre-washed it, it's very pretty as it is.  Trying to decide between a breezy summer blouse and a pair of pajama pants...

Feedsack envy

After Etsy's recent feature on feedsack fabrics (here, if you missed it), i decided i needed to get around to sharing this 1953 brochure on sewing with feedsacks.  I got it in a wonderful lot of oddball sewing items - a few commercial patterns, a homemade brown paper mystery pattern or two, a heap of 4-H sewing booklets (which will get their own feature one of these days...), and this:

It's a little after the heyday of fabric feedsacks, but it's fun to see how many bags are needed for different dresses and useful to learn how to play around with pattern layouts to use your fabric as efficiently as possible... a skill that's especially handy for those who sew from vintage patterns, where the fabric widths on the layout chart may not correspond to what you can get easily today.

Wonder if i can convince the feed mills i buy from to switch back to cotton sacks... i'd sure love to have a little extra fabric packaging the stuff i have to buy anyway!