Friday, December 18, 2009

Supplies for Sewing Vintage

Happy Friday, everyone! This week on BurdaStyle, my guest post is about essential tools for working with vintage patterns. These are the things I've found I can't live without after making half the patterns from Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing. Come by to check it out!

Stop by BurdaStyle every Thursday for a guest post about vintage sewing from yours truly!

4 comments:

  1. That was a great article. I saved it so I can refer back to it.

    Just a little interesting tidbit. My mother-in-law was a young woman in the 50's. She was showing us pictures. She was very fashionable, hat, gloves, etc. I asked her if she wore the bullet bras. She said she did not, that most people that she knew did not wear them. So I wonder, was it mainly the stars who wore them?

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  2. Nice article, Gertie! I'm afraid I must disagree with you about basting with waxed silk thread, though. I believe that would be an excellent thing to *sew* with (or waxed cotton), because it is very strong. However, I have found that I want my basting thread to break easily - more easily than my sewing thread and certainly more easily than my fabric. That way when I yank to remove basting I don't mess up the seam. Also to prevent tailor's tacks falling out, you need a non-slippery thread. So for both of those reasons, I baste and tack with special-purpose basting thread, which is a soft, breakable cotton.

    You can buy spools of hand basting thread at Atlanta Thread or The Sewing Place, both online (not affiliated etc.), or here in the UK Maccullough & Wallis carry it (as do John Lewis) in spool form from Coats & Clarks.

    Probably there is a reason to use silk for basting on some fabrics, but I wouldn't use it as an all-purpose basting thread. Oh -- and I found it helps tremendously to use a *long* needle for basting.

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  3. I enjoyed your post too. I was hoping you'd consider doing a video for us on how to use a French seam. I'd love to know how to use one but couldn't find a video on the Internet at all. Thanks for the great tips!

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  4. Twill Jill, I don't know of any French Seam videos online (maybe Threads has one?), but once you learn how to do one, you won't stop! They're very easy, very strong and look great!

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Thanks for your comments; I read each and every one! xo Gertie

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