You would think being as super meticulous as I’ve been with the dress I’m making for my daughter, I would not make a boneheaded mistake, right? Hah!
Yesterday, while pressing newly sewn seams, with my vintage American Beauty iron disaster struck. The petticoat melted because the iron was too hot. Yes, I should have used a pressing cloth. I know, I know…
Now, I could have gotten upset and blamed it on the iron, but let’s get real… this was user error! Thankfully, the fabric melted near the petticoat waist. Whew! What did I do? I cut 2″ off the waist. I then cut 2.5″ of the same material and sewed it onto the waist of the petticoat. Boom… Done! I totally Mcgyered that!
Lesson learned, I won’t, won’t, won’t,ever, ever, ever do that again without using a pressing cloth.
Making a Proper Press Cloth
This evening, I took a brief break from working on my daughter’s dress to serge a proper press cloth. I had some old tightly woven cotton sheeting laying about. Perfect! Initially, I was going to do a single layer, it is pretty thick; however, I got paranoid and quadruple layered the fabric and the result is what you see above. This was a quick and dirty job. I didn’t feel like measuring, so it’s not exactly even and I’m fine with that.
I tested it out with my American Beauty iron and the fabric didn’t melt! The “press cloths” I’ve used in the past have been old fabric remnants or bed sheets. It’s what I made today, but I serged the ends to make it “pretty.”
Last minute purchases…
Of course, I need smaller elastic for the waist band and so I’ll be purchasing that tomorrow morning. The zippers I ordered from Wawak (yesterday) arrived today. Currently, I’m in the process of creating my hand-picked zipper.
Sewing needs – Making a list
While I thought I’d had everything covered, with my recent purchases of sewing accessories, it’s obvious that a few things, such as appropriate sized zippers have slipped through the cracks and so I’ve been mentally going over my sewing items in my mind and creating a need to purchase list. Elastic is going on that list and also buttons. I’ll be stocking up on plain buttons. I might toss some fancy ones in there, but I tend to hold off on the those buttons until I start on a project.