Yesterday, after a deep breath, I took my courage in both hands and started cutting the fabric.  First I cut out the mohair (I botched one cut, so there was just barely enough fabric to finish!), then I cut the organza backing.  Then I started basting the organza to the mohair.

I had planned to baste the organza to the mohair initially using a rather expensive wash-out glue, that being easier to “stitch” without distorting the fabric.  However, I rapidly discovered that the fabric was too nubbly, and too loosely woven, for this to work.  The glue vanished into the crevices.  So I settled for hand-basting every piece.  I’ve finished basting nearly all the pieces and expect to start preshrinking/cutting the interfacing tonight.

I discovered along the way, though, that this beautiful mohair fabric was woven using a loop yarn!  No wonder the brushed surface is so lofty, and the back side so nubbly.  It also has long floats carried along the edges, that I’ve never seen on machine-woven fabrics before.  I’m starting to wonder if this fabric was handwoven, too!  (The original price was $90/yd, from Britex, so it was certainly expensive enough to have been.)

Anyway, I took a few shots of the backside of the fabric, to give you the look of it.  It’s impossible to catch the nubbly  soft “hand” of it, though – it really is delightful stuff.

I also took a few photos of the work-in-progress:

I almost forgot to mention that I bought some suede!  It is a dark hunter green, and complements the fabric beautifully.  It will make great lapels + collar.  Pix tomorrow, or in the next post, whenever that is.

Last night I preshrunk the mohair (dunked into warm water, swished around a bit, spun out to dry and then allowed to dry flat) and dyed the lining.  It’s gorgeous!  Here’s a photo:

Despite some fiddling in Photoshop, the photo is not quite true to color – the lining is actually a beautiful, deep iris purple.  It’s actually been through three dyebaths: one fiber-reactive (alkaline) dyebath in Sabracron F dyes, one acid dyebath using Sabracron F dyes, and one acid dyebath using Washfast Magenta acid dyes.

This was not intentional.  I had intended to do just one dyebath, to a fuschia-purple, with the Sabracron F, and carefully measured out my dyes.  Alas, my water was apparently not hot enough for the Electric Blue to “take” (it can be fussy that way), and I wound up with a pretty shade of lilac.  Which clashed with the mohair.

So I decided to redye it, and to see whether Sabracron F worked as an acid dye.  (Procion MX fiber-reactives “go both ways”,  but I wasn’t sure whether Sabracron F, which is slightly different chemically, did.)  Into the dyepot it went, along with the Sabracron F Electric Blue and some citric acid.

It behaved differently than I expected.  Normally, with Sabraset dyes, the dye “strikes” very quickly and leaves no trace behind.  With the Electric Blue, it took nearly 20 minutes at 180 degrees to “strike”, and the water still had plenty of blue in it.  I snipped off a small sample, washed it, ironed it dry (nobody ever accused me of patience), and took a look.  Gorgeous, cool blue-violet.  Not appropriate to the mohair, which was all warm shades.

So I went back to the dye cabinet, grabbed some Washfast Fuchsia, dumped it into the boiling dyebath, stirred furiously, and hoped for the best.  And it worked!  The end result is warm, deep royal/iris purple, and it will be perfect as lining.

Today I plan to adjust my patterns.  I am following Claire Shaeffer’s instructions from Couture Sewing Techniques, and the first thing she mentions is that couture sewing uses 1″ seam allowances.  Presumably this is to allow adjustment for fitting issues.  I have adjusted my muslin countless times and I’m pretty sure it’s right, but allowing some leeway for adjustment seems like a sensible thing, so I’m going through all my pattern pieces (and there are a lot of them) and adding 3/8″ to the seam allowances.  This is not quite as bad as it sounds as a lot of the lines are perfectly straight, so I can use my quilting ruler.  I may also “cheat” and use a double tracing wheel and transfer paper to mark the enlarged pattern before cutting.  That is less accurate, though, so I will probably do it the harder-but-better way.

I’d be lamenting having to change my lining pattern pieces as well, but Shaeffer recommends not using lining patterns, instead draping the lining before stitching in place.  I don’t know if my skills are up to that, but it’s worth a try.

After that the next step will be cutting the pattern pieces.  I am going to use the mohair backed with silk organza, so I will need to cut out the organza and mohair pieces and sew them together.  Backing with silk organza will stabilize the mohair and also make it easier to transfer any markings.  For accuracy, I  plan to baste in place with a quilting applique glue that comes out easily and leaves no traces  whatsoever behind.  Then I will probably baste the organza in  place by hand.

Tomorrow the sew-in hair canvas interfacing should be arriving – good, high-quality hair canvas, 60% wool and 40% goat hair.  I will also be able to stop by Fabric Outlet to buy the suede for the lapels.  At that point I can cut the facings, and send off the remaining scraps to be made into buttons.  After that, it’s the slow process of putting on the interfacing (which must be “quilted” to the fabric, by hand, slowly), and after that, who knows?

I’m really looking forward to this.  Working with quality goods that I like is totally different from working with icky, ugly fabric.  This will be worth the investment.

I just remembered the brushed mohair I bought at Britex, thinking to use it as an underlining!  It will be just perfect.  One piece is a pink/black/white plaid that I don’t like at all, but the other is a blue/gold/purple/fuchsia diffuse plaid that I really like.  It’s big enough to do an entire coat mockup with, too.

I will do the collar/lapel in leather, to get the practice, but I’m not sure I like the black – it looks a little stark against the muted purples and blues.  Here’s a photo to get the idea:

Tomorrow I have to be up in SF for work, so I’ll stop by Fabric Outlet and check out their suede collection, to see if they’ve got other colors.  I have 3 yards of white silk jacquard that I think will do for a lining, and some extra silk charmeuse in case that’s not enough.  I will, of course, dye it to match the mohair (perhaps blue, perhaps a bright fuchsia); I think I’ll do that tonight.  I’ll also soak the mohair in warm water, spin it out, and let it dry flat.  That should preshrink it nicely.  After assembly, it’ll be dry clean only, but I want to make sure it doesn’t shrink too much when pressed.

So not only do I have some nice fabrics to use, but I’m clearing out stash as well!  Now this is a test project I can feel good about!