Custom Printed Fabric at Contrado

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to visit the Contrado fabric printing factory in sunny Harlesden, along with fellow bloggers Marie, Janene, Katie, Elena and Charlotte. The visit was kindly organised by Rachel and Kate at The Fold Line. If you haven't come across Contrado before (and I hadn't) they're a family run, UK-based company (hoorah) offering a facility to design and print your own fabric.

There are over 75 different fabric types to choose from, which made picking just one a bit of a nightmare. We were sent swatch packs of fabric beforehand, which are full colour printed to give an idea of how light or bright the final fabrics will look - this was really helpful. At the factory, there were giant swatch packs to play with - even more helpful as you could really feel the fabrics.

I was completely torn between 100% silk satin or (bizarrely) polycotton sheeting. As unsexy as it sounds, the polycotton sheeting was a lovely quality and had an amazing drape. In the end I couldn't pass up the opportunity to own a piece of super luxurious fabric and went for the silk. Here's a tip: check out the care instructions of your chosen fabric type beforehand! Yep, you guessed it, the silk is dry clean only, with strict instructions not to let steam anywhere near it. I'm guessing the polycotton sheeting would have been a lot less hassle! I stand by my choice though, the silk is absolutely beautiful.

The one area I totally struggled with was the design process. Once you've chosen your fabric, there's software on the website for you to lay it out and tile it. This all sounds simple enough, but I have zero technical expertise, and although I had lots of ideas for fabric designs, I had no idea where to start. In the end, Rachel kindly came to my rescue and created my design for me, based on a piece of original 1940's fabric I'd found on Pinterest. Some of the bloggers are experienced designers and even they found some of the software a little confusing, so it was good to have technical staff on hand to make sure everything was the right size and scale. There's an option on the website to print out a test piece of fabric before committing to your design which I'd strongly recommend you utilise. This is not the sort of thing you want to get wrong!

Once we'd sent our designs off to be printed we were given a tour of the factory by owner Chris.

  

You don't have to print massive quantities of fabric, you can print just a small panel if that's all you need. The full width of the fabric is used for different orders, so there's very little waste.

Custom fabric printing is just one side of the Contrado business, the company also prints designs or images of your choice onto a wide range of homeware or clothing products. Imagine my delight when I came across these custom printed espadrilles!

Finally we were able to see our designs printed hot off the press. This was Charlotte's....

Elena split her order into two different fabrics....

 

Here's mine on the press!

And on the bolt....

My design was very faithfully reproduced, although the flowers did look a bit darker than I was expecting. I'm not complaining though, this is the only fabric of its kind in the world, and it's all mine! I'll now have to think very, very carefully about what I make with it. Any ideas?!

Thank you very much to Rachel and Kate at The Fold Line for organising such a fabulous day - I found every aspect of it really interesting. Thank you also to Chris and the rest of the Contrado team for giving up your Saturday to accommodate us and for generously allowing us to print our fabric designs for free. x

Finished: Made Up Vintage Blouse

Yay!!! All done and finished and I have to say it is a massive relief. That's the last time I'll take on a sewing challenge during the school holidays! I can't seem to concentrate properly when I only have small pockets of time to work with, and consequently there was a lot of faffing around and unpicking with this blouse.

I've sewn the pattern twice before (here and here) so dived into the project thinking I could just cut it out and sew it up. What I failed to account for is how my tastes have changed in the four years since I last had this pattern in my clutches. Although I still absolutely love working with vintage patterns, I've had to accept that I can't pull off that authentic head-to-toe vintage look that seems to come naturally to other people. It's much more effective in the long run for me to take a vintage pattern and make a few adjustments so that the finished garment works better with my modern wardrobe. So that's what I did with my 1930's blouse. The small changes I made have allowed me to style it with modern separates and accessories and it will get a lot more wear this way.

As I outlined in this post, I changed the blouse from sleeved to sleeveless because of lack of fabric. The original sleeves had quite a lot of extra ease in the shoulders plus they had cuffs, so a sleeveless version will actually be far more practical underneath a cardigan. I also increased the height of the trucks at the front so that they opened up at the bustline, a little like the bodice of the BHL Anna dress. The blouse still had a very boxy look so I curved the side seams in by about an inch at the waist, grading out to nothing at the hips and I'm much happier with this shape. 

Underlining the silk seems to have really helped bring out the beautiful colour of the fabric as well as sort out the stubborn creases I was whining about here. The blouse is still nice and drapey, but because of the underlining, it now has an added weightiness which makes it lovely to wear. The fabric itself was a revelation - I fully expected all kinds of trouble from it, especially as it was such a pain to launder, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I cut it out using a layer of muslin underneath (see full tutorial here) which worked perfectly. Using very sharp scissors helped too, as did using a fine needle in my machine (a 60) and silk thread. The only change I had to make during the actual sewing was to decrease the tension significantly to stop the stitches gathering (I set it to 0 rather than my usual 3). Once I'd sorted that out it was a pleasure to sew. I had to do quite a bit of unpicking (including, horror of horrors, a buttonhole…), but amazingly there are hardly any marks left on the fabric, it's surprisingly robust. This was also down to using silk thread which I found easier to remove than standard poly thread.

For buttons, I asked the opinion of my new Instagram sewing pals on which of these two sets to use. It was a close call, but the more subtle, swirly ones on the right hand side won in the end. They're vintage buttons (incidentally, from the same set that I used on my vintage shirt dress) and I think they match the fabric beautifully. 

I finished the armholes and bottom hem with bias binding, catch stitching it to the underlining. The collar and lapels still refused to lie flat after extensive pressing so I edge stitched them to mirror the shoulder seams and yoke. They're still a bit wavy but it doesn't bother me. I underlined them with silk organza, rather than silk cotton, and I think this was the problem. This was my first time using silk organza and I have to say, I found it a nightmare to work with, urrgh, horrible stuff. 

Simplicity 2844 is the oldest pattern in my collection (it dates from the 1930's) and I have a real soft spot for it because it was the first vintage pattern I ever owned (I won it in a giveaway by Debi at My Happy Sewing Place). I think making something from an 80 year old pattern definitely makes it eligible for my Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge, so I'm including it as my third entry for the year.

Making this blouse was also part of another pledge - the Made Up initiative - set up by Karen at Did You Make That? to raise money for the National Literacy Trust.  I have to say, sewing this blouse turned out to be more than a slight pain in the arse.  BUT…I wouldn't have made it without the pledge, I know that for a fact, the fabric would just have sat in my stash forever. So yes, it was a challenge, but a good one, with a happy outcome. There's just one more day to go until the challenge deadline, any other sprints to the finish?! x

Progress on the Made Up vintage blouse

The Made Up initiative seems to be going from strength to strength. The good news is that at the time of writing, the total has just skipped past the £2,000 mark, which is almost double the initial target! Hoorah! The slightly less good news (for me, anyway) is that we've also skipped past the halfway point to the deadline. Hmmm, I think a bit of a progress report is needed….

Considering I have to fit my sewing in between fairy cake making and regular trips to the swimming baths (shudder), I don't think I'm doing too badly. Everything will rev into gear soon when the boys go back to school, but in the meantime, there's plenty of prep work to be getting on with. 

The one major change I've had to make to my plans is that my 1930's blouse will now be sleeveless. This is partly down to me stubbornly insisting to myself that one metre was enough fabric and partly because of the fabric itself. It was only after washing and ironing the fabric (more on that in a minute) that I realised there was a sizeable chunk missing from one corner - a 7" x 5" rectangle to be precise. It took me ages to work out what this was, then I remembered - a couple of hours before I'd actually purchased the fabric I'd asked for a sample, and the hole was the sample I'd been given. I wouldn't have minded if I'd been given a bit more to play with, but my fabric still only just measured a metre in total. In fairness, this may not have been intentional, but all the same, it was bloody annoying and meant I had to omit the sleeves. 

Whinging aside, the pattern pieces have been cut from the fabric, so the fun's about to begin! I got to use my razor sharp serrated edge scissors for the first time and they were fab, they made the cutting so much easier, thanks Alex for the recommendation! I had to make a couple of tiny adjustments to the yoke and to the front and back bodice pieces to allow for lack of sleeves. I used this tutorial, the same one I used to convert my Granville to a sleeveless version, and it worked fine. I also decreased the back width slightly, which is an adjustment I made on my other versions. 

As I didn't want to take any chances with silk crepe de chine i.e ruin it in the wash before I'd even taken the scissors to it, I did a bit of research on how to launder silk. This involved asking my regular laundering guru - my mum, Lily. Lily's advice was to gently wash the fabric in lukewarm water with a very mild soap, no rubbing or squeezing, just swirl it around. Then rinse it well, smooth it out and lay it between a towel to dry flat. This is more or less the same advice given on the Til the Sun Goes Down website, so I knew it was sound. It washed beautifully, but it was a bugger to get the creases out of. I pressed the fabric whilst it was still damp, but they were still pretty stubborn. It's definitely NOT going to be an easy care garment!

I've now underlined the front, back and yoke pieces with white silk cotton to brighten the colour and make the silk less transparent. Even with the underlining, the fabric has still retained its silky hand and slight sheen, which is encouraging. My next step is to interface the under collar and front button band with silk organza to add a bit of crispness. I'm using silk thread to underline and to sew the actual blouse, along with a sharp needle and Entomology pins. If you're interested, my silk thread came from here, which offers a much wider choice of colours than Gutermann silk thread. I also have some vintage silk thread in exactly the right colour (see photo above), but sadly, not enough. Aren't the old thread bobbins so much more attractive than the modern ones?! 

I've given myself until the end of this week to finish all the underlining and interfacing. Then all I have to do is sew the blouse together, which should be straight forward (nervous laugh). How are you getting on with your Made Up pledges? Started? Finished? Still thinking about it?!  x

Silk crepe de chine madness

I briefly lost the power of rational thought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last week. Not quite to the same level as the lady next to me who had four carrier bags of wool and was mumbling, "I didn't really need any wool"… but still! I stumbled on a fabric company I'd never heard of before and fell head over heels in love with everything on their stand. The company - Til The Sun Goes Down - produce a unique collection of beautiful dressmaking fabrics in limited edition prints. Most of the fabrics I saw were silks, satins and rayon, all inspired by vintage prints from the 1920's to the 1960's and all absolutely breathtaking.

I kept leaving and looking at other stands, but my feet kept bringing me back to the stall and to one fabric in particular - this beautiful aqua posy print. I had a vintage inspired blouse made from a near identical print about twenty years ago. I loved that blouse and was devastated when I caught the front on a nail at work (god knows how) and ruined it. 

I caved in eventually and bought a metre. The fabric is a lightweight silk crepe de chine with a slight sheen to it. It's also eye-wateringly expensive (£36 a metre), which is the most I've ever spent on fabric, but it was the only thing I bought, so I'm telling myself that justifies the expense. I have big plans for it anyway - I want to recreate my nail-shredded 1930's style blouse! With fabric this special I don't want to mess about with an unfamiliar pattern, so I'm going to use vintage Simplicity 2844 which actually dates from the 1930's and which I've made twice already (here and here.) 

It has some lovely vintage features such as gathered shoulders and a back yoke and I think it's a perfect pattern for my precious fabric. The crepe de chine is very fragile - recommended garments to make from it are French knickers, camisoles and slips! - so I'm going to fully underline it with white silk cotton. This will make it a little more robust, especially for areas like buttonholes. It will also boost the colour too as it currently looks a bit grey rather than aqua next to my super pale skin.

I'm going to consult my new sewing bible - Fashion with Fabric - for recommendations on sewing with silk. I'm also wondering whether it's worth using silk thread for this blouse? If anybody has any thoughts on this or on working with crepe de chine in general, I'd love to hear them.  x

Finished: Boiled wool coat

As of today, I'm the proud owner of a boiled wool collarless coat! I took my time making it, and apart from a couple of niggles, it's more or less exactly as I imagined it would be. It's an open coat i.e. not designed to have fastenings, so it's pretty casual, almost like a long cardigan when worn with jeans. The classic lines means it can also be worn with a skirt and heels and still look good (no photos of it styled this way I'm afraid, but trust me, it looks nice!). 

Annoyingly, the collar's twisted on this shot, but you get the general idea

The pattern I used (a Burda PDF which I talk about in this post), was well drafted and I really like the fit of the coat. The instructions, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired. Burda aren't exactly well known for the clarity of their instructions and the lining paragraph made no sense whatsoever! It was pretty easy to work out what to do though, and at a bargainous £3.99, I still think the pattern is good value for money.

In terms of fit, I sized down to a 38 everywhere except the bust area (which remained a size 40) as I wanted a slimmer fit, I shortened the arms by 1.5 inches and the overall length by four inches. I also shaved ½ an inch off the shoulder height. This resulted in the sleeve head being a bit too full and puffy for my liking. I knew this would annoy me, so I reduced the amount of ease in the sleeve and redrafted it using this method. A pain to do admittedly, but worth the effort in the end.

So what was the boiled wool like to work with? Well, I had high hopes of working with it and it didn't disappoint. As per the advice of my readers and my own list of tips, I used a ballpoint needle, a longer stitch length and a walking foot. The walking foot proved to be an absolute life saver - layers of boiled wool can quickly resemble a shag pile carpet and it really did help chomp through all the layers with ease. It also helped stop the layers shifting about - essential once the silk lining was in place. Because boiled wool is quite a bulky fabric, I top stitched either side of the main seams and trimmed the seam allowances back. I really should have used a pair of duck-billed appliqué scissors for this job (read a great explanation of their use in this post of Kerry's), as I was in serious danger of snipping through the main fabric. In fact I'm amazed I didn't! Stitches do tend to sink into the fabric though, which makes unpicking them a long and tedious process, so it pays to go slowly for an accurate finish.  Top stitching everything down also uses a LOT of thread - I went through three spools altogether. 

You can see one of the top stitched seams in this shot

I picked up the lining fabric from Classic Textiles in the Goldhawk Road. It was sold to me as Liberty silk, but unlike the other Liberty silks I could see, there was no Liberty of London mark on the selvedge. My immediate thought was, "Liberty silk, my arse", but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and look up the design. Imagine my delight when I found it actually was a Liberty Silk! The design is called Kilburn Rose and it's part of a 2013 range designed by actress Tamsin Grieg! Whoops, soz for doubting you Classic Textiles, I take it all back! 

Liberty Kilburn Rose silk lining

I love the colours in the lining - they complement the blue of the boiled wool perfectly - and the vintage style of the roses are so me. I should have guessed it was a Liberty fabric as it was such a pleasure to work with, it doesn't fray much and has a beautiful, silky drape to it. At £12 a metre, it's more than I would normally pay for a lining fabric, but for Liberty silk, it's a bargain. I only needed 1.5 metres so I think the investment was worth it. To make the sleeves easier to slide on and off, I lined them with plain green lining fabric, which, in comparison, was a complete nightmare, forever fraying and sliding around! 

Aside from the main fabrics, I used a washable supersoft interfacing from The English Couture Co on the facings, and stay tape on the neckline, shoulders and armholes to prevent them stretching. I also added a couple of sew-on press studs to the front of the coat - I'm not sure if I'll need them but at least they're there if it gets windy! I barely used the iron whilst making this coat as I was scared of stretching the wool, I found that finger pressing the seams into position before top stitching was all it took.

It's an almost perfect make: one of the sleeves drags up at the back slightly where I've attached the lining, and the top and bottom of the facings misbehave a bit. No amount of restitching seems to make any difference, so I'm just going to forget about them. I still have a gorgeous, warm, classic coat that's going to get a LOT of wear.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Coat fabric was given to me free of charge for review. All views my own.