Orders

There were sewing-related things I'd been thinking about ordering for months, but kept putting them off.

Then a random look at FabricMart saw sequin fabric that met a lot of The Ideal Sequin Criteria: round sequins, sewn flat, opaque base fabric, simply metallic sequins, purple (Fabric Mart says the color is Byzantine, which is a new term to me.)  Yes, the sequins are smaller than The Ideal, and arranged in a grid instead of offset.  But!  The base fabric is 100% cotton, something I hadn't even considered a sequin fabric possibility. (Never mind that I already have some, but in a more floral and embroidered format.)

And on top of that, it was very cheap As Is because there were obvious alignment problems in the way some of the rows of sequins near the center of the running length of the yardage were sewn. (Probably technically all of the rows between them formed one section that was slightly askew, compared to how they should have been sewn.)  I estimated from the photo that the flawed rows were about 6" apart (which turned out to be correct, hoohoo) and decided that would provide plenty of yardage on each side, as a 60" wide knit, to work with.  I decided on a price + shipping balance I felt wasn't too bad and ordered...5 yards. (Of course they had a cheap shipping special starting on the day it shipped.  Of course.)

And it arrived and is wonderful

 

 The flawed rows are in the above image--they vary from Really Obvious to Barely Noticeable (at a reasonable viewing distance), so that was a nice surprise.

There is an area near the selvedge-ward edge of the sequins near one cut end that has a big flaw in several rows of stitching so no sequins and lots of loose threads, but it's not too large.

And then there's this, which I'd guess is where one section of sequin stitching ended and the next began--the sequin reels have to be loaded into the purpose-built industrial sequin stitching machines, so they have to be reload sometimes, too, right?

 I think the gap between sections looks neat and will probably feature it in a project. 

I just love a fabric with nice, flat, regularly-placed, simple metallic sequins, and purple cotton knit makes it better.

I also placed a really big Wawak order, which arrived, as always, incredibly quickly.  And on a Sunday!

I used a lot of Fray Check in the cat appliqués, and decided to try out a different kind of thread lock glue.

The thread is mostly replacing colors I use a lot, plus a brown because I don't have any brown thread (to no-one's surprise) and a dark purple-y pink I hoped would work with the sequin fabric--Saba-C tex 40 thread doesn't have the deepest range of colors, so it's pretty good.

A dozen black dress-length zippers, a dozen skirt-length (one of which will go into the skirt I cut out today, from the remains of the wool and lining used for the cat appliqué jacket.)  

Some blue bag zippers, because I have some two-decade-old blue pleather (it's still in good shape, so it probably won't disintegrate like a lot of pleather does within a few years) that I should probably finally use, and I've wanted to try making an ita bag for a while, so having the proper zippers is one less barrier to that.

I ordered the long purple and burgundy separating zippers in hope one would match the sequin color--they do not, but I'm not going to be too picky.  I'm also not sure why I ordered a 10" separating zipper, in addition to the two jacket-length zippers--either I meant to order a longer length, or maybe I was thinking of zippered waist cincher-y things again?

Of course, the last items from that order show that I may be thinking of a little more than the zippered vaguely waist-cincher-shaped items with zip tie boning, since those last items are two lengths of corset busks, 36 yards of twill tape, and 100 yards of plastic boning.

Add those to the other sewing-related thing I ordered

and it adds up to "maybe I'll finally try making a real corset (and or waist cincher) this year," with 'this year' being next year, and with many other possibilities for Things with Eyelets/Grommets.  I should probably also finally follow a proper corset drafting tutorial, too.

Next year.