Dear Chiffon,

I hate you.

-Yissel

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Working with Chiffon is bittersweet.

Yes, it looks beautiful in a garment, all flowing, layered, ruffled, gathered, maybe even fluted… A+ on the finished product every time, but boy…little does the average person know how much actual work is involved when you’re working with the stuff. I mean, if you want it to look as nice as possible. Let me show what I mean….

1) For starters, I can’t simply lay my fabric out,  lay my pattern over it and cut, the way I did with the pants in my first post. Yes, we’ve reached the groaning portion of the post. Welcome everyone’s favorite technique: Cutting to paper! YAY (Ugh)!  What we’d normally do in this situation is lay a big sheet of pattern paper under the chiffon and lay the pattern on top, pin the crap out of it and THEN cut. Why? Because chiffon is a slippery little b– uh… thing. You’re not even supposed to cut multiple layers at a time-but I said to heck with that as you’ll soon see*.

Problem: Was working at home and forgot my pattern paper.

Solution: A little ingenuity, a lot of pins, and the sports section….

Ahhh, 0ne hour, 8 spreads, 30 pins and a few choice curse words later, I managed to prep my fabric and pattern for cutting.

And what a simple, yet ingenious  piece of pattering marvel it is!!! Behold, the beginnings of what is to be a very elegant cape. What makes me so clever you ask? Well, not only have I *sandwiched my [news]paper between 4 (that’s right) layers of chiffon, but I’ve layed my pattern out and designed it so that the back is on the fold and the front on the selvage! Yes! Less seam finishes for me!

Side note: Capes: They’re great. In a future post I’ll be discussing the fact that all the cool kids are makin’ ‘em. (at least in my class anyway)

2)Enter: New Problem. Good design students and crafters alike have more than one pair of scissors. For the most part, everyone has about two: one for paper and one for fabric. Aaaah, you see where I’m going with this?

Presumably, majority might vote for the fabric scissors but…to sully my sexy sheers? Cripple my classy cutters? …F– up my fancy forbici (Italian for “scissors”)?!?!

What’s a girl to do? (Other than give away free advertising for ghinger?)

Note: In the industry, they’d lay this stuff out like 100-pile high, let it rest over night, then cut it with a laser. A friggin’ LASER. How do I get my hands on a laser?

Solution: Started with the paper scissors, then shunned them to the bottom of the toolbox after the shoddy job they did and regrettably switched to my fabric ones, which performed beautifully, only after I promised them they would be getting a top notch sharpening to make up for the abuse.  (I wont even show you the horrible job the other pair did. It’s just vulgar)

Voila!  Part one of the nightmare is finally over. Tune in for part II of “The Cape Saga.” When I go over having to sew this crap lovely, lovely fabric.