Adventures in starch

The iPad holder got mailed out yesterday. Dad should get it within a week.

I started work on my May Project yesterday. Three renditions of basically the same thing. What's changing is the fabric used. In theory they should be the same thing, but three different shops going by three different names does actually give for fabric with three different feels. I'll see which I think sews best and subject MacMac's colleagues to a feel test? not sure on that part yet.

I finally got all three fabrics in. The last one came yesterday. Last week I washed the first two fabrics to get the starch/stabilizers out. I also washed the trim. Yesterday I went out in search to liquid starch. yes yes I know I just washed it out of the fabric, and now U'm adding it back it. It's so I know what kind of starch is in my fabric. Also because I wanted to pre-wash the fabric in hopes it would shrink all that it will shrink.

My adventures in finding liquid starch was not sucessful. I was hoping to find Sta-Flo but couldn't find it at Target, Alberstons or Save Right. Having gone to all three SqueekMoo was not in the mood to be out and about so home we went.

I ended up making a corn starch mixture instead. 1/2 cup corn starch and 1 cup cold water. Then add hot/boiling water. 2 quarts for a heavy mix, 6 for a light mix.

I did put it into a spray bottle, but quickly decided that dunking was the way to go. I took my first test fabric and cut it to slightly bigger than the pattern piece and into the start it went. I then wrung out the excess and hung it to dry for an hour or so.

I then ironed it. At first I couldn't tell a difference, but once I finished ironing and it was completely dry I could really tell a difference. Good think I did a very diluted light mix because it was rather stiff.

I then worked on the Swiss beading. No starch on this trim. I cut away the excess fabric on either side of the trim. Pined the trim in place and sewed it down. I then marked where I wanted my embroidery to go.

I had a little left over starch mixture and I decided that I'm going to experiment with my embroidery floss. Its just plain old white DMC floss, but pencil marks and it don't really get along too well. So I cut twenty inch lengths of floss and dunked it into the starch and ironed it. You can tell a difference in the feel. I'm hoping that by doing this the dowdy gray the floss picks up from the pencil will wash out.

I'm hoping to start the hand embroidery today. however the hoops/frames I have aren't long enough. I can probably go ahead and use the ones I have for now and stitch what I can, but I'll have to wait for a bigger hoop since placing a hoop on beading doesn't work.