Preparing for the holidays...

No not those holidays... call me a Grinch if you like but I'm excited about the two week lay-off from work. Awww, sewing and job hunting time.

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a full-time job where I'm not laid off for three months out of the year.

But I digress... I've been busy this week prepping fabric for my laid-off sewing.

I have this beautiful red silk dupioni in my fabric stash. I was considering making the shorter version of this Lynn Mizono top. I changed my mind after checking out a few versions posted over at Pattern review. I still want to make the top but I think the longer version would be more flattering on my body type and I don't have enough red silk.

Sew, the plan is to still use the festive red silk using a different pattern. Okay, maybe there is a wee bit of festive spirit in me.

McCall's 9264 recently came into my hot little hands. First thing first, the silk has to be pre-treated.

I serged the ends of the fabric to prevent anymore fraying from occurring before hand-washing it. According to Yahoo contributor M. Langton, "even dupioni silk can be hand washed." However Langton warns to avoid soaking silks to prevent any fading in colour. Got it.  

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Next step, wash the silk without soaking. For this I am using a mild laundry soap and vinegar. The vinegar is for the first rinse and to help set the beautiful red colour. The final rinse will be with water only. 

Not recommended is drying in the dryer. No big deal here as I typically dry most of my clothes on a rack.  

It worked out perfectly and now the McCall's 9264 is cut out and read to to stitched up!  

Sew is Simplicity 4762. It is cut in a black British wool.  A vest request came my way several months ago. It has been sitting in the wings for some time. Not because I was procraftinating, I was waiting for my nephew. 

He finally made it over for a fitting, the muslin is all marked up, and now I'm ready to get to work. Sort of, I've just been sitting on the project waiting for the phone call he promised with the measurement for the inner chest pocket that he wants. I'm still waiting. And yes, I have tried calling. Anyway, I've given up and I'm going to wing it.   

First, I had to pre-shrink the fabric. How do you pre-treat fabric that traditionally calls for dry-cleaning? Do you treat it at home or do you dish out the dough for dry-cleaning?  

Caitlin over at Colette Patterns wrote an excellent post on pre-treating fabrics, including wools. This is the method that I chose for my fabric. I'm really pleased with the result. Even more pleased that I didn't have to dish out big dry-cleaning bucks.   

I'm all set. Happy sewing (and holidays)!