Sewing with Velvet

Ooh la la!

One of my goals with this course was to learn to sew with velvet - a tricky fabric if there ever was one. My limited previous experiences had not been exactly rewarding...  Velvet has a definite 'nap', which means that little minute 'fluffies' stand up (my own technical term - probably more accurate, from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet: 'a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed, with a short dense pile').

For my bustle gown I chose to make the trim parts - sleeves, collar, peplum, gown trim band (i.e. the trickiest parts) - all out of velvet.

Most important lesson learned: buy the most expensive velvet possible, with a good amount of silk. Probably what you can afford isn't 100% silk, but a combination of silk and rayon. Even this blend, however, 'acts' differently than (cheaper) polyester substitutes - if you treat it respectfully, it cooperates beautifully, whereas polyester velvet fights you every step of the way no matter how much attention you give it. Memo to self: never buy polyester velvet again.

Other lessons learned:

• always sew WITH the nap, never against it. Even during hand sewing, stitching against the nap causes little nap fluffies to adhere to the thread and make it tangle. Sew with the nap, however, and 'bob's your uncle'. 
• pressing velvet is an art, because if you do press it even a little bit too much, the nap lies down flat, never to stand straight again (sort of like wheat that falls over in the field). Techniques: use a needle board (but take care: the needles can leave an imprint); sacrifice a piece of the velvet as press board, using it under the piece you are pressing; above all, press VERY lightly, minimally. Interestingly enough, silk/rayon velvet needs little pressing.
• baste seams, and pin on either side, to minimize 'seam traveling' (the nap causing the seam to slide about).
• loosen tension on your sewing machine to accommodate the looser weave of the velvet
• back cut pieces with organza to ensure they keep their shape (because silk velvet is almost like water, it slips and slides and slithers). That means cutting out the organza first, then the velvet.
• cutting it out: a whole operation (see pictures below).

To cut out velvet:

First of all, decide on which way you want the nap to run, up or down - because the colours can be quite different! 

Left: nap running up; right: nap down

Normally the nap runs down on a garment because of the way things wear, but in my case I chose to run the nap up because I loved the darker chocolate shade. Whatever you choose, though: the key is to cut out all pattern pieces with the nap running the same way! This takes extra yardage, of course.

Next, ensure straight grain for this slippery fabric throughout the cutting process. First pin a base of muslin squared to your cutting table. Then, pin the velvet squared to the muslin:

Next, pin the pieces to the velvet, only in the seam allowances of course (because pins mar the nap): 

Check the two pieces on the left hand side - they're the same, so I'm actually cutting four instead of the two I need. Why? well, with velvet there's a dilemma: grain versus nap. Normally you adhere to the grain line when cutting (grain line: straight grain runs parallel to the selvage edge), but for velvet that can throw off the nap. So, given that the pieces were small, I cut out two options: one runs with the grain, the other with the nap. When I sew them together on Monday, it will become clear which is the better option.

Cutting into velvet causes lots of the little fluffies to come loose. I thought the resulting 'shadow pattern' on the muslin was kind of cool:

Finally - basting and hand sewing are part of the price to pay for velvet. Since I was going to be doing almost five yards, I made myself comfortable!