My Thin Knit Seems To Be A Nightmare

I’m feeling a little better today. I still didn’t make it to Joann Fabrics to pick up the Sulky product. I need snaps to repair a piece of clothing, and I’m going to check again to see if they have a wing needle. I will try to go tomorrow as long as no one decides to go round two with the poison. Hopefully I won’t need to talk to an employee either so I don’t have to deal with the cruddy customer service the store has again.

I mended a couple pairs of pants that needed re-stitching, and the green knit I got to make the wrap dress, came out my fabric bag today. (The birthplace of a stash?)

I did a running stitch down the middle of the fabric on one line of micro-rib by hand. All 5 yards of fabric… Gads that took forever. I read it was best to do that, or pin it like that, to make sure the knit pattern wasn’t placed off grain. Apparently if pieces are cut off grain they can twist and cause the seams to not lay correctly.

I laid it out on the kitchen table with the leaf put into it, folded in half right sides together, and started smoothing the fabric….. I did this for about an hour on a 1 yard section that was still connected to the whole 5 yard piece. This was to get the first piece of skirt that I needed to cut on the fold pinned on. I was happy, it eventually felt smooth and flat. It appeared the grain line ribs were running parallel on the two layers.

The knit I got has a right and a wrong side. The right side has very tiny lines of rib that run the length of the fabric parallel to the selvedge edges. The wrong side does not have these lines and looks smooth. I want to say it’s a really lightweight jersey knit. I don’t remember what the bolt said. It’s nightmarishly stretchy though. The lady at the store couldn’t even fold it up for me after she cut it. After watching her for a few minutes I told her it was OK and just had her wad it up since I was going to wash it.

Anyway. There was a little wrinkle near the cut edge that was bothering me, so I messed with it for a little while longer and finally was completely happy with the results. I got the pattern piece ready, and (FINALLY! YEA!) laid it out to pin. A feeling I had made me take the folded corner and check the bottom layer just to be 100% sure everything was truly peachy keen….

The bottom layer was wrinkled and bunchy, despite what it felt like on the top. I folded the fabric back up and put it off to the side. I’m glad I didn’t start cutting.  I’m going to have to open it up and cut everything on a single layer. It’s kind of annoying it took so much time to learn this lesson but I’m thankful that I checked before I ruined all the fabric. I need to read about how to lay the pattern pieces on a single layer of fabric so I don’t mess up cutting out pieces.

I picked out such thin knit ignorantly thinking to myself that I’ll be wearing the wrap dress in the heat, so I wanted it thin so I’d be nice and cool. I picked out a black knit? stretch-lace when I got the solid color fabric. I was going to overlay the lace on top to let the solid color show though under the pattern. I’ll save the lace stuff. I’ve not sewn knits before, I talked about being scared to do so with a member on Ravelry in the Sew Obsessed group. She told me they weren’t scary and she sewed with them all the time on a normal strait stitch / zig-zag machine with no special feet. This gave me hope a while back.

Having read that the really thin knits show every line and contour of your undergarments (after I bought the green stuff) and experiencing how the fabric I got handles so far. I’m becoming more and more scared again of how the end result will turn out. I keep telling myself it will be a learning experience no matter what. When I throw the fabric on the table again I will take pictures of my step by step progress to show how it goes.