Specialty Fabrics, Rainwear

ONLY If you're planning to make a trenchcoat in this sewalong, please answer the poll just to the right, on the sidebar. I want to get an idea of how many trenchcoats are in the offing, and how many want to work with a raincoating fabric.

I am no expert with raincoating. All I can do is collect some information in the books, and talk to those who have worked with it.

The very popular B*Berry rainwear fabric that is everywhere will present some sewing challenges.


Kathryn (FZXDOC)is currently making a coat with it, and has graciously agreed to let me reprint here her findings. (thank you Kathryn)

I'm still working on my turquoise raincoat from that same Burberry Reverse fabric that I bought from Michael's Fabrics. The fabric is really much better behaved than I thought it would be. I have inserted welt pockets and am flat felling every seam, the old fashioned way (cutting/turning/topstitching). My raincoat has LOTS of fabric in it, so just physically pushing that amount of fabric through the sewing machine takes time and effort. Here's what I'm using so far:

* Microtex Sharp size 80 needles most of the time, and switching to Universal 110 needles for the really thick areas.
* Naomoto gravity feed iron set to the highest temperature with steam. No problems with the creases holding nicely. I use my vacuum ironing board to cool the pressed areas off quickly, so perhaps that aids in the crease control.
* Silk organza presscloth for almost every seam, although sometimes when I press from the wrong side I do not use the presscloth.
* Extra fine Patchwork Pins by Clover. No pin marks anywhere, even when the pins are left in for days at a time. (It's been slow going due to lack of sewing time Undecided)
* No holes persist when I have to unsew an area. I haven't unsewn any long seams, though, just small spots. But the needle marks seem to go away quickly
* Mettler Metrosene polyester thread. I wanted to use a shiny rayon thread for decorative topstitching, but it proved to be too fragile for this fabric. I couldn't find a TIRES silk thread close enough in color, or I would have tried it.
* Tailor tacks made with elastic thread hold exceptionally well and don't leave visible holes in the fabric when removed.
* There was a lengthwise crease in the center of the fabric from being folded on a bolt, I imagine. It does not want to press away completely, so placement with respect to that crease is critical
* As I mentioned earlier, there is a misregistration of the stripes across the width of the fabric, so that the stripes are one pattern repeat off from selvedge to selvedge. This is especially noticeable for pieces like a back piece or a back yoke placed on a fold, because the stripes may not fall in the same place on both shoulders
* The fabric wrinkles easily, but the deep wrinkles hang out quickly. The coat has an overall soft wrinkled look of a well washed linen with handling, though. Since I don't press my raincoats before wearing, Grin , I suspect the coat will always have that faint over all wrinkled look. I chose the solid side for my public side. The soft overall wrinkling is not apparent on the striped side.
* I have not had a problem so far with the layers separating with heat and steam or lots of handling.
* I have not had a problem so far with the fabric discoloring due to the heat/steam of the ironing process. The deeper colors might show this effect more than the lighter turquoise I am using.
* The fabric frays ever so slightly. If I worry an edge, I can get frays to come out but they don't come out of their own accord, even with all the handling required in building a big raincoat.



That's about all I can think of for now. It's a fun fabric to sew with, so anyone who has it smiling at them from their stash should make it their next project! Smiley

Kathryn

She further went on to elaborate:

...the fabric is not coated on the outside that I can tell, but it is very firm (as in no give nohow) and would not ease well. Like **, I was able to do the tiniest bit of easing with the sleeve into the armhole, but it was a nearly flat sleeve head and really had less than a half inch of fabric to be eased.

About the fabric itself, It has that rubbery raincoat feel to it, so the fabric must be sandwiched to a rainproof inner layer, perhaps. Both faces of the fabric feel cloth like.

The misregistration of the stripes is very subtle--it's not as though you could tell it by looking at the fabric itself. It's like each batch of stripes was shifted a millimeter or so across the width, so by the time you got to the other selvedge, you have a huge mismatch.

You would probably only be able to notice it when you place the pattern and see that each piece should be cut single layer so that the stripes can be matched up manually before cutting. The only problem occurs on a piece that is not seamed across the width of the body. By that I mean that you would be able to match the stripes, cutting each piece singly, for the front pieces, the back pieces with a center back seam, collar pieces cut on a seam, and the sleeves. The only problem that I can see is for pieces cut on a fold where you cannot shift the pattern for each half so that the stripes fall where they should--so that each half matches the other. I think across half a body width, the misregistration is subtle and you probably would not notice it on the garment itself, especially if the stripes are matched before cutting, so that each pattern piece is properly aligned.

Perhaps someone who has sewn a coat with the stripes on the outside can jump in here and give their experiences with cutting the pattern and matching the stripes. Since I put the stripes on the inside, the problem was transparent to me.

**, I love using elastic thread for all of my tailor's tacks on almost all of the fabrics I sew, except very fine fabrics. It really stays in no matter how much you manhandle the fabric. It was a tip published in a Threads magazine maybe 12 years ago or more. I've used it ever since. Works great!
Kathryn

edit to add information from comment section

fzxdoc said...

I think a set in sleeve may be a challenge because this fabric does not really ease all that well, and pressing/steaming does not seem to make it shrink or conform as natural fibers do. There is a fair amount of give on the bias, though, so set in sleeves may be possible, using the method of stretching a bias piece of tie interfacing or wool crepe across the top of the sleeve to force it to gather up prior to setting it in. I'll take a scrap of my fabric and test that possibility and report back.

Susan, I'm using an OOP Issey Miyake Vogue pattern--very big and very full with sleeves that have only a slight curvature at the top of the sleeve.

Nancy, I did not prewash the fabric. It has small creases from folding (during shipping presumably) in it that are very visible on the solid side and that don't want to press out. Those creases may come out with prewashing, though. I'll toss a scrap into the wash right now and see what happens. I'll report back on that too.

fzxdoc said...

OK, the prewashing results are as follows:

*Machine washed in cold water with Tide detergent on the delicate cycle.
*Machine dried on the delicate cycle.
*The turquoise side of the fabric turned a shade darker! Imagine that!
*It is much more drapey than the unwashed fabric.
*The little areas where there were creases that would not come out were still there, but not as noticeable.
*The fabric shrunk lengthwise by about 3%. (a 23.5 inch piece shrunk to 22.75 inches)
*The fabric shrunk on the crosswise grain by about 5% (the 10.125 inch piece shrunk to 9.625 inches)
*Water beads just as nicely on the prewashed fabric as on the original fabric.
*The prewashed fabric wrinkles just as easily as the original fabric: like wrinkles in a soft linen. The hard wrinkles disappear with time.

I just put in a set-in sleeve using some of the fabric scraps from my raincoat project. I used the Vogue trenchcoat pattern that I used before for the kiwi eyelet trench and the Chanel-type trench. The sleeve in that pattern does not have much ease: less than 1 inch. It also has a seam that runs down the outside of the arm from shoulder point to wrist.

Method I used:

*assembled the sleeve upper and underarm seams.
*seamed the bodice shoulder and side seams
*cut a piece of wool crepe, about 2 inches wide, on the true bias, and about 10 inches long.
*placed the strip of crepe on the wrong side of the sleeve, letting it extend about an inch below the front armhole notch.
*set stitch length to 3.0 mm
*lowered the needle so that it was just inside the 5/8 inch seam allowance line (at a scant 5/8 inch, that is)
*pulled the strip of crepe tightly while letting the sleeve armhole seam area feed through from front notch to back notch. Raised needle and trimmed the leftover length of crepe. The sleeve was slightly gathered from notch to notch.
*placed the sleeve on the tip of a tailor's ham and steamed the seam allowance only, patting the fabric to try to force it to curve into the shape of the shoulder area. Let the fabric dry.
*inset the sleeve according to the pattern instructions (in the round).

You can see the set in sleeve on my Flickr photo site

Having set in that test sleeve, I have to say it wasn't that difficult. But then it did not have a great deal of ease. Less than an inch of ease in the sleeve cap is manageable, from my little test. I would think it would be very difficult to ease 2 or more inches into an armhole with that fabric.

So I would recommend for patterns with a set in sleeve that the ease be reduced to less than an inch, if possible. Sandra Betzina in her book Fast Fit shows how to reduce sleeve ease.

I also took photos of the kind of creases that I found in my fabric from perhaps being on the bolt or creased in shipping, just so you all could see what I was talking about. These creases may have only been in my piece of fabric.

That's the end of my testing for the evening.

Have fun, everyone sewing your rainwear fabric. I'm loving working with it!

Kathryn

May 29, 2008 10:31 PM

Here's a link to those test set in sleeve and crease in the rainwear photos:Rainwear Fabric Tests

And when I said the turquoise side turns darker after prewashing, it is not really a whole shade darker, just slightly darker!

Bye,

Kathryn

Kathryn is a member here now too, and I invite her to answer any queries you might have in the comment section.