#pintucking

an experimental neckline.

Sash Blouse in Black and Antique Tan, silk flat georgette, Fall 2002/Winter 2003, XS-L, $115

https://web.archive.org/web/20021115014001/http://www.trashydiva.com/trashydiva/sashblouse.html

I'm so close to finishing the bottom tier of the train! This entry will mainly focus on the technique called pintucking. A tuck is a fold or pleat in fabric that is sewn in place. A pintuck is a very small version of that. Many heirloom sewing resources will tell you to use a double needle. This is the most common technique, but I have never had much luck with this method aside from incredibly light fabric. So, since I'm working with silk, I'm using a slightly different method using a single needle. All I have done is cut out a piece of fabric that is 4 to 4 1/2 inches bigger than what I would need to cover the heart and the crown to compensate for 16 1/8" pintucks. I won't go into too much detail about how I figured these measurements. The technique itself is more important.

First, I drew 16 evenly spaced lines on my piece of fabric with an air-erasable pen and ironed a crease on each line. Starting on one end, I began folding on the crease and sewing 1/8" away from the fold. I used my blind-hem foot (any foot with a center guide would do) as a guide along the fold so that my pintucks would turn out straight. After I finished all the tucks, I ironed them down so that they were all laying in the same direction.

The majority of heirloom sewing is creating your own textured fabric and then cutting out your pattern pieces. That is essentially what I've done here. From the big piece of pintucked fabric, I cut out squares and pinned them behind the heart and the crown. After that, I simply zig-zagged the inner edge of the lace to the fabric and then cut away the excess. This technique still gives you the see-through effect for the lace, while having a different type of material in the center.

I know this whole spiel might have been a bit confusing. I'm hoping that the slideshow helped with this, but just in case, I'm also linking a video that shows both the double needle technique as well as the single needle one.

Slán!

Pintucking Part 1

Pintucking Part 2