#tailor ham

Since I've been sewing face masks, I've found that the curves of tailor's ham don't quite fit the mask. So it's been difficult to get the iron in there.

I decided to make a dedicated ham for face masks!

Basically I took the shape of the Jesse Killian Face Mask (free pattern!) and extended it (toward where the ears would be). Once cut of paper, the next step is drafting a base.

I didn't have an elegant method for this. Honestly, I just kinda pressed the bottom of the assembled paper template and traced a round outline, leaving a generous seam allowance.

Once I had my upper fabric pieces cut and prepped, I traced the opening on to the bottom again, just to get an even closer fit; then trimmed the excess. I transferred this shape to my paper template to record it. Pattern drafting, apparently is also about record-keeping!

As with Bentley, the upper is made from boiled wool. The base is cotton twill. Both fabrics were backed with fusible buckram (or similar stiff, heavyweight woven cotton interfacing).

I'm contemplating names for this ham. Strong contenders include:

Nosey

Wedge

Zorro

Cheddar

[the Right Honourable] Vincent Maskey

Domino

I made a Tailor's Ham! It's essentially a sort of hard pillow used for ironing against. It's especially useful for ironing curves and 3D construction (eg: stuff it into things like sleeves or hats).

I used the free pattern by Cornelius Quiring, and took the suggestion of zigzagging my wool together instead of sewing darts.

For the top fabric, I wanted wool. This mustard yellow coat fabric was the only 100% wool I could find at Fabricland that day. It was in the clearance area, originally $50 /m. The smallest increment the shop sells is 20 cm, which was sufficient for this pattern. With extra sale pricing and my membership discount, I paid about $5 for the 20 x 150 cm piece (they cut me a generous "20 cm", closer to 30 cm actually).

Upon closer examination, this fabric was knitted before the felting, and there was still some noticeable stretch. To reduce the stretch, I put the wool in the washer with hot water, then tumbled dry on low heat until it was bout 80-90% dry; then ironed the fabric flat and let the steam finish evaporating.

For the bottom, I used a remnant of heavy cotton canvas. I've heard that it's best to use unwashed cotton so that the ham will shrink up and pull even tighter with the heat of an iron, but this is what I had.

I applied lightweight woven cotton fusible to the entire wool piece to add stability and structure. Following Quiring's advice again, I reinforced the underside of the not-darts (the zigzag) with scraps of the cotton canvas.

(In a future make, I might try using heavyweight fusible at the not-darts, instead of fusing all over and reinforcing with canvas.)

I had difficulty sewing the not-darts, largely because of how stiff the fabric had become. I'm not sure if this just comes with practice or if I did something wrong, but after shaping the not-darts, I couldn't get the top and bottom pieces to fit together nicely. I had to really fight and pull the fabrics to line up, and in the end I opted for an imperfect ham rather than continue puncturing the fabric with my heavy needle.

For stuffing, I've learned that sawdust or wood shavings (like pet bed litter) are ideal. I didn't have any, but I had lots of fabric scraps! However, the unevenness of fabric scraps make for a lumpy ham, which interferes with a smooth ironing surface. Taking stock of what I had, I came up with a plan to stuff the ham in layers:

First, I added kapok fibre (a fluffy plant fibre, kinda similar to cotton; I already had lots of this for stuffing amigurumis), making sure there was a thick layer all around. Kapok fibre won't melt, and I think the fluffy texture would help smooth irregularities caused by the fabric scraps.

I picked through my smallest fabric scraps to remove as much synthetic fabric as possible (the high heat of an iron might melt the polyesters and nylons), then used my LDH shears to cut into as fine of ribbons as I was arsed to. I mixed these fabric scraps with dryer lint (which definitely contained synthetic fibres!) and began stuffing. I hoped the dryer lint would help smooth the texture of the fabric scraps.

Stuffing this ham tight was hard work, so I enlisted the aid of my partner. Much innuendo and amusement ensued.

Once I was satisfied with how packed it was, I hand-sewed the seam shut with a ladder stitch.

The ham is all puckered and lumpy, especially at the hand-sewn closure, but I kinda love it.

I kinda want to name him Hammy, or possibly Bentley.

It's so ugly and I love it! 💖💖

This has got to be one of the most useful things I've ever sewn. It felt like a "specialty" tool at first, but it really isn't, I use it all the time now that I have it! Ironing shoulder seams, sleeves, hats, and bags--! It's really great.

Yes me as a man with male privilege covering my ass celebrating a man disrespecting a woman. Also it’s showing my ass not covering my ass.

I don’t care, go back to celebrating the death of the environment at the hands of the most famous and overrated person in the universe.

Also taylor manipulated the public into thinking that she was being sexually harassed by a mentally ill black man and made an entire album victimizing herself when some people disliked her for that, even though she was still rich and pretty and famous and still had ravenous fans willing to defend every choice she makes.

“They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one” You know who the first witch burned at Salem was? Well she had a lot more in common with Kanye then she did with Taylor fucking Swift i’ll tell you that much.