The White Velvet Jacket - Part Seven

The Beading

At the moment, I am working on the lace and beading for the jacket. Once this is done, I think the jacket will finish quite quickly. Here's how I've dealt with the trim:

First, the lace is basted by hand into place and then hand stitched to the velvet only with tiny hand stitches. This doesn't actually take as long as you'd think. I could have stitched the lace on by machine, but after many samples, I couldn't get the tension where I wanted it. The top thread has be to black and the bobbin thread white, so that makes for weird little opposite colored dots if the tension isn't perfect. The hand stitching also gives me great control over the slippery velvet.

Once the lace was in place, I beaded only the flowered portion and not too heavily. It is very easy to go from fabulous to tacky without even stopping at tacky-fabulous when working with beads and sequins. Most of the time, less is more. Because these beads and sequins are all black, they're not as shiny as other colors, thus more subtle. Here are the beads I'm working with, along with a section of finished lace:


The fronts are complete at this point, and I hope to finish the sleeves sometime this weekend or early next week.

Q/A: A few of you commented on stitching the velvet. Yes, it can be slippery. The most slippery I've worked with was a silk/rayon that was a very high percentage silk. Beautiful, but dreadful all at once. I use pins like Dawn, too, occasionally, depending on the pile/slippage determined by sewing a sample. June wanted to know, "I can't remember where I read this (gosh, was it on this site?), but I remember seeing someone baste once and then whipstitch the fabric edges before seaming. Do you see advantages of 1 technique over the other? " Yes, June, I did do a post on the basting/whipstitching combo. I prefer double basting. Double basting is actually better as the velvet can still slip even with basting and whipstitching. (Been there, done that!) To double baste, I baste very close to, but not on the seam line. Having to pick out two different threads that have been stitched over isn't on my list of fun things to do! For me, the closer I can get to the seam line, the better, as the velvet is secure right where the stitching is going to be done.

Parting Shot: New Ribbons. My ribbons and garments arrived from the Road to California show today.