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Oct. 2nd, 2023 02:24 pmI bought two lengths of silk at a store called Baccia Tessuti on the trip to Italy back in April. Today I actually got around to cutting into one of them, having made a muslin from polyester satin (I figured it'd drape about the same, plus polyester satin is stupid cheap as far as practice fabrics go) some time back.
The people on Reddit and sewing.patternreview.com who advised a spray called Terial Magic beforehand were 100% right. It's a liquid stabilizer. Like spray starch, but stiffer, and without the part where spray starch is made from a food product and can attract bugs. Once the Terial Magic dried, I have been able to cut the entire robe's worth of silk (I think it's georgette) without the kind of fraying which commenced within seconds of cutting the satin.
HOWEVER.
The product came to me with a spray top of the sort you see used for bathroom glass cleaner bottles, and a very long tube attached. The tube would probably have been about right for a Windex bottle or a generic 32-ounce spray bottle from the hardware store, but it was much longer than the 16 ounce bottle of Terial Magic was high. I assumed I needed that much tube for whatever reason and did my best to coax it into the bottle and use it as it came.
Bad idea. The top wound up coming off mid-spray because the bent, pressed tube basically made it impossible to keep the top screwed on. I wound up cutting the tube short with a pair of scissors and was able to use it, but I spilled a distressing amount on the back hall carpet.
Ah well. I'll let you know how the project goes once I start sewing the pieces together.
The people on Reddit and sewing.patternreview.com who advised a spray called Terial Magic beforehand were 100% right. It's a liquid stabilizer. Like spray starch, but stiffer, and without the part where spray starch is made from a food product and can attract bugs. Once the Terial Magic dried, I have been able to cut the entire robe's worth of silk (I think it's georgette) without the kind of fraying which commenced within seconds of cutting the satin.
HOWEVER.
The product came to me with a spray top of the sort you see used for bathroom glass cleaner bottles, and a very long tube attached. The tube would probably have been about right for a Windex bottle or a generic 32-ounce spray bottle from the hardware store, but it was much longer than the 16 ounce bottle of Terial Magic was high. I assumed I needed that much tube for whatever reason and did my best to coax it into the bottle and use it as it came.
Bad idea. The top wound up coming off mid-spray because the bent, pressed tube basically made it impossible to keep the top screwed on. I wound up cutting the tube short with a pair of scissors and was able to use it, but I spilled a distressing amount on the back hall carpet.
Ah well. I'll let you know how the project goes once I start sewing the pieces together.
