Purple Jones Trousers: My Velveteen Training Wheels

If there's one thing that keeps me in my sewing comfort zone, it's my reliance on stable, easy-to-handle fabrics. Just look at all my cotton poplin tops and twill pants. That these materials are low-maintenance in terms of care and laundering, and casual enough for daily wear are huge factors for why I pick them in the first place. It's not that I feel guilty for not challenging myself with more difficult fabrics, but I do lament that I don't often let myself use them because realistically, I will not wear the clothes I make with them. I would still like the opportunity to work with them for the sake of learning something new.

I went looking for and found a woven, 100% cotton velveteen because I thought it might give me a vague idea of what sewing real velvet made from silk would be like. And having both the luxe look of velvet and the ability to machine wash and dry (absolutely huge, so crucial, a necessary attribute) was too attractive to resist. The fabric is 44" wide which gave me a great excuse to make my second pair of Jones Trousers. And in purple, because it's the one color that's not already in my wardrobe. I'm happy with what I ended up with.

I didn't diverge much from my first pair of Jones Trousers. I made the changes that I said I would, like lengthening the zipper, fly extension and shield. I left the back pockets off because I accidentally cut through one of the pieces and didn't have enough spare fabric to re-cut (zero waste, remember)? It's probably for the best anyway, as patch pockets can look too utilitarian or casual on a special occasion fabric like velvet.

There's a minor problem, consistent with my previous pair, that I didn't mention before because I don't think it's a design flaw so much as an unfortunate happenstance. It could be an issue specific to my machine, in that it cannot handle bartacking the belt loops. They're sewn into the bottom waistband seam and bartacked along waistband's top edge, and my machine struggles because it can't properly grip the fabric. The presser foot partially hangs off the edge and only one of the feed dogs comes in contact with the fabric, so it doesn't move at all when I start sewing. The function definitely can work and has worked in the past, so long as the fabric area is wide enough and both feed dogs come in contact. I tried the bartack again but with a piece of tearaway stabilizer underneath, so the feed dogs had something to grab onto, and it still didn't work. I gave up and ended up sewing a small rectangle of straight stitches where the bartack would be.

The pile hides some of the messy topstitching, thankfully.

I switched up the waistband in a small, but probably impactful way with regards to the interfacing. Generally, I use fusible for everything. Many experienced sewists have sworn it off in favor of sew-in, so they never have to worry about the adhesive unsticking and the waistband collapsing one day. But I figure it doesn't make a difference for me because I always have the interfacing extend into the seam allowance, and it gets caught and secured by the stitch line anyway.

That's not really an option here because Jones' waistband doesn't have a separate facing piece. It's a wide rectangle that is folded in half, making the top edge. For comfort reasons, I only interfaced the outer facing half of the waistband of my first pair, even though the instructions call for you to fuse the whole piece. Later I went back and secured the interfacing with some small, undetectable hand stitches. If I had done as directed I could have sewn the interfacing down close to the fold, on the inside where the stitching wouldn't be visible, but I wouldn't have liked the extra bulk. And I definitely didn't want it compounded on the thick velvet for this pair. My solution was to apply the interfacing to the hidden inner half and sew it down with a number of stitch lines, so even if one day the glue fails it will still be secure to the fabric. In the end, I'm kind of treating it like a sew-in interfacing anyway.

I know it's ill-advised to use fusible on velvet but I didn't experience any outstanding issues. The note I'll take for next time is to be careful about where to fuse the interfacing in the first place. I fused it to a piece that wasn't supposed to be interfaced and when I peeled it off, it took some of the pile with it, like a wax strip removing hair. It didn't rip out enough fuzz to leave any visible bald spots on the fabric, but I definitely didn't want to get a head start on something that I assume will just happen to velvet naturally with gradual wear and tear. I wonder, if I continued to fuse and peel, fuse and peel, how many times it would take for the pile to tear out completely.

I should say, I massively overestimated how difficult the velveteen would be to work with. For real velvet, there's the understanding that you're not really supposed to iron it, at least on the fabric's right side where you will crush the pile permanently. My cotton imitation took a standard, high-heat press just fine, all I did was make sure I ironed it right side face-down on a fluffy towel. I didn't have to treat it delicately. This stuff is pretty hardy; I was able to revive some spots where I crushed the pile under my knees (I do my fabric cutting on my floor) merely by throwing the finished pants in the wash. 

Articles advise that when you place two pieces' right sides together, the pile can make the pieces shift while sewing. True, the feed started out uneven, so I lowered my presser foot's pressure and that solved the problem. I had a walking foot on standby in case it got really bad, and it never did. It was not markedly different from sewing any other cotton woven. Except for the pile getting every goddamn where, including in my mug of tea sitting in another room, and needing to vacuum multiple times to manage it as well as my sanity.

The state of my floor was so, so much worse.

So, given ALL that... I don't think I learned much about handling silk velvet from my experience sewing cotton velveteen. I don't imagine the two materials are truly comparable. Apparently you have to buy a costly tool that is some kind of spiked board ("Punji sticks for ants?!" says the Derek Zoolander living in my head) created for the sole function of ironing velvet? Well okay, nobody has to buy it, it's just that it existing to solve this one single problem reiterates that real velvet requires that kind of meticulous care. Will I ever commit to actually finding out how much of a diva real velvet is? I'm not saying never, but unless I get invited to walk a red carpet it's not likely. I'm only willing to go so far for the craft and for now, this is good enough.