Dora Smith wrote:
How do you locate actual fabric that is wrinkle
resistant?
I'm quite fond of a linen-cotton shirting that I bought just
because it was a dollar a yard -- I planned to use it to
test patterns, but now I save it to make summer wear. The
older shirts are more wrinkle-resistant than those that
haven't been washed as many times.
Inspired by that, I have two other linen-and-cotton blends
waiting for me to get around to cutting them. One is about
the weight of chicken-feed sacks and just as soft; it came
out of the washer looking quite smooth. (The dark color and
busy print help a lot.) I haven't washed the other, a
muslin I intend to use for underlining a linen print; back
in the sixties, I underlined a chambray A-line with thin
dollar-store muslin, and it came out very wrinkle-resistant
and cool.
I got all three fabrics from fabric.com.
Pure linen is very comfortable, but you must *not* iron it;
ironing makes the mussing stand out shockingly. If you can
get enough little wrinkles into it, it gives up and smooths
out again.
Fabrics of moderate weight muss least; sheer fabrics crumple
easily, and heavy canvas hangs onto wrinkles with a death
grip that was only loosened when I left them draped over the
ironing board and ironed a full load of wash over them
every day for weeks. (They do get flat enough to cut
*eventually*, but I don't buy canvas now that I don't iron.)
My pants-weight cottons hang out fairly well.
Perma-press was still available the last time I looked, but
in an Austin summer I wouldn't touch it with a *twenty*-foot
pole. Even in an Albany spring, it suffocated me. (Got rid
of every last stitch of it before moving to Warsaw.)
If you have usenet access -- some providers call it
"newsgroups", and Google, which has a *terrible* interface
to usenet, tries to confuse it with Google Groups -- hang
out at alt.sewing; those guys are very helpful and among
them, they have centuries of experience with everything from
cordura kayak covers to chiffon wedding gowns.
Since I ride a bicycle, I need clothes that aren't
wrinkled by the time I rode down the street.
I prefer to carry clothes and change when I get there (which
once led to putting on pantyhose in a handicap stall . . . )
A male friend once told me that he carried a suit in his
panniers -- you can strap a suit box across the luggage rack
-- and pulled his suit pants over his bike shorts and wore
them as underwear until he had a chance to change.
I wear linen drawers instead of slips in the summertime --
if you make a pair of black drawers, you can ride in them,
then slip a skirt on over them after you chain up your bike.
(But watch out for "cottonized" linen, which sheds lint
all over you and won't wear through a whole summer.)
Another trick: carry an ice cube wrapped in a washrag in a
plastic bag; wring the rag well and wipe yourself down with
it before changing clothes.
If changing beside your bike, don't drape your shirt over
the top tube -- I have chainwheel prints on my zip-front
wool jersey. But the top tube is a good place to dry your
washrag to keep it from turning sour in the heat.
--
Joy Beeson
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather)
west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
where the rain has finally stopped
-- but so has my "new and improved" computer,
which is *so* fast that it has to freeze up
for a few seconds or minutes at random intervals.
Dial-up was a *lot* better!
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