So remember that sewing project I last posted about in August? Yeah, these things take more time than you’d expect. As of late September I finally had all of the fabric gathered:
Only this past weekend did I soak the full length in water, stick one end in a door to hold it still, and twist. Then double up and twist it again, etc. Fun fact: silk is so fine that it twists down very, very small, especially when wet. That’s how you fit this:
Into a kneesock:
And there it will stay for a week at least. I don’t want to toss it in the dryer because friction and heat might damage the fabric, and as tight as it’s compressed I expect it will lake a long time to air dry. My test piece took at least 2 days and it was only 6″ wide:
The fabric will lose a lot of width, but that’s why I got 8 yards of it. Fortuny himself used 4-6 widths of pleated fabric on each dress so I estimated pretty conservatively.
WOW!!! So the opposite of what I do when I block things I’ve knitted; I’m expanding my fabrics and you’re compressing yours.
Can finished garments be put through this process as is should you have to clean them? Or do they have to be disassembled for repleating and then resewn? (I realize cleaning would be kept as infrequent as possible but sometimes spills sneak up on you (always other people’s of course)
Fortuny always had gowns sent back to him for cleaning because presumably he was the only one who could re-pleat them. My research of extant gowns suggest the pleating took place before assembly though, so that’s why I did the pleating first. I imagine it’s the only way to ensure you’ll get the right size as you don’t necessarily know how wide the fabric needs to be to pleat down to the wearer’s measurements.
Four days on and the sock is STILL damp so it’s going to take a good while before I see what I got!
The pleating before assembly made sense to me; you have to know the true widths of the pleated panels to make the garment as it’s definitely not something that can be guessed. That’s what made me wonder about whether a garment could be cleaned without taking it apart. Now that you’ve told me Fortuny had gowns returned to him for cleaning that makes it more likely, to me anyway, that he took them apart, cleaned the fabric, and then repleated and reassembled.
Re the sock: if you’ve got it sitting on a hard solid surface as in your photo (I realize that the photo location is most likely for art’s sake), may I suggest grabbing a cooling rack from the kitchen and putting that under it? improved air circulation and all that jazz. (the tools of the knitting world are more than just hockey sticks and shower curtain rings 😉 )