I recently made a nice pair of silk/linen pants and decided that underlining them in silk organza was in order. I had done this before with a pair of all-linen pants with great results. I sat through a symphony performance and NO WRINKLES! But this did not happen with these silk/linen pants. They wrinkled across the lap just as if I hadn’t spent the extra time underlining them. I also lined them with rayon lining.
Why didn’t this work this time? The fabric is pretty stable and not terribly drapey. It was such a disappointment.
Replies
Rayon usually wrinkles terribly. I love rayon dresses, but they wrinkle every time I sit down, no matter how I try to spread them out & not put stress on them. I even have to press them again (after first ironing them & hanging them up carefully) before I wear them again, so your problem may be the rayon lining. Silk can also wrinkle, so it depends upon how much silk is in your fabric, but, if the organza worked last time, I would try it again. Is your lining loose, so that you can remove it & replace it with the organza? Also, are these pants more fitted than the previous pair? I can appreciate your dismay at the wrinkling, especially if you have to sit for an extended time. (I am embarrassed when it happens to me). Let us know what you decide to do. Good luck!
Gloria
The fact that the fabric was "pretty stable and not very drapey" probably caused the extra wrinkling; it's either the sizing or the "hand" of the fabric and/or lining fabric. Whatever is holding the fabric "stable" is also holding in wrinkles when you sit for any length of time.
When shopping for fabrics, I always scrunch a fistful of the end and release it to see what its tendencies are. Of course, once you've prewashed a fabric, the loss of sizing can change the qualities of the fabric quite a bit, but that initial scrunch test is a fairly accurate test of what will happen when you wear the garment. Yet another reason I'd rather not buy fabrics online!
With underlining, as opposed to lining, I was of the impression you should use something very similar in drape, weave, etc. In fact, I read somewhere that when possible, the best underlining is to use the very same fabric. I've never been happy with an underlining that was stiffer than the garment fabric.
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