In a separate post entitled “Blocking cloth,” I made reference to acquiring 100 percent heavy wool army blankets to assemble the cutting board.  I wanted to mention something I’ve been meaning to pass along for a while.

The last time I went to army surplus to buy army blankets for my new cutting table (the old one was forty-plus years-old; I finally had to shoot it and bury it), to my surprise I found WHITE 100 percent wool army blankets.  I used the dark wool to cover the pressing table, but I wound up using the white wool to recover my sleeve board and my pants board (I stripped them down to the bare wood and put a whole new assembly on), so I had used very little of the blankets (I purchased three of them at $20 apiece).

One day I was tailoring a suit and couldn’t find the box with the men’s tie interfacing that I use for sleeve heads.  As I scrounged through my stash, I ran across the white army blankets.  These white blankets are a little lighter weight than the dark ones, and the weave is slightly more open, so it occurred to me that I could try using the white blanket fabric for a sleeve head.

It turned out fabulous.  Mind you, this was a heavy topcoat, but I’ve since tried it in medium weight fabrics with success.

So head on over to your army surplus store.  P.S.  I think I’ve got enough white blanket fabric to use for sleeve heads for a long time to come.  I wonder how many garments that comes to, all total.  (Let’s play count-the-beans-in-the-jar!)