Waechter's Fine Fabrics

The Butler’s Secrets

Do you ever wonder how Mr. Carson from Downton Abbey keeps the manor looking so spiffy? Well we have a few secrets around here and thought we might share them with you!

First off – Ironing – you know that the lords and ladies of the manor require their habillement to be as spiffy and starchily ironed as can be!

**A good iron is as essential to sewing as a good machine. It’s also essential to maintaining your linens, silks, fine cottons, and wools. The downstairs staff would be in heaven with a iron like this:

The Oliso Pro

Oliso Pro Smart Iron

The Oliso TG1600 Pro features Oliso’s patented iTouch technology. Simply touch the handle and the iron lowers, ready to work. Take your hand off and the patented scorchguards lift the iron off the board preventing scorches, burns, and tipping. Less strain and 30% time savings are added benefits to this Smart Iron’s 1800 watts of power and horizontal or vertical bursts of steam. The TG1600 Pro features a 30-minute extended auto-shut off for sewers and quilters, a 12.7 oz side fill tank, a beadblast stainless steel soleplate, flat pressing surface, detailer tip, and a 12-foot cord for full range of motion.

**Use this iron cleaner to get off all the junk before pressing you best white linen blouses, silk dresses or skirts. You do NOT want to get your pale organza silk ball gown smudged with soot. We’re pretty sure as a maid, you’d be handed your notice.

Iron Clean Sheets Pack

I’ve used these Iron Clean Sheets quite often and love how it restores my iron.

**While you all know we use the Irish Linen Dish Towels to dry our dinnerware, what you might not know is that there are special cloths for drying and shining your crystal that we carry: The Irish Linen Crystal Cloth Towel

These towels are highly absorbent and because of the long flax fibres. They dry your drinks glasses without leaving smears and lint. An elegant and purposeful cloth. Don’t you feel just like a fine dame now?

**For our silver we use this brilliant cloth to polish that shine into your silverware, or serving utensils.

Pacific Silver Cloth by the Yard

Pacific Silver Cloth – it has tiny bits of embedded silver in the cloth.

Pick up a trick of the trade or a tool of the trade from us and you’ll love running your manor house a bit more elegantly!

Cheers!

Ikat Waechterette Wardrobe

We love Laura Casey’s wit & wardrobe insights – we also love that she is a color queen! We took these photos a couple weeks ago with our lovely NC randomly warm winter days. Naturally, we had to include Laura’s Little Red Bug! It’s so Laura it’s sinful! Without further ado:

Another Smart Uniform-

I love to have “outfits” that I don’t have to think about it….I always know what I’m wearing to work or to an event….the night before, that probably is a holdover from my real working days and having 3 sons, husband, dog…you get the picture…..so I could get dressed fast!

I chose the Cutting Line new pattern called “A Cute Angle” Liked the top very much, but didn’t want drop shoulders, so used the sleeve from the jacket instead of the dropped sleeve as was designed…..did you know that a dropped sleeve will accommodate more room in the bust, so no dart is needed….learned that from Louise Cutting, who has a wealth of knowledge especially about techniques…..and all of her patterns contain each technique needed to make the garment….so sewing lessons are included in her patterns! I find that her patterns run large, and can usually go down a size, but each of you should measure, measure, then cut!

I added a bust dart to compensate for the sleeve change and was good to go! I wanted an ikat “something” and found this cotton Ikat to be perfect….bold but only on top! Also made side slits, and made the back of the top a bit longer, just a design detail I like, feel free to copy!

I typically wear this with my 4-ply navy slacks (another previous Christmas gift from the owner, Joyce)….I feel good every time I put these on, and used my trusty pant pattern; “Oxford Pant”, by Lose Hinse. No pockets (do I look like I need any more bulk around my middle?!)…used a blind hem stitch for the hem and I was good to go.

What I learned:

1) A bold print will carry an easily designed pattern- Let the print speak, and add just one great button!

2) Think about where you want your blouses, tops to end, I find the high hip best for me, otherwise the garment looks like it’s wearing me. Proportion is key.

3) I could wear 4-ply silk every day of the year!

Laura@Waechter’s

Crinkled Silk/Cotton Waechterette Wardrobe

What a treat we have for today!

Our ex-patriot – Miss Marla – lives over the wild blue yonder. She still writes articles and blogs for us because we just couldn’t give her up even if she did move across the country! Also, we made her promise to return -we only agreed to 1 more year Miss M!

We love every time we get to catch a glimpse of what she wears. We remember this skirt & top well & are so excited she snapped some pictures to let us share here with you! Wool jersey is clearly a favorite with all the Waechterettes! Take it away Marla!

Each time I strolled by this silk and cotton fabric, it made me stop and ponder the possibilities. It was probably the deep chocolate color or perhaps the bit of silver metallic running through it. No, it was definitely the crinkle-y texture which meant no ironing and no fuss. I was dreaming up… yes, a skirt!

This project began as a couple of rectangles. Wait, that’s not exactly true – in the very, very beginning, it was a picture torn out of a Nordstrom catalog and tacked up on the bulletin board in my sewing room. A skirt with exaggerated tucks across the front.I didn’t have a pattern, but how hard could it be? Two rectangles was a good start. I simply cut the fabric in two identical lengths, one for the front and one for the back. I knew I wanted it to be super long to wear with boots, so I measured accordingly, from my waist down to the floor. The width wasn’t cut; I left the two pieces the original 54”. Then the tucking ensued. I stitched one inch pleats beginning in the center of the fabric. Not to say that I fly by the seat of my pants, but inspiration usually just happens along the way. I decided to make the tucks different lengths, going from shorter 5”ones in the front and graduating to the 7 & 1/2” longer ones on the sides. The identical tucking was done on the back skirt panel. I pinned the front and back together along the way to check sizing,then cut the sides to fit after I completed the tucks. The entire skirt was topstitched in my favorite of all threads, the chunky Gutermann topstitch thread. A piece of extra-wide elastic from my stash stitched on for the waistband finished it off.

The grey and brown combo is a favorite,so a mid-tone grey is the direction I went with the top. The cloth I chose is a beautiful wool jersey knit. It was a dream to sew because it has enough body not to shimmy around while sewing. I just took a raglan sleeve jacket pattern and ran with it! I added length to the front pieces to allow for gathering then topstitched it until, I think, the cows did come home.

It’s off to my next project…happy creating my friends,

Marla