Fabric 🌸 Minerva Exclusive Peony Place Orange Peel Crepe

Pattern 🌸 New Look 6471 view A

This fabric had me all intrigued, I couldn’t imagine what a fabric made from discarded orange peel would feel like and behave like so when I got the chance to sew with it I jumped right in.

I chose the blooming lovely Peony Place design, something like this needed a statement colour scheme and this fabric doesn’t disappoint.

So the fabric comprises 60% orange fibres and 40% cotton. That must be a lot of orange peel! It’s 70 gsm so it’s light as a feather and it has a silky feel, in fact I think it behaves just like silk.

When this fabric arrived it had quite a strange feel to it, but once I had hand washed it in special mild detergent it took on the softest, drapiest feel. The change was remarkable.

I wasn’t really sure what to make with it, I thought about The Richmond Blouse, the Zoey or a Cicadella but I had 2 metres and these just wouldn’t have used all the fabric. Luckily I had just found New Look 6471 uncut in a charity shop and this calls for 2 metres, so that was good timing. I think Minerva did sell this one but it was a few years ago. I like to use as much fabric as possible and I couldn’t contemplate the idea of having a lot of this extra special fabric left over.

Did I say this is extra special? Well it demands very careful attention when cutting out. I managed to do a good job cutting it flat, it was much too lively to just fold, thank goodness there aren’t many pieces to this pattern.

So you know I washed this beautiful crepe, and it presses so well under a very cool setting. Its pin ability was superb. At no time did it snag or resist so this is an absolute bonus, although it’s so fine I found that pins would fall out on a regular basis.

I went for view A with the long sleeves and pretty side tie. This pattern was a fairly good choice for this fabric, the raglan sleeves made it easy to sew. I used French Seams throughout the construction, this fabric is well suited to this technique. Im not sure how it would handle being finished any other way. A word of warning it is a bit like handling cobwebs so you need time and patience but it’s worth the trouble, Im ready for sewing with something robust though now!

If you get lucky and find this pattern it’s worth leaving the tissue on the tie collar so that you can interpret which bit goes where, it could be a bit confusing otherwise.

This was a bit of a challenge to sew, only because the fabric is light as a feather, it never snarled up or pulled in the sewing machine and for all its mobility all my notches matched up which I did worry about. You could always give the fabric a gelatin bath to firm it up.

I really love this one, I have been wanting a tie neck blouse, they are so versatile and I have pink or yellow trousers that this will go with but I fancy a pair in a deep aubergine or green to complete the look.

Photographed with raspberry wool crepe purchased at a Minerva end of roll sale, trouser pattern Butterick 6185.

Happy sewing!🧵

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