Never spill water on silk...

I have had a very steep learning curve today.

Yesterday I accidently spilt water on the sleeve I have been working on. After initial panic I decided to leave it overnight to see how it would react. I was not sure what to do at the time and thought it best to not get heat by it, which in hindsight was sensible.
Whereas if the robe was cotton the water would have dried without trace silk, silk is delicate and can be stained with water.

The robe was left with a water mark the next day. Though I knew it wouldn’t be very visible over time and without studying the sleeve very closely you can’t see it, however I did not think it was very fair to sell a client a garment with a stain on it.

I thought it would be hard to do stain removal methods without jeopardising the fur and velvet. If I were to remove them the unpicking may affect the appearance of the silk as the embellishments are central in the panel.

I therefore, after consideration, decided to order 50cm more silk and do this section again. I will however be looking into how to remove water stains and try and get this one out so I can use it on a different project possibly.

When ironing the wing to try and get some creases out Abi burnt a section of the fur. The heat of the iron melts the hairs as they are faux, it was right in the middle and we tried to work out a way of remedying it however there wasn’t a way without joining it in the middle which would have looked messy, therefore Abi ordered a metre more fur.

It is really hard working with fur, silk and velvet so closely together. The silk and the lining crease very easily however the fur cannot be ironed and the velvet needs to be ironed on a board and so the combination of the 3 is difficult.

In hindsight it is these mistakes that we made that set us behind our schedule and therefore meant that our finishing hand stitches were not up to standard.