Skewing & Stretching

**Tony Robbie** · 23rd August 18, 03:43 AM

I'm finishing the underapron edge. I've halved and folded under the facing & now I need to match the stripes while skewing & stretching. It seems that no matter how much I skew & stretch, I'll never be able to overcome the laws of physics - it still wants to fold back and pucker up.

Is there a technique that the gurus amongst you use to overcome this frustrating task? I'm using a plain weave, and I can see at this point that a twill may have a bit more "give" and flex in it. Any advice/tricks/magic you can impart will be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

**The Wizard of BC** · 23rd August 18, 08:12 AM

May I assume that you are using wool?
And may I assume the you are using TAoK as your instructions?

If so, the answer is steam. Lots of steam.

Wool is amazinly plyable and can be shaped and molded into curves and shapes that seem impossible at first.

Use a steam iron to heat the fibers and a pressing cloth. Shoot steam at the fabric and gently coax it into the shape you need.

**Tarheel** · 23rd August 18, 02:56 PM

Are you suggesting a steam iron only, or can a hot steamer be used also? I'm expecting that pressing the new shape is part of the process.

**The Wizard of BC** · 23rd August 18, 11:07 PM

It is the heat from the steam, and not the iron, that softens the fabric fibers.

You could use a fabric steamer if it put out enough steam, but those I have seen don't produce quite enough. Not much more than is needed to relax some wrinkles.

This is the sort of steam I'm talking about.

To illustrate I did up a quick sample.

First I pressed in an apron taper. This is a real overkill amount of taper.

Then I folded the facing. You can see that the fold lays sort of flat but the Tartan is skewed.

So I pinned the Tartan pattern aligned and this puckers the fabric.

Then shots of steam to soften the fibers - then light pressure from the iron sole plate - and the fabric lays right down with the Tartan aligned.

Here is the apron facing of the kilt I am currently working on. This facing is 4 inches deep to act as a reinforcment for the kilt pin. So it had a lot of skew before steaming. I put the yellow headed pinson to show the facing inner fold.

**Tony Robbie** · 24th August 18, 05:16 AM

I just finished with steam iron, and it worked amazingly well. Thanks Wizard. That's just pure genius!

**Tobinn** · 2nd October 18, 04:56 PM

Wonderful photos - just terrific!! I haven't started on a kilt yet but I'm planning on it. I'm about through TAoK on my second reading and the whole skew and stretch bit (noted quite often throughout the book) did seem a bit mysterious to me. I assumed once I got into it I'd figure it out but these photos can do nothing but save my future self time and aggravation. So, fro my future self - thanks!!!