Démodé

historical costume projects & resources

Sewing Spangles

My sequins FINALLY arrived today from MJ Trim — I decided to buy some of their plastic sequins in black and oyster white. I realized that the color was the most important thing, and yes they’re not made of the right material, but this outfit is all about the contrast of black/white. Unfortunately I had them accidentally shipped to my old address, so they had to get returned and then re-shipped to me… but they didn’t charge me for the second shipping, which was great!

So now I need to do some experimenting with how to sew them on (luckily I’ve got 18th Century Embroidery Techniques to help), but first I need to get a frame. I was thinking about a tambour frame from Lacis, but then do I need something big enough to fit the entire pattern piece? If it’s smaller than the pattern piece, then I’ll have to move the fabric around, with some of the spangles ending up in the frame, which seems like a potentially bad idea (could scratch or break the spangles). Any suggestions for a size/type/supplier of embroidery frames?

5 thoughts on “Sewing Spangles

  1. I’ve been looking on eBay for large embroidery frames (I’m finding them for $89 or so), but one solution for this using the tambour frame is to place a piece of muslin in the frame and secure it tautly.

    Cut a hole out of the middle of the muslin and pin your fabric to it, keeping the fabric taut. Then you can move the fabric as needed without harming it in the hoop.

    You’re welcome to use my tambour if you like. I’m not going to be using it soon.

  2. Peri – wow, what a great idea! I’d love to borrow your hoop to experiment and see how it’ll work.

  3. You’re also welcomed to borrow my gigantic oval frame that I used for embroidering the stomacher. Scored it for a buck at creative reuse many moons ago. Lucky, I know!

  4. Kendra,

    De-lurking here, but you could also use a quilting hoop. For example, mine is a floor-standing model with an oval hoop about 2 ft. across that fits into the upright supports, and has an adjustable tilt for ease in use. You could use it the same way as a tambour hoop (pin your fabric to muslin inserted into the hoop), or wrap the hoop with flannel strips to pad it. Or, have you thought about a scroll frame? That way you could just roll the fabric up as you go and not have any issues with crimping the spangles in the side of a regular hoop. Of course, width would be an issue but the roller bar parts of a scroll frame come in differing sizes depending on the area to be worked.

    Hope this helps.

    Cate

  5. Semi-off-topic, but still in the topic, nonetheless.

    A friend of mine went a week ago to The Museo del Traje, and told me they didn’t allow her to take any photos of the costumes, so I believe, it is going to be impossible to take any pics of the jacket. I’m really sorry.

    I don’t actually know if the guide of the Museo offers and in-depth description of the pieces shown there, but I’ll try and give it a look, to see if it has anything about it, besides what is already in the webpage.

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