Breaking up with cotton sateen

I'm officially declaring my love affair with cotton sateen over. Well, solid coloured cotton sateen at least, because I still have a few beautiful printed cotton sateen pieces in the stash that I still want to use but no longer will I be drawn in by the lustrous sheen, the smooth and firm fabric and the strong colours because I know that whatever it is made into will just become a wrinkly mess and that sheen will be lost after the first wash. It's possibly why I'm dragging my feet on finishing a white blazer I started last November even though I really want a white blazer in my wardrobe - it's made from cotton sateen that even though I've block interfaced I fear that it's going to look terrible when finished!

So why am I being so emphatic about it this time? Well when I made New Look 6144, the pleated neckline dress in a glorious Kelly green cotton sateen that wrinkled the moment I lifted it off the ironing board, it was from some lesser priced cotton sateen bought from Spotlight (about $9.99/m I think). But I've just used some more expensive (and presumably better quality) cotton sateen in a deep red colour that I bought from the remnant table at Tessuti's last year, and sadly it wrinkles the same. So my highly unscientific deduction is that all cotton sateens probably wrinkle badly, no matter the price or quality. The printed cotton sateens wrinkle just as much of course, it's just that the prints usually hide the fact a little better.

Just before Christmas I made another a-line skirt from Burda 11/2012 #124, my fourth version now - it's well and truly become my TNT a-line skirt pattern and I can make one now in about 3 hours start to finish. Despite it's wrinkliness, I wore this skirt a lot when we were in Queensland recently for our holidays:

It's only a casual skirt so I can live with those wrinkles, plus it was so hot and humid up there in Queensland that practically everything looked wilted and less than fresh the moment you stepped outside!

With the leftover fabric I made a pair of shorts for Anna who unusually was requesting a pair of shorts instead of a skirt for a change. I used a pattern from the Japanese sewing book "Kids pants and skirts" - ISBN 978-4-529-052229-0" my husband bought for my birthday last year (just so I could say that I've used it!):

One thing I've noticed about the Japanese sewing books that I own is that none of the patterns require a zipper - all the shorts and pants are elastic waists and the dresses are either slip on or have button up backs. So these shorts were super simple to make, and I used a cute spotted fabric from the stash for the waist band tie and gathered back pockets. Anna also didn't want the cuffs folded up, so the shorts are a little longer than the pattern photograph:

 

And what better shoes to co-ordinate with some red shorts than a pair of mum's red high heels?

And apart from a little bit more of that red cotton sateen leftover from these two fabrics, there is no more and there shalt be no more of this fabric to enter my stash....

Happily I have managed to finish my December Burda project, thus successfully completing my Burda challenge of sewing at least one pattern from each magazine each month.  I just have to photograph it , which I will do once I get the paint out of my hair and eyebrows - the good husband and I have been busy painting the outside of our house (eaves, gutters, window frames and weatherboards) as well as doing some landscaping and general tidying up. It's amazing how much can get done when the two kids are off at daycare!

Thanks to all those who commented on my end of year wrap up post - I'm glad you all agreed with my fabourite choices, and a special thanks to those who even thought my least faves were still ok. And Mary from Thailand thank you in particular for your interesting suggestion on how to deal with the wrinkled green cotton sateen dress (by doodling on it with permament marker so it becomes a print instead) - what an amazing idea!