AKiCiF: Help Rolanni take care of her clothes

[rolanni]

Quite some while ago, I took "Girl," which was at that point in history a required course, failed, and never retook it. Yes, I have lived most of my adult life with an Incomplete on my record, though in practical terms, it matters about as much as calculus, another skill I managed never to acquire. Mostly, I get along fine without both, but occasionally my lack of Feminine Wiles(tm) catches me up, as it has now.

I have purchased a very nice shirt to wear to the book launch (here's a picture). When it arrived, I tried it on, decided that I liked it very much, that it did fit, and hung it up on a hangar. It turns out that this is not how I ought to be treating this kind of fabric, but I'm at a loss as to what else to do. If I fold it up and put it away with my t-shirts, the tie is going to get crushed, and the whole thing will likely get crumpled, and -- sigh.

Suggestions on how to store this thing until its hour in the sun arrives -- and after, assuming the party falls (just a little) short of Inspiring the Bards?

Abundant Spanish Aunts.

Comments

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Get a padded/rounded hanger (like a fancy suit hanger) so that it won't develop shoulder bumps...and hang it where it won't get crowded.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Top coat hanger! I have one!

Thank you!

[elbales]

It's a knit, yes? I'd buy one of those swanky padded hangers, because you're right, even a knit top like that will eventually take creases if it's left folded for extended periods.

Also, it's very pretty. :)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Fancy padded hanger in my future. For tonight, a top-coat hanger swathed in tissue paper seems to be doing the thing right.

Also, it's very pretty. :)

It is, isn't it? And it feels Really Nice.

[elbales]

Fabric that feels nice cannot be overvalued. I look at all of these knits made of synthetics that aren't soft, and think, Why on earth would someone want to put that next to her skin? It's harsh and scratchy. Ugh.

Caring for your pretty new shirt

[trekgirlmo.livejournal.com]

I usually hang things like that on a wooden hanger, as they tend to be wider and don't make such severe marks in the shoulders. If you don't have one, I would suggest folding it like they do in stores. i.e. folding the arms around to the back so that the front is flat, and then folding the bottom half up to the collar in the back. I know that probably would make more sense if you had a visual, but I don't know any other way to describe it!

By the way, as another tall-girl, I apprecaited learning about another place to look for clothes! :)

Re: Caring for your pretty new shirt

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I know how to do that fold, strangely enough; it's the same one you use for a man's business shirt. Those, I know what to do with.

By the way, as another tall-girl, I apprecaited learning about another place to look for clothes!

Glad to be of service! Long Tall Sally has some very nice stuff, and not that expensive.

hangers et al

[(Anonymous)]

not sure exactly what problem you are experiencing with hanging up this shirt. Are the points of the hanger leaving marks, thus the shirt...pooches up on your shoulder? Try an inflatable hanger such as you use to dry things while on vacation? or if that is not available wrap tissue paper (or newspaper) around the hanger so the points are not poking into the fabric. Man, it would soooo much easier to show you how instead of trying to explain it. Hope this helps! Jenny from CO

Re: hangers et al

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

It helps, thank you. I've gotten the top coat hanger out of the coat closet, swathed it in tissue paper and Bob's your uncle. Monday, after work, I'll stop and get a padded hanger. My grandmother used to have padded (and perfumed) hangers that she hung her silk things on.

Now, there's something I haven't thought about in a lot of years....

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

nice shirt. pretty color.

but i'm more interested in the "Girl" class. was that high school? college? junior high? what kind of things did they try to teach?

when i was 15 and graduated from high school i applied to the VA to attend college as a War Orphan. despite my grades and abundantly high SAT scores, they insisted on their own battery of tests to see if I was bright enough to be worth educating. one was a masculinity/femininity test. i came out about midway up the masculine scale which embarrassed the testers (all military guys) enormously. they tried to explain it to me and failed utterly in the face of my genuine ignorance and total lack of interest.

[elbales]

This totally makes me like you even though I know nothing else about you. You, ma'am, sound Cool.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I took Girl in high school, where they tried to teach us to sew by having us put buttons randomly on a piece of fabric and folding a scrap over to "hem" it. Didn't learn to sew from Home Ec, no more than I learned how to do such cooking as I do.

I learned to sew from my grandmother, who said one day, in response to my whinging for new clothes, "Oh, you need a new skirt, do you? Let's make one, then." And together we chose a bolt from her closet, cut the skirt, stitched, hemmed and button-holed it, and then it all snapped into place, because it was, yanno, useful. I made all my own clothes for years after that.

I often think, if I had had an equal epiphany about calculus. . .Nah.


when i was 15 and graduated from high school i applied to the VA to attend college as a War Orphan.

My grandfather attended McDonough Military School as a War Orphan, by which the Army at that time, at least, meant, "Boys Who Had Lost Their Fathers in Military Action."

[otterb.livejournal.com]

"I often think, if I had had an equal epiphany about calculus"

I had one about statistics, the third time I took it (the third variation along the way in different academic programs, not the third time through the same course). The light bulb came on. Oh, look, this can be used to get answers to questions I would like to answer.

My "Girl" class was home ec, in junior high, where we cooked things nobody wanted to eat and sewed things nobody wanted to wear. But it was no less comprehensible than most of the other classes. One did what one was told to do; it wasn't supposed to make sense.

[eseme]

I shall third, fourth, sixth, whatever we are on, a padded hangar. They are excellent for sensitive clothing. You are right that it should not be folded (and should be handwashed after the event).

your very pretty new shirt

[mamoses.livejournal.com]

I assume that the fabric is viscose rayon. If it is a knit, hang it on a wide and extra-long hangar to avoid the shoulder-pooches that using a too-short and/or narrow hanger will leave.

Rayon fibers are weak when wet. Consequently, instructions for cleaning are usually pretty conservative. You can dry-clean if desired, or wash by hand if you are compulsive about directions, but rayon should be just fine washed in your machine in cold water using the delicate cycle. A knit can be dried in the dryer, which would be desirable if the fabric is heavy when wet, as rayon often is. More delicate fabrics, or woven fabrics that wrinkle, can be removed from the washer immediately and hung on hangers to dry.

And by "girl", do you mean the home economics classes prevalent at the time we were going through school? Or the general acculturation/indoctrination passed along by mothers, older sisters, girlfriends and media sources such as movies, TV shows, magazines, advertising?

Re: your very pretty new shirt

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I was referring to HomeEc, mostly, where I was dismal. The rest of the wide-culture stuff kind of rolled off me because I was trying to survive some other fairly bad things, and was having a hard enough time trying to figure out what it meant, and how, to be human, much less a girl.

Re: your very pretty new shirt

[elbales]

I have terrible luck with rayon and dryers. My rayon clothes always shrink when exposed to heat. Woe.

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Ditto on all the padded hanger comments. Make sure it is a real padded hanger, not just a wire one with sponge that you've gotten from the dry cleaner.

My experience with viscose is that it inevitablly ends up a wrinkled mess if I handwash it even if I am very careful about laying it out very flat. (definitely do NOT hang it wet). I recommend dry cleaning when the time comes.

Girl is a state of mind. You, my dear, are a Woman.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I try to avoid dry cleaning things, but I think in this case, with the combination of the fabric, and the pretty glass gems, that might be the better part of valor.

Girl is a state of mind. You, my dear, are a Woman.

Awwww....

Pretty New Shirt

[claire774.livejournal.com]

The shirt is very pretty. I usually post when all the comments are in just cause I'm a night owl. Glad that everyone is so expert about this because I know nothing about these things. Where I live one hardly ever has to dress up thank heavens. Right now it's just T shirts and jeans. It's getting a tiny bit cold so Chickie (chihuahua mix) has to wear T's which she hates. For some reason she almost doesn't have any coat underneath. In the winter she has to wear sweaters. Gus, of course, has a gorgeous coat. Shannie being a poodle mix has no fur, only hair. Sophie, Chickie and Shannie have to wear T's and coats in the winter. They each have their own wardrobe accumulated over the years.
Gus doesn't have to wear anything but his own coat of fur. He's lucky.

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

That is one gorgeous top. The site says it can be hand-washed, but doesn't say anything about drying, so IF you handwash, lay it flat between two towels until it's dry enough.

There was discussion of rayon, which is weakest when wet. Tencel, another woodfiber fabric, is stronger while wet. I love the "hand" of this fabric--like sueded silk in hand and dye absorption.

Being a short round sort of person, I can't help you with your clothes shopping!

My mother was a seamstress, which only means I know clothing construction, but never had the patience to do it. No fitting form, no specialized table, or even one that fit me for ergonomical reasons--I always ached all over when I did sew at the machine.

I certainly never understood many of the Girl Rules. I certainly learned to be cautious lest I be vulnerable to crime, but I didn't receive or understand the rules for girls who want to be with guys. If I dissimulated around guys who might be Interested in me, and I in them, it was from a sense of self-preservation, they being larger than me, and all! A lot of them seemed dumb--and spiritless. I certainly was clueless about babies' care and operation.

Because I was more bookish & scholarly than most girls in middle school, they allowed me skip HomeEc and take a full year of science, which I preferred. My mother said that HomeEc teachers always taught you the long tedious (and inefficient) way to cook or sew. From what my sister said, our mom was right.

Now mind you, if I'd wanted to take wood or metal or auto shop--don't be silly, girls can't do that (late 60's/early 70's). A few years later, girls in some places were able to take shop classes, and boys, Home Ec. I'm sure Sharon remembers this, too.

[eseme]

If you dry it between towels (though it sounds like dry cleaning may win out) pick towels you don't care about. All my rayon clothing bleeds dye terribly.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

My sister -- six years behind me -- took shop, which worked out well for her. Our father had gone to vocational school and been trained as a carpenter, built just about everything in our house, and had young taught both of us the basics, so he could have that extra pair of not-completely-clueless hands when he needed them :)

[zola.livejournal.com]

The one thing I took from sewing class is how to put in a zipper, and damned handy that knowledge has been in cases like a beloved leather coat's zipper finally biting the dust... Once I wandered into the shop class, though, I never looked back. ;)

Sounds like you're going to go the padded hanger route, the other option is to fold the sleeves like you would with a men's shirt and fold the whole thing over the *bar* part of the hanger (like you do with pants), with plenty of space around it to avoid crushing it.

[timepiece]

I discovered, in college, that many useful skills can be lwarned in the theater dept. Yes, theater. Costume history and construction taught me to sew, and set construction taught me to use a table saw, a cross-cut saw, a jigsaw, and a pneumatic hammer. As well as a lot of smaller things. I highlyrecommend minoring in theater.