Prepare Your Wool Before You Sew

Wool is a favorite fabric of mine. It’s stable and easy to sew. It can be shaped and coaxed with steam and patience, and wool fibers hold up well. Wool fabric comes in all different weights, weaves, and blends. I prefer 100% wool, but the price point of blends has tempted me. The problem with blends, though… they’re never as lovely to work with. It’s like ordering the “healthier” dessert. It’s good, it’s sweet like you wanted, but it’s not always as satisfying when you’re done, and you’re left with a desire for the dessert you passed on for the healthier one. First world problems.

Prepping Wool for Garment Sewing

I read that quite a few people hand wash or soak their wool fabric before cutting it. I have never done this and can’t imagine how I would dry yardage of wet, heavy, sheep-smelling fabric. There are much easier ways to prepare your wool.

My typical rule when prepping fabric for sewing is to keep the end use in mind. How are you going to clean the garment after it is made? Washer and Dryer? Then yes, wash and machine dry the fabric. Wash and line dry? Then the same for the fabric, etc., etc. But with wool, you have a different option. I learned this option in fashion school, and it’s the one I continue to use.

Side note: My mother, who wore a lot of wool growing up in the foggy Bay Area of California, never prepped wool yardage before cutting into it. We didn’t wash our wool clothes. We hung them to air out, and spot-treated any areas that needed it. So learning I should pre-treat my wool before cutting was new to me.

Steam. Steam is the answer. A lot of steam. Fill the iron’s reservoir, set it to wool, and the highest steam setting if your steam and heat settings are separate. Let the steam penetrate the fibers, but don’t place the iron onto the wool fabric. Let it hover only.

Another workaround if your iron leaks or doesn’t steam well is to place a damp, damp press cloth over the fabric and iron that.

An iron can give your wool a shine. So if you have to iron directly on it, iron the back side; however, many wools are reversible, and you might be counting on that fact for your cutting layout or plaid matching, so be careful.

Be particularly careful ironing wools that have a pile to them. Ironing any piled fabric directly can permanently mash the pile. If you have to iron it, and don’t own a needle pressing board (really, who does?), press on the wrong side of the fabric and lay the face of the fabric on a thick terry cloth towel or a scrap of itself.

Steam for longer than you think. Just lean into it and sing a song, or whatever you do until you feel this has been long enough. (really, about 10 -15 minutes for a 3-yard length)

Cutting:

Most wools will be cut according to the pattern’s layout guide. For plaids, you may want to cut on a single layer of fabric in order to match the plaid up on the pattern better. Same for thicker wools like wool coatings; a single layer will be easier to cut and give you more precision.

Important Tip: Cut around pieces that need to be fused to interfacing. Lay out the pattern as normal. Cut around facings, collars, cuffs, etc giving each side of the piece a margin of an inch or so. Then block-fuse these with interfacing before cutting out the pattern piece. Why? Because your wool may shrink some more when you apply the amount of steam and pressure to it to adhere the fusible interfacing. This is real! When cutting out a blazer front, that requires tailor’s fuse along a section – use sew-in interfacing if you can. Next time I will cut out my tailor’s fuse, chalk the outline of the garment piece the fuse will butt up against, and fuse it to the yardage before cutting the piece. My well-steamed tweed still managed to snug up when I applied the fusible.

Pinning the pattern down or pattern weights:

I used to swear by pins. Pin the pattern to the fabric and then cut. I couldn’t see the big deal about rotary cutters, plus buying the mats (not cheap). I still like to pin, but I have found the usefulness of pattern weights, especially on fabrics that have a pile.

Patterns “float” on piled fabrics. Pinning them tends to distort the pattern shape. Use weights or try pinning to the back side of the fabric. You can use shears with weights, BTW. Pattern weights do not mean you have to have a rotary cutter or the mats.

When cutting from a single layer of fabric it’s important to remember after cutting out the first pattern piece, flip it over to cut it out the second time. You need a left front piece and a right front piece. You need a left sleeve and a right sleeve. When you cut your fabric doubled, this automatically happens. When you cut your fabric single, you need to make it happen.

I also find it helpful to label each piece I cut as soon as I’ve cut it out, before everything gets mixed up or I get called away. I label small scraps of muslin or paper with the names of the various pattern pieces, or the pattern piece’s number if it has one, and pin them to their corresponding piece. For example, two scraps are “back,” two scraps are “front”, one is “R. sleeve” (right sleeve), etc. In the end, if you have a “back” label left, you know you still need to cut out another back piece.

A Whole Pattern Piece is Better than Half

When cutting thick coating fabric or when you need to match plaids or stripes, having a whole pattern piece will make your cutting and matching easier. Pattern pieces that are labeled “cut on the fold” are simply one half of the whole shape. The pattern piece for the collar is not an entire collar, but half of a collar that, when lined up correctly and cut from a folded piece of fabric, makes the whole collar.

Make the other half.

• Draw a line on a piece of tracing or pattern paper. This line represents the fold of the fabric. This line can be on the edge of the paper. It does not need to be in the center, even though the “place on fold” line is the center of the garment piece.
• Tape the original pattern so the “place on fold” is on your drawn line but not on the paper (see picture above, step 1)
• Fold the paper on your drawn line (number 2 above)
• Flip this so you can transfer the pattern’s outline to the paper by either tracing the outline if you can see through your paper, or using a needle wheel, or transfer paper. (number 3 above)
• Be sure to transfer any notches or other markings to the new half and cut out the new half. (number 4, above)

Summary

• Steam wool before cutting – and steam it a lot!
• Cut thick fabric in a single layer of fabric. Always.
• With wool, block fuse whenever you can
• Cut out a right and a left piece for sleeves, backs, and fronts. Do this by turning over the tissue pattern the second time you cut it out. Pieces like patch pockets are usually identical, no left or right.
• If the pattern maker only gives you one half of a pattern, draft the other half.

Please share your tips for preparing your wool for cutting in the comments. And if you want to learn more about matching plaids, check out this post: Sewing With Plaid: Everything You Need to Know